Bengt Feil — thank you very much! — interviewed me for the Pan European eParticipation Network (PEP-NET) to sum up in three minutes my speech Goverati: e-Aristocrats or the delusion of e-Democracy that I gave at the eDem10 Conference.
The main points I make on the interview are:
- During the 250 years of our industrial society, capital owners (capitalists) have been the ones that have ruled the world, the ones that are in power.
- Our democratic system is shaped according to this industrial society and its power relationships.
- In the upcoming knowledge society, the ones that will be able to manage cleverly knowledge by means of digital tools (digerati) are likely to have a higher share or power in all the aspects of life, especially the government (goverati).
- We need to work to make access to knowledge as widespread as possible — access to infrastructures, digital competences, effective usage — so to avoid replacing the existing plutocracy with a new e-aristocracy.
