Re: [soa-rm-ra] Definition of Governance

[Francis McCabe <frankmccabe@mac.com>]

I do not believe that we need to cater to 'evil' people.

However, nor do we need to restrict ourselves to 'do-gooders' either.

I suggest, however, that we do restrict the scope of governance to  
the 'smooth running' of the system. That, was one reason that I felt  
that individual participants' goals are out of scope for governance.


On Sep 10, 2007, at 1:52 PM, Ken Laskey wrote:

> It would be interesting to evaluate governance success vs. how  
> clear and accurate the statement was of governance goals, but I  
> believe that is out of scope :-).
>
> My past standards associate, Carl Cargill, noted that standards  
> development has a very long and dishonorable history.  (Carl has  
> been at this much longer than I and also has a very well honed  
> sense of cynicism.)  Per Carl, the intent of participants is always  
> to see if they can control the agenda to their benefit, they  
> compromise when getting some of what they want is better than  
> nothing, and they often create new standards organizations when  
> they can't sufficiently control the existing ones.  Those are the  
> explicit goals and processes of most participants in economic  
> ecosystems.
>
> The problem with comparison to the US Constitution is we rarely  
> have a collection of people of that caliber whose goal is the  
> public good and not primarily their own.
>
> Our governance model needs to cover both.
>
> Ken
>
> On Sep 10, 2007, at 4:18 PM, Ellinger, Robert wrote:
>
>> Some thoughts that I have been working for a book on a new type of  
>> economics, entitled Organizational Economics: The Formation of  
>> Wealth.
>>
>> Obviously the US Constitution defines the functional structure of  
>> governance in the three branches of government, but more  
>> importantly for our discussion it defines the goal of governance.   
>> The preamble to the US Constitution has an excellent definition of  
>> the reason of governance and is the constitution structure  
>> reflects a good governance architecture.
>>
>> "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more  
>> perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,  
>> provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and  
>> secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do  
>> ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of  
>> America."
>>
>> The blue-lighted/bolded clauses make up a good definition of the  
>> goals of governance, i.e., what it is supposed to do.  Governance  
>> "establishes justice, (a level playing field and/or rules of  
>> competitive non-lethal engagement) which ensures a good Saturday  
>> night for the weak (that is, domestic tranquility because there is  
>> a level playing field and rules of engagement that are supposed to  
>> apply to everyone equally, [except for Congress {if con is the  
>> opposite of pro, what is the opposite of progress?}]); and promote  
>> the general welfare in two ways (by setting measurement standards  
>> (see Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3, which states "…to regulate  
>> Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and  
>> with the Indian Tribes." and in other clauses To coin money,  
>> regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the  
>> standard of weights and measures; To provide for the punishment of  
>> counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United  
>> States; To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by  
>> securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive  
>> right to their respective writings and discoveries) and by  
>> ensuring a communications infrastructure of that era (To establish  
>> post offices and post roads).
>>
>> I suspect that governance in all organizations have the same  
>> goals.  The reason for differences is cultural more than  
>> functional.  These are not individual or organizational goals  
>> only, but also the implicit goals of all economic ecosystems and  
>> the reasons for alliances and standards organizations (e.g., its  
>> hard to trade without standard weights and measures and without an  
>> impartial market--which explains the reason for markets worrying  
>> about insider trading).
>>
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> --------------------
> Ken Laskey
> MITRE Corporation, M/S H305     phone:  703-983-7934
> 7515 Colshire Drive                        fax:        703-983-1379
> McLean VA 22102-7508
>