“The Telephone will democratize hierarchic relations.”

— Ithiel de Sola Pool

Forecasting the Telephone: A Retrospective Technology Assessment. (1983), MIT Press, p. 61

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Ithiel de Sola Pool 1

American social scientist 1917–1984

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Meeting the challenge (2009), p. xxvii.

“Liberals placed an unreasonable amount of faith in large institutions: unions, foundations, big government, large corporations, and universities. These institutions are based on principles that are antithetical to democracy. They are not democratic, they are hierarchical: Someone is at the top and everybody else is at the bottom.”

Charles A. Reich (1928–2019) American lawyer

The Liberals' Mistake (1987)
Context: Liberals placed an unreasonable amount of faith in large institutions: unions, foundations, big government, large corporations, and universities. These institutions are based on principles that are antithetical to democracy. They are not democratic, they are hierarchical: Someone is at the top and everybody else is at the bottom. Their policies are not made democratically, they are made at the top. These institutions are also not egalitarian. They operate by administrative discretion and authority, not the rule of law: There is no legislature, no group lawmaking body.
The individual in the large organization does not have the kind of constitutional rights that an individual in the society at large has. There are no protections of autonomy and free speech. Employees can be fired for many reasons. We need to constitutionalize large organizations to protect the people within them, to ensure that they can be politically outspoken.

“[The approach of the BMS (founded by Thengadi)] to labour relations and economic policy is roughly that of the Christian-Democratic trade-unionists in Europe…”

Dattopant Thengadi (1920–2004) Indian politician

About the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS). Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 154