Democracy as we know it is in for a shock. A collection of at least 20,000 football fans have utilized the Internet to gather together and purchase a team. How will it operate? What are it’s goals and how will it change the face of democracy as we know it?
Earlier today, an Internet collective of football fans entitled MyFootballClub made motions to buy a 51% share of Ebbsfleet United , a football team in Kent, southern England. The premise being to turn the collective of fans into owners and managers through the use of the Internet and pure democracy. The deal will give fans the ability to vote on everything from team lineup selection to which players should be transferred. The decisions made during matches themselves will be left up to manager Liam Daish and the players themselves, retaining a sense of order and leadership but balancing feedback for the day to day operations. It is a move destined to change the way we look at sports, team ownership and the face of democracy itself.
The power of the Internet has reached out and placed in the hands of football fans around the world the ability to manage not a fantasy team, not a game but a real live football team collectively. Their decisions will shape the course of the future for the team and likely have a large hand in it’s success or failure. It is pure democracy in action. If this is what the Internet is bringing to sport, what can one wonder of politics itself? For indeed, it is the prime benefactor of democracy. How will the Internet move to change politics and our own democracy? Could we live to see a day where they have a greater hand in the course of our future? Where we have a greater hand in management of our society while electing leaders to manage the finer details?
Can a football team be managed effectively and successfully by a collective? If so, could the same be said of a government? No doubt, this will prove to be an interesting experiment, one which could change the face of democracy as we know it.
I wish them every success but i can guantee “FAILURE”
“Politicians and Diapers
SHOULD BE CHANGED FREQUENTLY
And when this happens?
Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash
Interesting? Yes. Possible? I doubt it.
Historically, pure democracies have proved very susceptible to demagouges, domination by factions, and other abuses of the political process. Their susceptibility is directly correlated to the general ignorance of the public. I know, I know, the same is true today, but I think less so in governments with a somewhat republican structure.
The most successful pure democracies were greek, but they were very restrictive on who was considered a citizen and thus able to take part–far more than what would be the norm today–resulting in relatively highly educated individuals with strong interests in the effective running of the state, but even those decayed over time.