LL is a Government

LL is a true government. It is a corporatist oligarchy (government by the few whose members are selected and ordered in a corporate fashion). From the definition of a government it, of course, has the power to make and enforce laws in our territory (SL). The laws are described in a legal document (ToS) and enforced by controlling access to property (temporary and permanent banning).

Note that LL is not a dictatorship as we often hear in the forums. A dictatorship is a type of autocracy, which is government by a single person.

Members of our LL government also posses qualities have no equivalent in RL. For instance, all members are omnipotent (possessing the ability to destroy and create avatars, land, and objects without restriction) and semiscient (possessing a broad but incomplete awareness beyond the limits of citizens).

Corrections, additions, or discussion?

~Ulrika~

while on a purely semantic level i agree with you.

on a pragmatic level i don't. - ll is a governing body, but not what most people consider government.

calling it government confuses the issue. but not calling it govenrment also confuses the issue.

most of the current hang up is about:
1) what a government is
2) fear about what government does
3) residents gain power over other residents

while those are valid concerns there are other concerns, and it's a shame people can't get beyond their knee-jerk response to the word "government".

What finally convinced me that LL qualifies as a true government, is that, unlike other internet organizations, LL enforces laws over virtual territory. A paraphrased definition of government from Wikipedia states:



It's the enforcement of laws over territory that's directly analogous to a RL government. I discovered this while trying to answer if the organization we put together (Nberg) was truly a government or not. In the end I came to believe that authority over land is the key. If this is the case, it means that not only is the Nberg project a government (subordinate to LL) but so are Anshe's new themed sims and all other tracts of group land whose leaders can exercise authority over the land and its occupants.

I agree. I'm hoping this forum can be source for answers to those questions. Having a place to freely discuss SL political science should do wonders to stamp out ignorance and fear, while providing a great opportunity for those of us with interest in the subject to learn.

~Ulrika~

Very nicely said Ulrika!

What you just summarized is exactly why LL and the TOS is more than enough governing for me - though not for all.

Again, well said.

Which kinda makes me giggle in fits at all these posts from people ranting 'NO GOVERNMENT' etc etc. They already have one lolololol(sorry giggling again)

Yes LL are a goverment and its lack of access to your local representative that causes 99% of the frustration in this place.

Well, using judgemental terms like "coporatist" and "oligarchy" implies that it is not a beneficent or beneficial government.

I think LL isn't a government. It's just some geeks who paid for the servers and the labor on the servers. So, like the old adage "freedom of the press belongs to him who owns one," freedom of the servers belongs to him who buys and maintains them.

The Lindens like to style themselves as care-takers, gardeners, tenders of these servers that others will make their worlds. It's a bit of a fanciful narrative, a pastoralist "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" kind of utopian ideal that actually doesn't quite play out.

To call the Linden Labs "corporatist oligarchs" is an insufficient analysis because it doesn't explain how these so-called corporate oligarchs are able to spawn other corporatist oligarchs in the game ("land barons" and "content barons" and appear to cede some powers to them, i.e. copyright control and land control.

Is everybody aware that we are now in a non-visible ghetto called "polysci" guaranteed never to be opened by the average person who learned to cross the commons when he saw all those dumb literature tables in his college with like the Spartacists' League and the Libertarians and their literature?

Does everyone realize that by being cut out of "land and economy" we've been made irrelevant, and the message is this: talk all you want about land and economic issues over there, but you don't really control the land and economy and never will, we do, so go away.

Power of government starts with land ownership and the power of the purse. No LL players has that, because he pays tier. This is like the system that comes just one step after serfdom, where the serfs pay quit-rent to the nobles whose privileges are established by the Tsar.

Ulrlika, I love this defintion:



It is of course not a definition at all, it is a description of common usage...

The fact that citizens in the USA have the right to bear arms, with the stated intent that they should be able to oppose, with force if necessary, an autocratic and unjust government, means that practically in the States, the government does not have the total and exclusive monopoly in legitimate use of force within its territory. This is, though, how governments would LOVE to see themselves

... and LL is a government... for exactly the reasons mentioned: It sets and imposes the TOS, thereby providing a fundamental framework for the interaction of the people "living" here.

It is still my opinion, that politics is the technology of the interaction of the people in a group. In this case, government would be the structures and rules which implement the policies which are the political framework that people are subject to, for the "common good"... and don't ask who decides THAT one!

Coming from the so called Hard Sciences, and having worked a long time in computers, as a programmer and later systems analyst, I disagree that the topics "What is a Government" or whether LL is an oligarchy or a dictatorship is pure semantics; the extreme precision of the definitions in the hard sciences, esp. physics and chem, are the foundation on which a science could be built.

My time as a computer programmer PAINFULLY showed me, that an algorithm (read political system) has to be made of precise, interacting functions (laws) and data (people) to work. (Since people are NOT data, a government is there to get them back onto the algorithm...)

What is missing in political science is the kind of Hard Definitions, that ALWAYS hold water, that exist in the Hard Sciences. And SL, and this forum, is a great place to get Really Focussed on this.

I think the main difference is that LL is always on the job. They may not respond the way you like, but its a constant presence, governing under known laws.

One major problem with a player run government is that people are not around on a regular schedule. Its common for people to drop out of SL or a week or a month at a time. When it comes time for votes and whatnot, the people wont be around to get a clear directive. People bailing out or just not being around brings the need for constant elections or appointments of new people. The more times the people change, the more times the perceptions of what needs to be happening changes.

It will eventually turn into a popularity contest and will have little value. Power struggles and people desiring to make a change (for the better) results in an always active and changing status of rules and regulations. At least with LL at the helm, everyone knows what is expected of them and are confident that there will always be a body of LL employees to deal with issues.

Discussions in this forum might lead to ways of reaching an end. But stability of any player run government will always be an issue. LL will always have the ultimate power and the only one I need to answer too.

By that definition than parent-child relationships are "government." Couples and extended families form a "government." Any corporate entity is a "government." Such a definition seems so broad as to be meaningless

True! The question is, how can it FURTHER be refined to become a more commonly recognisable definition...

I am glad I aam not perfect, or I could never improve!

They're not a farking government, they are owners of some internet servers that we play on. All the handwaving in the world won't make it otherwise. "Our land" as Ulrika calls it is a comical misconception that makes every other bit of her attempt at definition utterly moot.

May Phillip Linden Rule a Thousand Years

what Malachi said. They're the private company I pay to play on their software and servers.

hmmm... thought i had responded to you on this Ulrika but now i can't find that post anywhere. While I understand your desire for precision, I think you may be focusing on the semantics a bit here. In spirit, calling LL a dictatorship is not incorrect. While decisions are made by multiple people within (Philip, Robin, Bill Gurley, etc), it is really one corporate entity presenting one face to the world.

For example, if one company ruled a market, I wouldn't call that an oligopoly simply because they had a board and lots of employees, I would see that as a monopoly.


(ps. and yes, to that comment on poli "sci" -- speaking as a political science major -- albeit some time ago -- I heartily agree that "political science" is a bit of an oxymoron )

I thought I'd resurrect this thread, as much has been learned about the nature of LL as a government since the forum's inception.

The Real-World Virtual-World Dichotomy
Every entity in SL has a real-world and a virtual-world manifestation. The way we interact with an entity depends on whether we are in the virtual or the real world. For instance, in the real world LL is a company that provides 3D-content hosting. In the virtual world it is a government, specifically a federal corporatist oligarchy.

Examples

1. In the real world LL bills us monthly. Business.
   
2. In the virtual world the Lindens give us weekly stipends. Government.
   
3. In the real world LL engages in lots of PR to advertise their game.
   
4. In the virtual world the Lindens hold town hall meetings with citizens.
   

The Federal Government Analogy
The Lindens stated that there would not be a single world-wide player government but the Lindens would instead act like a federal government to smaller player-run governments. Given that Lindens acknowledge their governance and organized player-run governments do exist, this does make their government truly and currently federal:

The Lindens are a federal government in that they are the central authority but give limited residuary powers to constituent territorial units.


Nomenclature
Now that the Lindens have established themselves as a federal government and said that player-run governments will be integrated as constituents, we should clarify terminology. I suggest the following conventions:

1. When discussing LL as a company, one should describe them as "LL" or "Linden Labs".
   
2. When discussing the Lindens as a government, one should call them "the Lindens".
   
3. Linden Labs is a 3D-content-hosting company.
   
4. The Lindens are a federal corporatist oligarchy.
   

It's fascinating to watch the march of understanding since the inception of this forum. Gwyneth LLewelyn also had an analogy of the Lindens that mapped to the Catholic Church. I'll bring that over later.

~Ulrika~