The most effective solution for avoiding a continuous erosion of privacy is not European-style detailed regulation, or new forms of US-style anti-trust legislation The best way is formally to clarify ownership rights over personal data. For example, one could specify that all personal data (transaction, medical, financial) belong, by right, to the individual. Only with his or her permission could this data be sold, traded or used for purposes other than the original transaction. The right to data privacy is one right that the creators of the UN Human Rights advocates did not have to think about. It is certain that the Information Age will deal a completely different set of cards to all the players, and modify the balance of power between governments, corporations and the population at large. This new game promises to shift power away from governments and regulatory authorities, as well as from the public. There are no direct quantitative measures for such power shifts, but the dramatic trend of privatisation that is sweeping the world provides some indication of what is going on. Figure 4. 1 shows the process of systematic liquidation of government-controlled assets. Before Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK, privatisation was a rare event. Since then, a world-wide trend has caught on. For the year 1997 alone, the volume reached some US$157 billion, five times what it was in 1990. Developing countries have recently embarked on the same process, representing at least 30% of the total. I believe that it is rarely healthy for governments to own businesses. But the point here is that this unprecedented global trend towards privatise is one indicator for the growing loss of influence that governments have their economies. There are many other indicators of the plausibility of the Corporate Millennium (see sidebar). Is it possible that this trend is the result of what Noam Chomsky has termed 'manufactured consent'. The purpose of mainstream media, Chomsky claims, is not so much to
Bernard Lietaer - The future of money
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