The New Octopus

Yet both self-governance and regulatory oversight depend to some degree on the human capacities of the overseers, whether private or public. Call these managerial strategies for checking concentrated power. The problem with managerialism is that even if we built a powerful, independent, and accountable public (or private) oversight regime, it would face the difficulties endured by any regulator of a complex system: industry is likely to be several steps ahead of government, especially if it is incentivized to seek returns by bypassing regulatory constraints. Furthermore, the efficacy of regulation will turn entirely on the skill, commitment, creativity, and independence of regulators themselves. A more radical response, then, would be to impose structural restraints: limits on the structure of technology firms, their powers, and their business models, to forestall the dynamics that lead to the most troubling forms of infrastructural power in the first place.