What is fundamentally wrong with communication and dialogue? Why is it wrong to exchange ideas? Because the basic assumptions are false. The liberal model of dialogue and communication assumes first that ideas are unitary (one idea is similar, in the way it can be treated, to any other idea). Secondly, it assumes that ideas benefit from exchange. Ideas are not units like bricks, and they do not benefit from being transported. It is only necessary to divide ideas into two simple categories to see the error: the two categories of plans and arguments. 'Plans' are proposals for change: 'arguments' are ideas proposed to stop plans. Exchanging ideas benefits arguments (and conservatism): separating ideas benefits plans (and change). It is not necessary to examine the 'true nature of ideas' here: these two categories accurately describe at least some reality of politics. Almost any newspaper, any TV news show will show some politician arguing against some innovation. Engaging in dialogue, as a general moral precept, is unethical. Not all communication is good, and probably, most is bad. Certainly, bad for change. The best strategy for change is usually isolation from political pressures, and liberal societies are designed to make this difficult. Internet worsens this conservative advantage.

The standard response of liberalism, and now Net-ism, would be the claim that it guarantees (a) political neutrality, and (b) equality of the participants. The typical liberal argument that a formal equality (i.e. citizenship) justifies other inequalities is also applied to the Net. A formal equality - access, or communication - is claimed to justify the Net - even if it is still in the future. In reality, as with the free market, it is usually those with the weakest starting position, who suffer most from unlimited interaction. There is no doubt that the free market amplifies social inequality in the short term. Its defenders claim this is outweighed by a long-term improvement for all - using arguments such as the trickle-down effect, or Rawls' permitted inequalities. The ability of the market to amplify inequality was fortunately limited in the past, by physical limits on the exchange of goods. However, for three centuries it has been obvious that unlimited trading of stocks, or speculative goods (even tulip bulbs), can lead to extreme inequalities in a short time. The Internet removes the physical limits on amplification almost entirely, permitting a great increase in diode or triode effects. (That is, inequality amplification driven by the start inequality itself, diode effects; or driven by third factors, triode effects). Less theoretically, the winners in this process will almost certainly be the same well-educated, well-paid elites that were the first to use Internet. Worse, the general losers will be innovative minorities.

Unity and monopoly

It is then that another principle of liberalism takes effect, one which links it to other ideologies. Innovative minorities are disadvantaged in liberal societies. Yet no-one may leave, even if they suffer from all the intense interaction. No-one may exit the 'arenas of interaction' - the market, liberal-democracies, the global economy, Internet. 'Arena' is one metaphor for this situation: it suggests people are forced into an interaction that they did not choose. However, some people, indeed many people, enter these arenas voluntarily: but that does not allow them to drag others in with them. However, the metaphor of the Net itself is even better: 'nets' and 'webs' are used to catch prey.

If the prey simply walks away, liberalism ends: there is no market without participants, no liberal-democracy, and no Internet. Liberalism's answer to this prospect is simple: make escape impossible. There may be only one economy, the free market economy. There may be only one form of state, liberal-democratic. There may be only one Internet. One thing unites all texts about Internet: the word is always in the singular. So too, almost always, the word cyberspace. The intention, usually stated explicitly, is to unite all communication networks, all communication. In economists' terms, the Internet is a monopoly by definition.

A monopoly, if it is to stay a monopoly, must allow no alternatives, and it must not divide itself. Monopoly implies unity: monopoly implies expansion to the limit. A global economy is not a global economy, if there are two of it. Being global means being one unit, and being unchallenged. This is an aspect of more than economics: there is a long history, in western and non-western thought, of Unity as a valued principle, Unity as the end of all things. Its modern variants (philosophical anticipations of the cyberspace concept) are often derived from the work of Teilhard de Chardin. These evolutionary-holistic ideas are diffused throughout New Age movements: from these movements, they have influenced holistic visions of cyberspace, and ultimately the idea of a global brain.

Another old (less abstract) principle is the principle of political unity. It also links with liberalism's' monopoly claim. It is here that the significance of concepts such as digital citizenship, digital democracy, and digital polis becomes evident. Clear also, why the political elite in Europe is willing to promote these ideas, which at first sight are contra-elitist. (The EU Information Society Project Office co-ordinates, and informs about, these policies: www.ispo.cec.be/ispo/ispo.html). The de facto unit, which forms the liberal free market arena, is the nation state. Liberalism and nationalism are 19th century brothers in arms.

Market strengthens nation: citizens influence each other through interaction, and that can lead to a process of convergence. The nation-forming role of mass products and mass media, in the European nations in the 19th century, is well known. An increase in interaction can intensify this process, and this is what Net-ism values. Intensification of convergent political participation can strengthen the position of elites. So, among the advocates of the Net, liberalism blends into organicism, pan-organicism, and forms of ultra-communitarianism. All of these ideologies share an emphasis on unity, on non-escape, and on non-division: one global market, one (global) community, one global brain leading to one cosmic consciousness.

Such abstract concepts can give problems when 'translated' into practice. The Net, for instance, is praised by its neo-liberal advocates for overcoming barriers: however, dissolving the barriers around their own private property is not on their agenda. The cyber-ideologists are inconsistent. They praise the common community in cyberspace, the common information economy, the common global society: but not common property (and certainly not Communism). This inconsistency is perhaps a banal fact of political life, but it emphasises the political use of language. Claims can be stated in different ideological 'languages': in the familiar language of rights, or the language of obligations, but also disguised as alternative futures of the universe. Concepts like 'cosmic consciousness' can be used to argue for almost anything.

Despite such billion-year perspectives, the short term will probably see (as already suggested) reinforcement of existing national cultures. The existing (mainly US-American) Internet will develop national variants. Soon, experiments with digital democracy will encounter the same problems with borders as free-trade liberalism did. Unity as principle can accept some co-existence of levels of unity, but less so as interaction increases. In recent US politics, for instance, two kinds of free market liberal are in conflict: those who see the market mainly as model for the internal national economy, and those who want full global free trade. The first group are protectionists, the second expansionists.

This latent problem of inconsistency seems to be ignored, by advocates of digital democracy as model, itself a part of the Net ideology. No-one can logically argue that the Net unites the world, and then call for electronic voting per nation state - yet cyber-ideologists often put these contradicting views in one text. The current choice of Net-ism is clear enough: in reality cyber-liberals, like other liberals, choose the nation state. At this level too, the Internet is firmly anchored in the nineteenth century: insofar as they are applied in practice, citizenship and polis are ethno-nationally organised. No digital democrats (so far) advocate allowing 600 million Africans to outvote 250 million US-Americans, in an immigration policy referendum.

Historical veto