In the 10 years since the Global Financial Crisis, technology has indeed changed our world, and not necessarily for the better. There is an unnerving similarity in the responses of a financially (if not morally chastened) global finance and a resurgent global tech to belatedly acknowledged transparency and accountability deficits. Both sectors have proved impervious to effective control. Expressing regret is not the same as accepting responsibility. Disruption, like innovation, is not a value-neutral noun or concept. Everything has a price. This includes the governance and operational practices of our leading technology corporations. Far removed from complying with generally accepted principles of best-practice corporate governance, these highly mobile, asset-light, corporations are adroit at maximising minimisation strategies that contribute to tax base erosion through profit shifting and sail uncomfortably close to tax evasion. Their competitive advantage enhanced by deft exploitation of gaps provided by the apparent – but not tested – non-applicability of traditional systems of oversight. These gaps are informed by the exercise of power without responsibility for the curation of hosted content, the ideational privileging of innovation and disruption over stability, security and sustainability on libertarian grounds, cavalier approaches to data protection, and technical gaming of regulatory rules designed for an economy destined to history. In seeking to restore warranted confidence in corporations and their governance, we need to keep in creative tension the twin societally beneficial goals of liberty and equality. Maintenance of social order and progress require active balancing. If equality of opportunity is compromised by a privileging of individual freedom, the social contract disintegrates, leading to a corresponding increase in resentment. The resulting distrust damages social cohesion in a downward spiral. The shrill nature of political debate, amplified and reinforced by automated algorithms, create echo chambers that calcify confirmatory bias. Ultimately, the “free service”, provided by the platforms is nothing of the sort. As Kris Kristofferson once sang, “freedom is just another word for nothing else to lose”. When judgment becomes automated and at one step removed, served up on a computer screen, there is no need to exercise one’s mind. The resulting passivity not only dulls the senses by pandering to bias, it is deeply corrosive of what remains of community values. If belonging is deemed a property right exercised more in empty sloganeering than opportunity, the stage is set for confrontation. This is what is happening across the liberal order. All, however, is not lost. Arresting this malaise does, however, require a fundamental change in thinking. In today’s globalised world no physical wall can provide a protective shield. The challenge is as much virtual as physical. As the dislocation caused by technological disruption extends and expands, middle class aspiration becomes unattainable to gain or indeed to hold. We are, in short, witnessing a systemic rise in precariousness. It is the defining dynamic of the age and extends far beyond the inner cities or the rust belt. Anaemic economic growth, the erosion of economic certainty and job security are advanced within and across the “gig” economy as a positive development. It is anything but. The author of the term precariat now sees it as an affliction increasingly impacting on the professions, including law. In a 2017 interview he argued, “the division of labour has changed. For example, the legal profession has silks at the top, then salariat lawyers and a huge growth of paralegals with basic training, but without a career path through the profession, because there are ceilings. It’s the same in the medical and teaching professions. The precariat is not just a reality, it’s grown extremely fast in recent years. Unless something is done to improve security and redress the class-based inequalities arising, you’re going to get a political monster”. The scale of the task ahead was brought home to me reading the “Life and Arts” section of the Financial Times on the last weekend in July 2018. The lead article explored the rise of the far-right in Germany, where in the last federal election no less than 12 per cent privileged a return to the politics of the strongman, not least because of an influx of refugees, many of which, understandably are not fleeing immediate personal persecution but no less catastrophic political and economic chaos. The return of the culture wars demonstrate an upending of past verities, once cherished by the left. Cultural relativism, used to justify opposition to the imposition of bourgeois values, has become the arena of choice for those of the right, who see multiculturalism as the triumph of a moral decay. The book pages were dominated by accounts of the illusory control associated with the populist turn. Take, for example, the Philippines. The blatant denigration of due process in one of the oldest democracies in Asia by a president masquerading on television as a vigilante follows a well-worn rhetorical path. Ayyip Erdoğan in Ankara, János Áder in Budapest and Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, along with Donald Trump in Washington, DC, have used similar tactics to secure the presidential keys of office. In each case, the malleable elasticity of truth has been critical to short-term success. Misrepresenting the size of campaign or inauguration crowds, erroneously claiming the out-going president was not born in the United States, making his very presidency illegitimate, casting doubt on the loyalty of the security services for following due process, these were not opinions. Rather, they were alternative facts. Not surprising the approach forms an increasingly central part of the electoral playbook. Law and Financial Markets Review, 2018 Vol. 12, No. 3, 105–110, https://doi.org/10.1080/17521440.2018.1524233

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悉尼来信：数字时代的问责制

自全球金融危机以来的 10 年里，技术确实改变了我们的世界，但并不一定会变得更好。在财务上（如果不是道德上的惩戒）全球金融和复苏的全球技术对迟来的透明度和问责制赤字的反应存在令人不安的相似之处。事实证明，这两个部门都无法进行有效控制。表达遗憾不等于承担责任。颠覆，就像创新一样，不是一个价值中立的名词或概念。一切都是有代价的。这包括我们领先技术公司的治理和运营实践。这些高度流动、轻资产、公司擅长最大化最小化战略，这些战略通过利润转移和不舒服地接近逃税而导致税基侵蚀。通过巧妙地利用传统监督系统明显但未经测试的不适用性所提供的差距，它们的竞争优势得到加强。这些差距是由不负责管理托管内容的权力行使、创新的概念特权以及基于自由主义理由对稳定性、安全性和可持续性的破坏、数据保护的傲慢方法以及专为经济注定了历史。在寻求恢复对公司及其治理的正当信心时，我们需要使自由和平等这两个对社会有益的目标保持创造性的紧张状态。维护社会秩序和进步需要积极的平衡。如果机会平等因个人自由的特权而受到损害，社会契约就会瓦解，从而导致不满情绪相应增加。由此产生的不信任以螺旋式下降的方式破坏了社会凝聚力。政治辩论的尖锐性质，被自动算法放大和强化，创造了回声室，使确认性偏见钙化。归根结底，平台提供的“免费服务”根本就不是这样。正如克里斯·克里斯托佛森 (Kris Kristofferson) 曾经唱过的那样，“自由只是另一个词，表示没有什么可以失去”。当判断变得自动化并一步到位，呈现在电脑屏幕上时，就没有必要动脑筋了。由此产生的被动不仅会因迎合偏见而使感官变得迟钝，还会深深腐蚀社区价值观的残余。如果归属被视为一种产权，更多地是在空洞的口号而不是机会中行使，那么对抗的舞台就准备好了。这就是整个自由秩序正在发生的事情。然而，一切都没有丢失。然而，消除这种不适确实需要从根本上改变思维。在当今全球化的世界中，没有任何物理墙可以提供保护盾。挑战既是虚拟的，也是物理的。随着技术颠覆造成的混乱扩大和扩大，中产阶级的愿望变得难以实现或确实难以保持。简而言之，我们正在目睹不稳定的系统性上升。它是时代的决定性动力，远远超出了内城或锈带。疲软的经济增长、经济确定性和工作保障的侵蚀在“零工”经济内部和整个经济中作为一种积极的发展。绝非如此。术语“precariat”的作者现在将其视为一种日益影响包括法律在内的职业的痛苦。在 2017 年的一次采访中，他认为，“分工已经发生了变化。例如，法律职业的顶端是丝绸，然后是薪水律师和接受过基本培训的律师助理的大量增长，但没有通过该行业的职业道路，因为有天花板。在医疗和教学行业也是如此。不稳定不仅是现实，而且近年来增长得非常快。除非采取措施来提高安全性并纠正产生的基于阶级的不平等，否则你将得到一个政治怪物”。2018 年 7 月的最后一个周末，我阅读了《金融时报》的“生活与艺术”版块，让我意识到了未来任务的规模。主要文章探讨了德国极右翼的崛起，在上一个联邦不少于 12% 的选举有幸重返强人政治，尤其是因为大量难民涌入，其中许多人并没有立即逃离个人迫害，但同样是灾难性的政治和经济混乱，这是可以理解的。文化战争的回归展示了曾经被左派珍视的过去真理的颠覆。文化相对主义被用来为反对强加资产阶级价值观辩护，已经成为那些将多元文化主义视为道德败坏的胜利的右派人士的选择舞台。书页充斥着与民粹主义转向相关的虚幻控制的描述。以菲律宾为例。在亚洲最古老的民主国家之一，一位总统在电视上伪装成义警公然诋毁正当程序，这是一条陈词滥调的修辞手法。安卡拉的 Ayyip Erdoğan、布达佩斯的 János Áder 和华沙的 Andrzej Duda 以及华盛顿特区的唐纳德特朗普都使用了类似的策略来确保总统办公室的钥匙。在每种情况下，真理的可塑性弹性对于短期成功至关重要。歪曲竞选或就职典礼人群的规模，错误地声称即将卸任的总统不是在美国出生，使他的总统职位不合法，使人们怀疑安全部门对遵循正当程序的忠诚度，这些都不是意见。相反，它们是替代事实。毫不奇怪，这种方法成为选举手册中越来越重要的部分。法律与金融市场评论，2018 年卷。12, No. 3, 105–110, https://doi.org/10.1080/17521440.2018.1524233