The Politics of Dancing: Who Controls the Floor?

From the corridors of public administration to the architecture of artificial intelligence, the question is increasingly the same: who controls the rules, who gets to participate, and who benefits from everyone else's movement?

There is something rather amusing about the title The Politics of Dancing. It sounds like an invitation to enjoy an evening, perhaps a little choreography, some questionable dance-floor decisions and the occasional person who believes they have considerably more rhythm than they actually possess. But the longer I consider the subject, the more I appreciate the metaphor. Politics is choreography.

Business is choreography. Technology, institutional relationships and even the pursuit of justice can become elaborate performances in which everyone is expected to understand their position, follow the established rhythm and avoid stepping on the toes of those who control the music.

And perhaps that is the problem. We spend an extraordinary amount of time discussing participation, opportunity, innovation, inclusion and progress. Yet, across different institutions and industries, the same question keeps returning: who actually gets to participate on equal terms?

The choreography of power

My family's ongoing advocacy concerning my aunt Edith has brought me into uncomfortable contact with the realities of institutional power. It has required questions about administration, public responsibility, the protection of vulnerable people and the consequences when established procedures and safeguards are not adequately observed. These are not abstract academic exercises when the people affected are members of your family. They are questions about dignity, responsibility and the practical meaning of protection.

I have also become increasingly conscious of the distinction between an institution's stated purpose and its actual response when confronted with a difficult situation. Public offices have mandates. Officials have responsibilities. Laws and administrative procedures exist for reasons that should extend beyond the convenience of those administering them. When a family has to repeatedly seek answers from institutions that are supposed to provide accountability, one begins to appreciate how uneven the relationship between citizens and the machinery of government can become.

The issue is not whether every official is personally responsible for every administrative failure. It is whether the system can identify what went wrong, establish accountability and protect the people who depend on it. Personal respect and institutional scrutiny are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, a functioning public administration should be able to accommodate both.

The entrepreneur and the dance floor

Now consider the world of business and technology.

We are living through a period in which artificial intelligence is being marketed as an extraordinary opportunity for entrepreneurship. Independent developers, founders, creatives and small businesses are encouraged to experiment, build applications, develop products, create intellectual property and bring ideas to market. The proposition is attractive: sophisticated technological capabilities are becoming accessible to people who previously could not afford the infrastructure required to compete.

I have participated in that environment myself, developing technological architecture, workflows and product concepts while building businesses across several industries. I understand the attraction of these tools. I also understand the amount of intellectual work involved in developing something that can become a commercially viable product.

But there is a question that deserves considerably more attention. What happens when the independent developer supplies the ideas, the experimentation, the specifications and the creative direction, while the platform controls the infrastructure, the commercial environment, the distribution and the contractual relationship?

The concern is not that every similarity between an independent project and a commercial product proves appropriation. It does not. Nor should an allegation of intellectual-property infringement be made without evidence. The concern is that the imbalance of resources can make it extraordinarily difficult for an individual developer to establish what happened, investigate the provenance of a product feature or pursue a meaningful remedy when a genuine dispute arises.

The United States copyright framework adds another dimension. The U.S. Copyright Office has maintained that copyright protection for AI-assisted material depends on sufficient human authorship. Its January 2025 report explains that merely providing prompts does not, by itself, establish copyrightable authorship of the resulting output. Copyright also distinguishes between an idea and its particular expression. A business concept, system or method is not automatically protected simply because someone conceived it.

That distinction matters enormously. The fact that a person has an idea does not automatically give that person exclusive copyright over the idea. Depending on the circumstances, protection may instead involve copyright in original expression, patent rights, contractual rights or trade-secret protections. Each has different requirements. The difficulty is that independent founders are often encouraged to develop openly within technological ecosystems without necessarily appreciating how much of their commercial advantage depends on information they disclose.

And while the technology advances, the legal framework continues to evolve. Congress has considered multiple proposals addressing AI, copyright, transparency and creator protections. Introducing a bill, however, is not the same as enacting legislation. The people building businesses today cannot simply wait for every unresolved question to be settled before deciding how to protect their work.

The privilege of controlling the music

This brings us to a broader economic question.

The American Dream is frequently presented as an open invitation: work hard, develop your abilities, take risks and build something. Yet opportunity is not distributed simply by making the invitation available. Access to capital, commercial networks, institutional credibility, intellectual-property resources, distribution and market visibility all influence who can turn an idea into a sustainable enterprise.

An independent founder may have the creativity and technical ability to develop a product but lack the resources to defend it. A small business may have an innovative proposition but lack access to established procurement networks. A person may have the qualifications and experience but still encounter barriers that have little to do with the quality of their work.

This is not an argument that every established company or institution is deliberately obstructing new entrants. It is an argument that the structure of opportunity deserves examination. When the same organisations control the infrastructure, the commercial channels and much of the institutional recognition, the difference between being invited to participate and having the power to compete becomes particularly important.

And it is not confined to the United States. Smaller economies such as Belize face their own versions of this problem, where concentrated commercial influence, limited domestic markets and the relationship between political and economic power can shape the opportunities available to independent entrepreneurs.

The choreography changes, but the questions remain remarkably familiar.

Everyone is invited. Not everyone controls the floor.

Perhaps this is why I find the metaphor so compelling. We are constantly encouraged to participate. Participate in the economy. Participate in innovation. Participate in public life. Build businesses. Adopt new technologies. Trust institutions. Submit proposals. Share ideas. Invest in the future.

But participation without meaningful agency can become an exercise in following somebody else's choreography.

It is worth asking whether the people being invited into these systems have sufficient information, protection and bargaining power to participate on fair terms. It is worth asking whether institutions can be held accountable when their administration fails. It is worth asking whether technological platforms can market themselves as gateways to entrepreneurship while the legal and commercial arrangements governing the relationship remain difficult for ordinary users to understand.

And perhaps most importantly, it is worth asking whether progress should be measured only by the sophistication of the technology, the size of the institution or the value of the company, rather than by the opportunities and protections made available to the people who contribute to them.

I have always enjoyed comedy, and there is certainly something comical about watching the world repeatedly announce that it is entering a new era while continuing to operate according to remarkably familiar arrangements of power. New technology, old choreography. New vocabulary, old gatekeepers. New promises, familiar beneficiaries.

The music changes. The lighting improves. The production budget increases. Somebody redesigns the stage and introduces an entirely new interface.

But who controls the floor?

I do not claim to have every answer, nor do I expect to change every institution or persuade every person. What I do believe is that individuals must become more conscious of the value they contribute, the information they disclose, the systems they support and the terms under which they participate.

There comes a point when declining to participate on somebody else's terms is itself an exercise of agency. Not every invitation deserves acceptance. Not every platform deserves unrestricted access to one's intellectual capital. Not every institution should receive unquestioned trust simply because it occupies an established position.

Perhaps the next generation will not be particularly interested in learning the old choreography. Perhaps it will build different stages, establish different arrangements and decide that the music can be produced elsewhere.

Until then, I suppose we should keep dancing.

But do pay attention to who owns the venue, who controls the sound system, who collected the admission fees and who actually gets paid when the evening is over.

Because everywhere you look, it is the politics of dancing.