Justin Marshall

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yochai Benkler. New Haven: Yale University Press 2006. 515 pp.

Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, is an ambitious, canonical book that leaves little left uncovered in the dialogue surrounding the impact the emerging networked information economy has on global societies. Through a dozen, deeply-thorough chapters, he succinctly lays claim to a thesis grounded on the premise that society is in the midst of an economic revolution, where online social production (like what we see on Wikipedia, Slashdot, etc.) stands poised to contend with market production as a creator of wealth. And, it is this revolution toward decentralized, non-market production that can effectively change the makeup of distribution of information goods, as the wealth is spread across geographic and class borders, benefiting the poor and under-developed countries.

Benkler makes this claim by eloquently answering why volunteer-based products like Wikipedia and Linux are giving commercial products like Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft a run for their money. Taking the reader through the diverse landscape of common’s-based peer production, he builds a rhetorica framework that explores why people participate, how their participation affects mass media, and how the networking of information and knowledge can influence society and human development as a whole.

Following these three points, he first builds an analysis of the effects of networked information economy on individual autonomy. It is no surprise that as the Internet has become more accessible to homes around the globe, individuals can do more for themselves and by themselves independent of others. They can find information more quickly and produce, market and sell bodies of work (like movies, books and music) without the permission of large production and distribution companies. Yet, while the Internet has empowered the individual in new ways, Benkler aptly suggests that it hasn’t fundamentally changed humanity. Instead, “what has changed is the feasibility of the social behavioral patters we all possess … they have stretched beyond the domain of the physical” (91).

As we have seen with the emergence of peer-to-peer networks like Napster, Limewire, and BitTorrent (thank you, thank you, and thank you), people’s behavior hasn’t changed; we still want free music. It’s just our ability to access the network of music has become easier and takes little actual cost, save little storage space on a hard drive, communications capacity over laid pip and processor capacity through a C.P.U. (89).

Second, the emergence of a networked information economy is proving a valuable alternative to mass media, thus changing the landscape of information sharing away from a commercial bottleneck and toward a decentralized forum. And, while this topic isn’t new (and, I might argue, quite overdone), Benkler somehow adds new value to the discussion by examining how such a shift effects the political sphere.

The increasing ability for public discourse through mailing lists, static and read/write web pages, and mobile information systems—like grassroots videos and online radio stations, has improved democratic influence on social systems. As opposed to commercial mass media, these platforms provide greater access to policy action and involvement, thus individuals become less passive and more engaged in the political conversation.

One area where this point is most salient is on YouTube, where such activist groups like Brave New Films actively respond to claims broadcast on mainstream television—mostly from Fox News—by offering video responses to a broad, online audience.

A decade ago, such media dialogue would be virtually impossible. Yet, sites like YouTube—available on a networked information economy—both empower both activist groups like Brave New Films to produce films in response to mass media claims, the slough of video responses and over 6600 text comments on a given video offers a greater portrait of how a networked information economy allows individuals to enter a broader, diverse dialogue only found in elevators and coffee stands before.

Benkler’s third area of discussion—the most ambitious and most powerful of his book—takes his audience to a place where technology meets humanity, explaining how a more accessible, information-rich network provides great opportunity for human development and justice in the global arena. Spanning the divide of economic, social, and political wellbeing, a networked information economy offers a diversity of developing and established countries the ability to access and participate in information and knowledge sharing. This, no less, has a direct effect on global human welfare.

Information and innovation, which is central to human health, can effectively spread to countries fighting to receive food and medicine necessary to survive. And, while it would be foolish to merely extend a computer and Internet access to those in need of medical aid, the ability for doctors, activists, and humanitarian workers to connect with one another and spread the word over a communication network in tandem with financial and political aid is invaluable.

In all, The Wealth of Networks is an important read. Benkler’s writing is clear and readable, and while certain areas of the book feel like technical chasms that make for some tough pages, he has an uncanny knack of bringing the reader back to level ground by with digestible examples and clear definitions.

A vignette of note is Benkler’s example explaining motivation, making the point that individual motivation to participate in commons-based peer production isn’t solely dependent on monetary cost, but also in cultural and societal norms. In it, he articulates that while leaving a $50 bill—a high personal cost—at the end of a dinner visit to a friend’s house wouldn’t help the chances of being invited back, a bottle of wine or flowers—a low personal cost—might.

And in the flavor of his book, Benkler surprisingly ends this poignant example with this sentence: “And if dinner [at a friend’s house] isn’t intuitively obvious, think of sex.” Thank you, Yochai.

Questions:

1. Since the participatory web is still in its infancy—hence the 1-9-90 ratio—what might participation in a more enhanced and evolved networked information economy look like? (And, how might we define passive participation in light of new ways to measure behavior?)
2. Authentic community on the web is something active participants find very valuable, and if necessary, willing to fight for it. With the recent examples of Digg’s HD DVD saga and the Kathy Sierra incident (of Creating Passionate User’s fame), is there a need for a Code of Conduct within the blogosphere or is the self-policing nature of the social web enough?
3. With Open ID and Claim ID gaining in popularity, does identity management act as the new way of opening the Web up to a more social system of participation? Is this a good thing?