The Wealth of Networks

April 16, 2006 8:19 AM

The Wealth of Networks. Yochai Benkler is a Professor of Law at Yale Law School. A few years ago he wrote one of the seminal papers on Commons-based production, Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm. Now he has a new book - The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. You can buy it, download it or add to it.
posted by scalefree (6 comments total)

bowles & gintis have also been working on social capital, but i think what might be needed to get it off the ground as a true alternative to market/state production may be social currencies...

for more background:
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar
- On the Concept of Social Value
- Speculative Microeconomics for Tomorrow's Economy
- The Corporation as a Command Economy
- Anarchism Triumphant
- The Attention Economy
- Differential Pricing and Efficiency
- Shadow Prices and Linear Programming [cf. Logistics and Containerization]
posted by kliuless at 9:05 AM on April 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

Gotta admit, while this looks pretty interesting, I was somewhat turned off by Cory D gushing about how this might "do for the 21st century what The Wealth Of Nations did for the 19th". Because, you know, it has "The Wealth Of..." in the title. I may have to hold my nose before diving in...
posted by pascal at 9:57 AM on April 16, 2006

Just because Cory likes it doesn't mean it's bad. Coase's Penguin pretty much defines the economics of open source for me, so when I read that the guy who wrote it had a new book out, I think I actually sported wood. We all know that Cory's shtick is hyperbole but I honestly think this may be one case where he's not exaggerating.
posted by scalefree at 10:21 AM on April 16, 2006

I took a class with him. THough I can't say much interesting about it, he's interestingly different from other law professors in that he actually seems to have technical knowledge. However, he's incredibly similar to other open source enthusiasts, etc., in that he's sort of a technological utopian. Anyways, this post looks interesting.
posted by kensanway at 10:36 AM on April 16, 2006

Killer links, kliuless.
posted by gsteff at 6:04 PM on April 16, 2006

From On the Concept of Social Value (thanks kliuless):

That this is so we shall try presently to prove; but, if so, it would follow that this way of expressing things has, except for the case of a communistic society, no other than a metaphorical meaning; that it may not be wrong, but that it is superfluous and only synonymous with what the concept of "interaction of individuals" expressed; and that we had better avoid it, since it lends itself to doubts and to misinterpretation.

I'm sure I should finish reading before saying anything, but.. Doesn't the author see the absurdity here? We better not think about it, because it might cause us to doubt our theory.
posted by Chuckles at 10:38 PM on April 16, 2006