The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

I first became familiar with Benkler after reading his paper, "Coase's Penguin" in undergraduate study. I was delighted to hear of the publication of this book. Benkler continues beautifully where he left off in his previous papers and synthesizes an excellent theory of social production in his book. Benkler begins by describing the economic shape of information - it's non-rival and builds upon itself. He explains the challenges that face information, particularly the Babel Objection. Benkler also covers some legal background on aspects of a "liberal society", such as the role of commons versus private property. From there, he makes his way into peer production. He touches different aspects of this type of production, from open source to distributed content production & filtering (click workers) to the results of the FCC's shift towards commons-based wireless policy. I found chapter 4, where he connects social production to the economic concepts discussed earlier, to be the most interesting chapter of the book. He moves on to a lengthy discussion of the political effects of network distribution and social production, including a summary of the history of mass media and predictions about the future. From there, he lays down his argument that we ought to continue to encourage open networks and information sharing. He presents a discussion on current legislation and legal challenges to information and provides some examples of solutions. I read this book coming out of an undergraduate program in Information Science and wished I had read this book perhaps my sophomore or junior year. Benkler essentially lays out, in linear form, the precise message that my professors were teaching. Because of networks, information science in the 21st century will not follow the traditional industrial-style of distribution but rather a distributed and non-proprietary model. Its impact is phenomenal, not only in the realm of economics and science but politics, culture, and interpersonal communication. This book ought to be required reading for every undergraduate student studying Telecommunications, Media, or Information Science.

Be forewarned that this brilliantly conceived book is not so brilliantly written, and the reading can be a real slog at times. Yochai Benkler is a perceptive social theorist but his thoughts are bogged down in academic writing that could really use some editing. Expect excessive introducing, foreshadowing, recapping, and summarizing, giving you the often tiresome impression that you will read Benkler's prose again or have read it before. This book also suffers from what business strategists and military tacticians would call "scope creep," as Benkler's broad theories on society and knowledge become so all-inclusive as to border on diffuseness and ineffectiveness - a problem that really slows down the middle section of the book. This is a common difficulty for vast unified theories about information and humanity, so prepare for some difficulty in following the main points that Benkler is trying to make. But now that those warnings are out of the way, beneath Benkler's ponderous prose are insightful theories about the rise of networked culture, inspired by the digital revolution, in the face of lockdowns from entrenched power players. The initial uses of open networks inspired a megalomaniacal reaction from the industrial and political sectors, which have partially succeeded in forcing technological design changes, and persecution of new cultural behaviors, that threatened their economic and political dominance. For instance, intellectual property laws (patents, trademarks, and copyrights), which were originally meant to encourage cultural production, have been transformed by power players into tools to enforce corporate profitability. And if you think concerns over those trends are merely alarmism, Benkler provides profound evidence that damage really is being done to culture, freedom, and democracy - in ways that are far deeper and more troubling than the (corporate-inspired) popular rhetoric around piracy, rolyalties, and hackers. Benkler informatively differentiates the types of freedom that are at stake - personal, cultural, social, and political - and ably demonstrates how each are affected by trends in infrastructure development, media behavior, corporate profiteering, and political gamesmanship. One especially winning chapter deals with how the rising network society can promote justice and development in third world areas that are not currently connected and may never be. The corporate and political insistence on regulating the information infrastructure and criminalizing user behaviors may represent a losing battle against the basic human drive to network and create, as can be seen in trends like open source software and community wi-fi. Benkler's main point here (when you're finally able to uncover it) is that humanity may be on the brink of a major change in the way we process culture and information, thanks to the growth in open worldwide networks. The old school power players won't go without a fight, adding unnecessary strife to t

I highly recommend reading Yochai Benkler's book. It is a balanced articulation of what the Internet and Web 2.0 are enabling in the development of new forms of social collaboration that are not adequately recognized as such by both private/regulated market advocates and welfare advocates. One of the things that struck me most is Benkler's capacity to create a perspective in which he can show that these new forms of collectives are rooted in old practices that have existed forever. He also shows that these practices can gain major significance if: 1. The neutrality of the web, access to the web, Open Source initiatives, and the General Public Licensing type of legislation are improved, 2. The aggressive move toward Intellectual Property laws and regulations, and control by corporations, is counter-balanced. Excellent read!

Edit of 14 Apr 08 to add links (feature not available at the time). Lawrence Lessig could not say enough good things about this book when he spoke at Wikimania 2006 in Boston last week, so I ordered it while listening to him. It arrived today and I dropped everything to go through it. This book could well be the manifesto for 21st Century of Informed Prosperous Democracy. It is a meticulous erudite discussion of why information should not be treated as property, and why the "last mile" should be built by the neighborhood as a commons, "I'll carry your bits if you carry mine." The bottom line of this book, and I will cite some other books briefly, is that democracy and prosperity are both enhanced by shared rather than restricted information. The open commons model is the only one that allows us to harness the distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth, where each individual can made incremental improvements that cascade without restraint to the benefit of all others. As I write this, both the publishing and software industries are in the midst of a "last ditch" defense of copyright and proprietary software. I believe they are destined to fail, and IBM stands out as an innovative company that sees the writing on the wall--see especially IBM's leadership in developing "Services Science." The author has written the authoritative analytic account of the new social and political and financial realities of a networked world with information embedded goods. There have been earlier accounts--for example, the cover story of Business Week on "The Power of Us" with its many accounts of how Lego, for example, received 1,600 free engineering development hours from its engaged customers of all ages. Thomas Stewart's "The Wealth of Knowledge," Barry Carter's "Infinite Wealth," Alvin and Heidi Toffler's most recent "Revolutionary Wealth," all come to the same conclusion: you cannot manage 21st Century information-rich networks with 20th Century industrial control models. Lawrence Lessig says it best when he speaks of the old world as "Read Only" and the new world as "Read-Write" or interactive. His fulsome praise for this author and this book suggest that the era of sharing and voluntary work has come of age. On that note, I wish to observe that those who label the volunteers who craft Wikis including the Wikipedia as "suckers" are completely off-base. The volunteers are the smartest of the smart, the vanguard for a new economy in which bartering and sharing displace centralized financial and industrial control. Indeed, with the localization of energy, water, and agriculture, this book by this author could not be more important or timelier. One final supportive anecdote, this one from the brilliant Michael Eisen, champion of open publishing. He captured the new paradigm perfectly at Wikimania when he likened the current publishing environment as one in which scientists give birth to babies, the publishers play a mid-wifery role, and then claim

Professor Benkler discusses the idea of social production, goods being produced by communities rather than corporations, as a third way to think about development. He also discusses the affects that social production will have on the status quo, and in particular, Intellectual Property laws. His is a methodical and extremely well researched argument that will leave you thinking about what the 21st century may bring. Don't be put off by the length of the book. Professor Benkler's prose is quite clear and his arguments easy to follow. I liked the book enough to have him as a guest on my show and I believe it is one of the major books of 2005.