The Internet: A Free-Market Paradise or a Socialist Village?

Here's some interesting thoughts about the internet:

A communitarian, it turns out, is someone who's into the Wisdom of Crowds and the Army of Davids and the Information Reformation and Crashing the Gate-- no matter which side of the political divide he's on.

But the word got me thinking. 'Communitarian.' It got me thinking that even though Right and Left both believe in the potential power and the wisdom of these communities the Internet makes possible, the reasons we think they work are entirely different. All the folks at this conference were all about the 'community' aspects and the way it 'takes a village' to bring down Bushitler.

Craig Newmark, founder of Craig's List, refused to take any credit for the astounding organization of Katrina assistance that went on on his web sites. Instead, he said that was the work of the Craig's List community, everyone working together. 'They repurposed the websites for what they needed and we just got out of the way,' Newmark said of Craig's List users in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Everyone applauded the community for the great work it had done-- together.

That's when it hit me. The Left thinks the wisdom of crowds and the army of Davids are victories for socialism, for collectivism. If we all work together, they think, we are better than the individual.

But I've always thought of online communities as exactly the opposite. I think of them as the ultimate free market of information. Individuals with diverse experience and knowledge willingly trade information and debate ideas. The good ones earn credence and attention and rise to the top. Many individuals act with free will and the Invisible Hand leads to efficient solutions. There's not a lot of bureacracy. There is no central command.

Odd, huh? That two groups of people can look at the same phenomenon and interpret it in exactly opposite ways?

Very odd indeed...

I think economists are in great need of much better metaphors to explain the operation of markets to others. People tend to think of markets in terms of impersonal and "exploitive" (a term Dr. Williams derides). What other ways could better be used to convey concepts of the market?

I think most people who are hostile to market-based ideas because they are misinformed about how markets function. I see communicating these ideas as one of the key responsibilities of economists today.

James Buchanan suggests the metaphor of the market being like the American frontier. What other analogies can you think of?