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The Wealth of Networks review

8.0

Editors' Rating

Wendy M Grossman ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 24 Apr 2007

The rational self-interest of free markets laid out in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, written in the 18th century, is still a key part of economic thought. But in Smith's day, the means of production and distribution of media — themselves limited to print — were priced out of reach of ordinary people. That state of affairs continued through most of the last century. Many have written about the revolution that the internet and consumer electronics have created by bringing production and distribution within affordable grasp. In The Wealth of Networks (ISBN 0-300-11056-1) , however, Yochai Benkler has gone a step further: what about things like Wikipedia, or open-source software? What is rational about hundreds of people donating their time and expertise for free? What kind of market is that?

Many people assume that all this voluntary cooperation is just a phase we're going through on our way back to capitalist markets. But what if it's not? What if community efforts, which Benkler calls 'social production', and proprietary information are going to have to compete forever? What will that do to media, to freedom and to democracy? Benkler underlines this point with the following gesture: The Wealth of Networks was released, simultaneously with the print publication, onto the internet as a PDF under a Creative Commons licence.

Benkler has succeeded in doing something quite difficult. In one book, he has tied together many trends and subjects that are usually considered separately: open source, collaborative efforts such as Wikipedia, internet regulation, copyright, patents, the history of various types of media, freedom, politics, spectrum allocation, network neutrality (although the latter term doesn't appear in the index) and more.

The upshot is that Benkler gives readers the background to understand not only the issues he covers but those he doesn't, such as network neutrality. Even if you've been surveying the same ground for more than a decade, you find unexpected nuggets that change your perspective. For example: we talk about the Net's ability to democratise media. Yet the cost of starting a newspaper in 1835, in 2005 money, was only about $10,400; by 1850 it had ballooned to $2.38 million (in 2005 dollars), turning newspapers into a medium that only the wealthy could afford. Radio followed the same pattern, beginning as an inexpensive medium dominated by churches newspapers and even department stores, and winding up (at least in the US) as a commercial medium dominated by a few advertiser-supported networks.

Benkler does not predict a similar future for the currently democratic internet. Instead, he notes the Net's peculiar ability to counterbalance cultural icons. Search for Barbie dolls, he writes, and you can hardly avoid finding criticism of them — until or unless rights-holders impose an even stricter regime than they've managed to create over the last 25 years.

The Wealth of Networks is widely admired among Net luminaries; the book just won Benkler a Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It looks more intimidating than it is; although it's long and dense, it's written in plain, clear English. If you want to understand the Internet Age, it's essential reading. Think of it as a one-man conference.