The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online

Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a "new modern-day sort of communists," a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos.

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on 2009-11-29 by maxugaz

Bill Gates perdió la brújula hace tiempo. Felizmente ha reaccionado a tiempo llamando a Ray Ozzie en su reemplazo.

The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.

Highlighted by driessen

The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.

Highlighted by jrstoltz

The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism

Highlighted by maxugaz

The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.

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Communal aspects of digital culture run deep and wide.

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Wikipedia is just one remarkable example of an emerging collectivism—and not just Wikipedia but wikiness at large.

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Nearly every day another startup proudly heralds a new way to harness community action. These developments suggest a steady move toward a sort of socialism uniquely tuned for a networked world.

Highlighted by eltico

These developments suggest a steady move toward a sort of socialism uniquely tuned for a networked world.

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We're not talking about your grandfather's socialism.

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digital socialism may be the newest American innovation.

Highlighted by driessen

digital socialism may be the newest American innovation.

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While old-school socialism was an arm of the state, digital socialism is socialism without the state.

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This new brand of socialism currently operates in the realm of culture and economics, rather than government—for now.

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the new socialism runs over a borderless Internet, through a tightly integrated global economy. It is designed to heighten individual autonomy and thwart centralization. It is decentralization extreme.

Highlighted by maxugaz

the new socialism runs over a borderless Internet, through a tightly integrated global economy. It is designed to heighten individual autonomy and thwart centralization. It is decentralization extreme.

Highlighted by driessen

Instead of gathering on collective farms, we gather in collective worlds. Instead of state factories, we have desktop factories connected to virtual co-ops. Instead of sharing drill bits, picks, and shovels, we share apps, scripts, and APIs. Instead of faceless politburos, we have faceless meritocracies, where the only thing that matters is getting things done. Instead of national production, we have peer production. Instead of government rations and subsidies, we have a bounty of free goods.

Highlighted by maxugaz

Instead of gathering on collective farms, we gather in collective worlds. Instead of state factories, we have desktop factories connected to virtual co-ops. Instead of sharing drill bits, picks, and shovels, we share apps, scripts, and APIs. Instead of faceless politburos, we have faceless meritocracies, where the only thing that matters is getting things done.

Highlighted by jrstoltz

I recognize that the word socialism is bound to make many readers twitch. It carries tremendous cultural baggage, as do the related terms communal, communitarian, and collective. I use socialism because technically it is the best word to indicate a range of technologies that rely for their power on social interactions. Broadly, collective action is what Web sites and Net-connected apps generate when they harness input from the global audience. Of course, there's rhetorical danger in lumping so many types of organization under such an inflammatory heading. But there are no unsoiled terms available, so we might as well redeem this one

Highlighted by eltico

I use socialism because technically it is the best word to indicate a range of technologies that rely for their power on social interactions.

Highlighted by maxugaz

I use socialism because technically it is the best word to indicate a range of technologies that rely for their power on social interactions. Broadly, collective action is what Web sites and Net-connected apps generate when they harness input from the global audience.

Highlighted by driessen

When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism.

Highlighted by eltico

When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism.

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a "workforce composed entirely of free agents," a decentralized gift or barter economy where there is no property and where technological architecture defines the political space

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"dot-communism."

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But there is one way in which socialism is the wrong word for what is happening: It is not an ideology

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It is a design frontier and a particularly fertile space for innovation.

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It is a design frontier and a particularly fertile space for innovation.

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Groups of people start off simply sharing and then progress to cooperation, collaboration, and finally collectivism. At each step, the amount of coordination increases

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Groups of people start off simply sharing and then progress to cooperation, collaboration, and finally collectivism

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The online masses have an incredible willingness to share.

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Sharing is the mildest form of socialism, but it serves as the foundation for higher levels of communal engagement

Highlighted by eltico

Sharing is the mildest form of socialism, but it serves as the foundation for higher levels of communal engagement.

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When individuals work together toward a large-scale goal, it produces results that emerge at the group level.

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Anyone can use a photo, just as a communard might use the community wheelbarrow. I don't have to shoot yet another photo of the Eiffel Tower, since the community can provide a better one than I can take myself

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Thousands of aggregator sites employ the same social dynamic for threefold benefit. First, the technology aids users directly, letting them tag, bookmark, rank, and archive for their own use. Second, other users benefit from an individual's tags, bookmarks, and so on. And this, in turn, often creates additional value that can come only from the group as a whole.

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exceeds the socialist promise of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" because it betters what you contribute and delivers more than you need

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"from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" because it betters what you contribute and delivers more than you need.

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Serious contributors to these sites put in far more energy than they could ever get in return, but they keep contributing in part because of the cultural power these instruments wield. A contributor's influence extends way beyond a lone vote, and the community's collective influence can be far out of proportion to the number of contributors. That is the whole point of social institutions—the sum outperforms the parts.

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Community aggregators can unleash astonishing power. Sites like Digg and Reddit, which let users vote on the Web links they display most prominently, can steer public conversation as much as newspapers or TV networks.

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these sites put in far more energy than they could ever get in return, but they keep contributing in part because of the cultural power these instruments wield.

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That is the whole point of social institutions—the sum outperforms the parts.

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Organized collaboration can produce results beyond the achievements of ad hoc cooperation.

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In contrast to casual cooperation, collaboration on large, complex projects tends to bring the participants only indirect benefits

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In contrast to casual cooperation, collaboration on large, complex projects tends to bring the participants only indirect benefits, since each member of the group interacts with only a small part of the end product.

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the work-reward ratio is so out of kilter from a free-market perspective—the workers do immense amounts of high-market-value work without being paid—that these collaborative efforts make no sense within capitalism

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An enthusiast may spend months writing code for a subroutine when the program's full utility is several years away. In fact, the work-reward ratio is so out of kilter from a free-market perspective—the workers do immense amounts of high-market-value work without being paid—that these collaborative efforts make no sense within capitalism.

Highlighted by jrstoltz

In fact, the work-reward ratio is so out of kilter from a free-market perspective—the workers do immense amounts of high-market-value work without being paid—that these collaborative efforts make no sense within capitalism.

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economic dissonance

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Adding to the economic dissonance, we've become accustomed to enjoying the products of these collaborations free of charge. Instead of money, the peer producers who create the stuff gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience.

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communal style of production that shuns capitalistic investors and keeps ownership in the hands of the workers, and to some extent those of the consuming masses

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While cooperation can write an encyclopedia, no one is held responsible if the community fails to reach consensus, and lack of agreement doesn't endanger the enterprise as a whole. The aim of a collective, however, is to engineer a system where self-directed peers take responsibility for critical processes and where difficult decisions, such as sorting out priorities, are decided by all participants.

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While millions of writers contribute to Wikipedia, a smaller number of editors (around 1,500) are responsible for the majority of the editing.

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"Inside every working anarchy, there's an old-boy network."

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"Inside every working anarchy, there's an old-boy network."

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This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some types of collectives benefit from hierarchy while others are hurt by it.

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In the past, constructing an organization that exploited hierarchy yet maximized collectivism was nearly impossible. Now digital networking provides the necessary infrastructure. The Net empowers product-focused organizations to function collectively while keeping the hierarchy from fully taking over.

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In the past, constructing an organization that exploited hierarchy yet maximized collectivism was nearly impossible. Now digital networking provides the necessary infrastructure.

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Wikipedia is not a bastion of equality, but it is vastly more collectivist than the Encyclopædia Britannica. The elite core we find at the heart of online collectives is actually a sign that stateless socialism can work on a grand scale

Highlighted by eltico

it can be seen as a cultural OS that elevates both the individual and the group at once. The largely unarticulated but intuitively understood goal of communitarian technology is this: to maximize both individual autonomy and the power of people working together. Thus, digital socialism can be viewed as a third way that renders irrelevant the old debates.

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The new OS is neither the classic communism of centralized planning without private property nor the undiluted chaos of a free market. Instead, it is an emerging design space in which decentralized public coordination can solve problems and create things that neither pure communism nor pure capitalism can.

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Revolutions have grown out of much smaller numbers.

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don't think of themselves as revolutionaries

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Indeed, the leaders of the new socialism are extremely pragmatic. A survey of 2,784 open source developers explored their motivations. The most common was "to learn and develop new skills."

Highlighted by jrstoltz

Indeed, the leaders of the new socialism are extremely pragmatic.

Highlighted by driessen

But the last election demonstrated the power of a decentralized, webified base with digital collaboration at its core.

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the sharing model is a viable alternative to both profit-seeking corporations and tax-supported civic institutions.

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The increasingly common habit of sharing what you're thinking (Twitter), what you're reading (StumbleUpon), your finances (Wesabe), your everything (the Web) is becoming a foundation of our culture.

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groups that span continents, with people you don't know and whose class is irrelevant—that makes political socialism seem like the logical next step

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e markets over the past century

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a long list of problems that seemed to require rational planning or paternal government and instead applied marketplace logic

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Much of the prosperity in recent decades was gained by unleashing market forces on social problems

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Now we're trying the same trick with collaborative social technology, applying digital socialism to a growing list of wishes—and occasionally to problems that the free market couldn't solve—to see if it works. So far, the results have been startling

Highlighted by eltico

Now we're trying the same trick with collaborative social technology, applying digital socialism to a growing list of wishes—and occasionally to problems that the free market couldn't solve—to see if it works.

Highlighted by driessen

We underestimate the power of our tools to reshape our minds

Highlighted by eltico

we find that the power of the new socialism is bigger than we imagined.

Highlighted by driessen

The force of online socialism is growing. Its dynamic is spreading beyond electrons—perhaps into elections.

Highlighted by driessen

I don't think we need a new "ism" since an old one, volunteerism, describes the open source community perfectly

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on 2009-11-29 by maxugaz

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