The Next Social Revolution?

Cryofan writes "In a recent interview, Howard Rheingold (author of Smart Mobs) discussed the possibility of a 'new economic system' born of 'unconscious cooperation' embodied by such technologies as Google links and Amazon lists, Wikipedia, wireless devices using unlicensed spectrum, Web logs, and open-source software. Rheingold speculates that 'the technology of the Internet, reputation systems, online communities, mobile devices...may make some new economic system possible....We had markets, then we had capitalism, and socialism was a reaction to industrial-era capitalism. There's been an assumption that since communism failed, capitalism is triumphant, therefore humans have stopped evolving new systems for economic production.' However, Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'"

Read carefully...

[maggeth]

Stopping file sharing will make the US fall behind? By definition file sharing would be pointless if the US wasn't so anal about copyrights and IP. You have mass file sharing because of the US. The US will crumble without file sharing???... how the heck did this guy make that connection? Someone please enlighten me... I'm not following the logic.

We could get into a long discussion about how the US patent model conflicts with the EU patent model, and how perhaps they are starting to merge together depending on what you believe, and that would probably turn into a flamefest. The point that he is trying to make is that if there is going to be some sort of technogically-inspired shift in social matters beyond the kind of thing we see now, that having goverenments interfere will ultimately be useless and only slow progress (falling behind so to say instead of stopping completely). He explains further:

"Never before in history have we been able to see incumbent businesses protect business models based on old technology against creative destruction by new technologies. And they're doing it by manipulating the political process. The telegraph didn't prevent the telephone, the railroad didn't prevent the automobile. But now, because of the immense amounts of money that they're spending on lobbying and the need for immense amounts of money for media, the political process is being manipulated by incumbents."

So I would guess that his message is to let the technology happen and adapt.

Re:A New Economics System?

[Xeth]

People do work together for the common good. But only in certain fields. Some people feel the call to advance human knowledge, and do it because it's what they want, not because they're in it for the money. The same is true for Open Source. The problem is, it's nobody's dream to clean toilets, and there are plenty of such jobs that need to be done in order for society to function.

Re:Don't worry

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

You know, the refrigerator did not stop people from selling ice. I'm pretty sure that more ice is sold now than was sold in the early 1900s.

I have news for you: I've travelled the world quite extensively, and *only in the US* is ice so widely available for sale to the general public. I can think of no other first world country (I visited) where one can pop into a supermarket and get out with a bag of frozen water. Why is that do you think?

RTFA!

[Garabito]

Ok, maybe that's asking for too much.

But the idea of the interview is not that people is willing to work together for the commong good. The idea is that people is actually doing what is better for them, and by doing that, they are uncounciusly working for the common good - ie: P2P networks.

Re:Major problem: Human Greed

[Daniel Dvorkin]

[sigh] One of the things that drives me nuts about Randroids is the way they try to redefine perfectly good words to fit their own ends. (They remind me, in this as in a lot of ways, of Marxists. Actually.) "Greed" and "self-interest" do not have the same meaning; they are similar but distinct concepts, and everyone but fanatics understands this.

Greed: taking everything you can get your hands on.

Self-interest: acting in the way that most benefits you.

Is this too hard to understand?

Re:Don't worry

[fodi]

You can get it at every servo in Australia. Most convenience stores (a la 7-Eleven) also sell it

Economics 2.0

[bcrowell]

Charles Stross has a funny riff about this in his SF novel Accelerando, which is currently being serialized intermittently in Asimov's. The novel is coming out this year, I think. Entities running Economics 1.0 are strongly urged not to enter into any contracts with those running 2.0 :-)

Re:There is need for concern...

[zors]

but the point is that business in the United States

its right there in the comment.

Re:I would agree with him...

[DarkMantle]

Well... There is a society in Canada where they are researching the possability of a world with no money. We proved that computer software, the internet, and other open/public technologies can survive without corprate funding.

In Star Trek, they are a human society that has no need or want for wealth. People who like to program will still program, those who like to build hardware will still do so. And if we create robots to do the manual labour (build houses, vehicles etc...) then people will have the time to do as they desire (become artists, musicians, programmers, whatever) and we would have no need for the RIAA, because the musicians would record stuff on their computers at home, and distribute it through bit torrent (or other P2P application)

gift economy

[S3D]

What all this trend are converge to is in fact a Gift economy [wikipedia.org] or Potlach [wikipedia.org] economy. In gift economy status of the participant defined not by his material possesion and not by formal administartive standing(that is not how many people he can order around), but how famous he is and how generous to society. That is status defined by reputation, and reputation defined by magnitude of his deeds and benefits of community caused by those deeds. The potlatch itself is an example of a gift economy, whereby the host demonstrates their wealth and prominence through giving away their possessions during huge feast and thus prompt participans to reciprocate when they hold their own potlatch. Host of potlach usually was spending all his material possesion during potlach. The potlach economy was widespread all around the world, among native americans, siberians, steppes of Asia etc. That is it's proven that such economy can exists. BTW mongol tribes of Genghis Khan [wikipedia.org] practiced potlach.

Re:There is need for concern...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The weekend was created."

I do belive that religion created the weekend.....its in the bible if you don't belive me...its called the sabath. Anyway i wouldn't give to much credit to the unions...in germany they killed 11 million in soviet russia 20 million and in china 30 million...but yeah sure even if they added an extra day to the weekend (i doubt it was them) i really don't think it was worth it.

[e-mail]

Economic systems

[kjpeters]

'...therefore humans have stopped evolving new systems for economic production.'
No we haven't http://www.parecon.org [parecon.org]. Its just that people have stopped reporting such things.

Re:Not Yet the magic kingdom

[SQL Error]

Now, you know, a lot of the "rest of the world" isn't quite as paranoid about other people wanting to steal their stuff.

A lot of the rest of the world has no need to be paranoid about other people wanting to steal their stuff. Because they can see it happening. Their own governments are doing it.

A lot of us actually believe that the vast majority of the time, most people like to cooperate.

The entire structure of Western Civilisation is built on trust networks, and this is more true in America than it is in Europe. Trust and co-operation do not rule out competition. But socialist governments do.

And there are enough people that like to act ethically that things like wikipedia and open-source can actually work.

Yes. And?

Either the system allows free choice and free distribution of rewards - which is capitalism. Or it doesn't. And capitalism has out-competed every other system humanity has ever devised. Capitalism produces more and better goods cheaper and with less effort. It's capitalism that has produced the immense surplus of wealth that allows us to spend our free time developing software just to give it away.

Re:Don't worry

[stephanruby]

"Seems to me like a classic case of water down the product and rip off the consumer. "

Don't forget the fact that they supersize the product to make it appear more valuable, and then (like you said) they water it down to rip off the consumer.

The sirup for soda machines and the corns for popcorn both have one thing in common. They're incredibly cheap to produce, incredibly cheap to store, and incredibly cheap to distribute.

Last I checked the US was behind JAPAN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, you guys need to get your little factoids hats checked.

Japan has been consistently beating us economically for a while now. So what is this ignorant line about the US falling behind "the rest" of the world? Japan is #1 right now.

In terms of this so-called Unconcious market - which is a stupid and inane term, you wouldn't want to run anything unconciously - what happens if the system fails? If power outages abound? We saw what happened during the nationwide blackout of 2003. It would be pretty stupid to combine "Google, Wikipedia and Amazon". C'mon guys. The new economy has been here for a while - it's called paperless money transfer, and has been taking place online and at our jobs for years now.

Re:Don't worry

[lone_marauder]

I can't think of a single other instance in U.S. history where a conglomeration of companies have had the power to stall technological advancement and changing economic structures, but this is precisely what they have done.

This really isn't that unprecedented. There was a big effort by the riverboat lobby to stop the development of railroads back in the 1800s.

Re:Don't worry

[n4vu]

As a retiree of a well-known soft drink manufacturer, I can tell you (unofficially) that the recommendation is crushed ice up to 1/3 of the container. Some places fill the container with ice, and that's pretty short-sighted on a couple of levels -- not just customer satisfaction, but also blissful unawareness of the cost of the ice. -- John Miller

Incorrect terminology.

[lysium]

Hopefully governments won't start fucking with things to protect their client corporations and realise that everyone needs to adapt. Otherwise they might as well be full-blown communists.

Actually, they would be full-blown fascists. High-level cooperation between government and business leaders is the foundation of a fascist state.

Re:Don't worry

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

And plastic pipe for plumbing was held back in British Columbia for a few years because it took a fraction of the time to install compared to the old (copper?) pipes, thus making plumbers less money.

Re:perhaps

[cayenne8]

"And I genuinely feel less refreshed when I have half a cup of ice in my drink."

Then you've obviously never spent a great deal of your life in the US South during the summer....especially New Orleans. Here in the land where when you get out of the shower, you begin to perspire BEFORE you can towel off....where the state bird is the mosquito...and it is jungle hot down here for almost half the year...You DEFINITELY feel refreshed with as many ice cold drinks as you can get during the day.

Hell, its probably why we drink so much beer so fast down here...gotta get it down before it gets warm...

:-)

Re:Don't worry

[Lodragandraoidh]

In Mexico they think a cold drink will lead to a throat infection - and so do not use ice to cool their drinks (seems a bit strange in our modern scientific age). You have to ask for ice over there. This is similar to the UK - where I never received a drink with ice without asking the two years I lived there. The first time I ran into this I was on the boardwalk at Greater Yarmouth - and it was a hot summer day - in the high 80s, which is hot for Britain - and I orderd a soda; the proprieter reaches up on a shelf, pulls down a can, blows dust off of it, and hands it to me. I drank it - but it did not cool me off or slack my thirst... :)

Back in the U.S:
In a restaurant setting, if you get iced tea - the amount of ice is irrelevant since you can get unlimited refills. Most fast food places now have a self serve soda fountain - so you can also get all the refills of soda you want (or need for that matter). I will admit that the cinemas are a ripoff when it comes to the concession stand - I used to work as a manager at a movie theatre, and most of our money came not from ticket sales (it was a dollar movie - so this could be different at first run cinemas) but from the concession stand.

In the Southern U.S. iced drinks are particularly appreciated in the dog days of Summer (90+ degree F. temps day in and day out). In a hot environment it is critical to be well hydrated and maintain a normal body temperature to avoid heat exhaustion/stroke - which might explain our proclivity for drinks with ice. An ice cooled drink is much more efficient at cooling off a human body, than drinking a room temperature drink, and sweating. This might also explain the rank b.o. experienced in various settings - since people who drink a cold drink cool their core temperature faster and thus sweat less. Is there any scientific studies to this effect? (My empirical observations seem to support this hypothesis)

Communism != Socialism

[egrinake]

To paraphrase Noam Chomsky; just that communist countries *called* themselves socialist doesn't actually mean they were. Just as some eastern European communist countries called themselves democratic republics, when they obviously were not.

In fact, the first thing that Lenin did after the communist revolution in Russia was to dimantle the workers organizations and centralize power, in conflict with the socialist ideals. Communism (the russian version) was a perversion of socialism, just like the spanish inquisition was a perversion of christianity.

What we call capitalism today isn't true free-market capitalism either, even though everyone seems to say it is. In fact, the current capitalist system is highly protectionist (just look at what goes on at the WTO), and western society as it's currently organized would collapse pretty fast if the state stopped intervening in the economic system.

Re:Not Yet the magic kingdom

[PMW]

"Oh, I should mention this while I'm ranting: the US economy's fortunes have very little to do with your brand of aggressive capitalism. If anything, you're doing well despite it. In the first part of the last century, you folks had a lot of oil, which is essential for fuelling an industrial economy and war machine. That's all. Just like England became wealthy with coal, you became wealthy because of oil- just an accident of history, really."

So gee, how did you reach that fascinating conclusion? Long hours of economic research? Nah, it was probably more along the lines of you going to a protest march where one of the speakers told you this "fact" and you just filed it away as revealed truth. Despite the fact that the speaker a) offered no proof whatsover b) the speaker has a BS in Chinese history and their knowledge of oil is limited to knowing that their car runs better on 89 octane.

You've got your ordering of events wrong. It's not Oil is discoverd -> US is rich..

The United States was a wealthy country before the 1st oil well was drilled. By 1900 the United States was a very wealthy country. By 1900 oil was a big business but the world still ran mostly on coal. And of course you're ignoring countries like Mexico and Venezuala where oil was found quite a while ago but didn't necessarily become rich from it.

Re:I don't follow your logic

[grimdonkey]

Actually, for the sake of correctness, after checking your info on wikipedia, I stumbled upon this little piece of trivia:

One common stereotype of the British (and indeed most residents of the British Isles) concerns their love of "warm beer". In fact, their beer is usually served around 12 degrees Celsius -- not as cool as most cold drinks, but still cool enough to be refreshing. Modern-day pubs keep their beer constantly at this temperature, but originally beer would be served at the temperature of the cellar in which it was stored. Proponents of British beer say that it relies on subtler flavours than that of other nations, and these are brought out by serving it at a temperature that would make other beers seem harsh.

When it comes to beer, I like to have my information double-checked. Cheers!