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[This is the pre-print version of a book review forthcoming in the journal
‘Prometheus’ in 2007. See the journal webpage:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/08109028.asp ]
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production
Transforms Markets and Freedom
Yochai Benkler
New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2006, xii + 515 pp., US$ 40.00, ISBN
0-300-11056-1, cloth.
This is a visionary book written by a man on a mission. It articulates one possible
answer to the question of what might come after the proprietary-based knowledge-
based economy that currently exists in advanced countries. Benkler is professor of
law at Yale Law School and one of the most ardent proponents of the open source
movement and the information commons approach. He argues that a new form of
economy might be emerging, i.e. the “networked information economy”, in which
nonmarket and nonproprietary commons-based peer production (i.e. “social
production”) and exchange of information, knowledge and culture play a central role.
This has become feasible because the capital required for social production and
exchange in the networked information economy is relatively cheap and widely
distributed.
Much of the book argues the perceived advantages of the networked information
economy from a multi-disciplinary and liberal political perspective, and the numerous
threats endangering the realisation of its potential. The incumbents of the existing
proprietary-based “industrial information economy”, in particular Hollywood and the
recording industry, have to loose much and only social practices and political action
can prevent them from strangulating the fledgling networked information economy
through over-regulation. A recurring theme throughout the book is the plea to keep
open access, as much as possible, to information and communication infrastructure, to
existing information, knowledge and culture, and to the creation of new information,
knowledge and culture. In short, information wants to be free, needs to be free, and
the resources necessary to produce and exchange it should be available to everyone.
The book is divided into an introduction and three major parts. Part one consists of
three chapters that describe the technological-economic transformation making the
new production practices of the networked information economy possible. Chapter
two introduces some of the basic economics of information production and
innovation. It covers basic features of information as an economic good, like non-
rivalry, that make it a candidate for nonmarket production, and some basic ideas about
knowledge accumulation (like the ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ argument) that
indicate the dangers which overly restrictive patent and copyright laws might pose to
future knowledge creation. Most of the material is well-known, but central as building
blocks for the main arguments put forward in the book.
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Chapter three looks closely at social production and exchange, discussing open source
software production, as well as many non-software related collaborative projects like
Wikipedia, public resource computing projects like SETI@home, peer-to-peer file-
sharing platforms like Napster, KaZaa, the application of sharing-based techniques to
communication, e.g. Skype. They seem to reflect the state of affairs at about the
middle of 2004. Many of these phenomena depend on participants having systematic
excess computing capacity available. Business models that might make such excess
capacity superfluous, such as ‘computing on demand’, or that make widespread
commercial distributed computing feasible, are potentially a major threat to the core
of Benkler’s networked information economy. At best, they are briefly mentioned in
the book. The next chapter provides answers to three puzzling aspects of nonmarket
(especially peer) production from an economic perspective: Why do people
participate? Why now, why here? Is sharing of material and non-material resources
via the Internet (computing power, creativity etc.) ‘efficient’? Benkler introduces the
reader to some of his specific vocabulary associated with ‘sharable goods’, like
modularity, granularity and lumpiness. However, the discussion is not as extensive as
in some of his earlier articles.1
Part two is by far the largest part of the book, containing six chapters that are both
descriptive and normative. They deal mostly with the social and political
opportunities that have arisen due to the transformations described in part one, but the
realisations of which are by no means inevitable. It elaborates why, despite being
enabled by technological changes, the networked information economy is not
determined by them. Chapter five discusses the networked information economy’s
potential to increase individual autonomy, thereby remedying the loss of agency that
was imposed by the industrial economy. Amongst other things, Benkler discusses the
advantages of commons-based wired and wireless infrastructure compared to their
proprietary versions. He sees commons-based wireless systems as the primary legal
form of communications capacity that does not systematically subject its users to
manipulation by infrastructure owners. The networked information economy also
leads to a radical increase in the number of information sources. In this context the
author addresses two critical objections to his vision, i.e. quality concerns and the
issue of information overload (the Babel objection). These are serious and hotly
debated issues, but commons-based peer production itself is beginning to show how
they might be overcome.
The next two chapters focus on the possible contributions of the networked
information economy to an improved public sphere. Benkler’s discussion extents the
well-known debate about the democratising effects of the Internet. Chapter six first
postulates the design characteristics of a communications platform for a liberal public
sphere, before critically reviewing the role of the mass media in the 20th century and
earlier. The focus is mostly on U.S. media history, but some developments in other
countries are also mentioned. The chapter should be a useful item on a media studies
reading list. One shortcoming is the sometimes insufficient referencing. For example,
Harold Innis, Alfred Chandler, James Beniger, Eli Noam are mentioned, but no
references are provided.
Chapter seven discusses how the dominance of the industrial information economy’s
mass media model is being challenged by the emerging networked information
economy, and how these developments have the potential to alleviate the worst
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weaknesses of the old model. Citizens need no longer be passive consumers and
spectators, but can become active participants. Basic communication tools like email,
mailing lists, the world wide web, and blogs are discussed, as well as interesting case
studies about the 2004 U.S. election. This is followed by an overview of findings
from research on Web typology, small world phenomena etc. Next, the argument is
put forward that peer production also produces the public watchdog function in the
networked public sphere, and examples of distributed political action are given. The
chapter finishes with an interesting discussion of how networked communications can
work around authoritarian control, using examples from former Yugoslavia, Iran,
China and, as extreme outlier or exception to prove the rule, Myanmar.
Benkler also tries to contribute to political theory. He argues in chapter eight that
cultural production and exchange should be seen as legitimate subjects for normative
evaluation within liberal political theory and that in the networked environment they
are attractive development from the perspective of such theory. A large part of the
chapter is descriptive, providing many examples of new forms of cultural production.
The core contributions of the networked environment to increased transparency of
cultural symbols and the openness to alternative views is illustrated by a Google
search for the cultural meaning of the Barbie doll. Many readers fed up with market-
dominated culture will be delighted to know that there exists a Barbie Liberation
Organization! Like in the case of information and knowledge production, there is
danger that freedom of cultural production in the networked information economy
might become severely restricted due to the power of industrial information economy
incumbents in shaping the regulatory environment.
Chapter nine is even more ambitious. The author tries to establish the positive impacts
of social production and exchange on issues of justice, economic development and
human welfare. The topics covered range far and wide, from liberal theories of justice
to information-embedded goods and tools, from Amartya Sen and the Human
Development Index to a variety of commons-based solutions to economic
development, including sector specific analyses and issues like software production,
scientific publication, food security and production of and access to medicines. The
basic claim that the networked information economy provides new paths to improving
human welfare is well argued, but Benkler is no specialist in the vast literature on
economic development, or the more specific one on the role of information, and of
information and communications technologies, in development. Experts in these
fields might fell frustrated by the few aspects of these highly complex issues that are
highlighted by the author.
The next chapter reviews the social science literature on the effects of the Internet on
social relations, i.e. on community and family. Increased individual autonomy is
central to Benkler’s claims about the networked information economy. He therefore
needs to counter the possibility that more Internet use leads to social isolation,
alienation and destruction of social capital. Again, the story he weaves seems
convincing. People use to Internet mostly for strengthen pre-existing relationships and
for establishing some limited-purpose, loose relationships, the later being important
for social production an exchange. However, social capital expert may find the
coverage of the literature somewhat selective, and a non-expert may be annoyed by
Benkler mentioning, for example, seminal authors like James Coleman, Mark
Granovetter and Robert Putnam, without providing references to their work.
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Part three of the book consists of just two chapters, a long chapter detailing the battles
over the institutional ecology of the digital environment, and a concluding chapter
summarizing the main arguments made in the book. Chapter eleven provides an
overview of how law and policy are being shaped in response to the developments
discussed earlier in the book, and how this affects the production, use and exchange of
information etc. Numerous struggles shape the institutional setup in which the
different production and exchange modes compete. For the potential gains in
autonomy, democracy, critical culture, justice, human development etc. associated
with social production and exchange to be realised, the institutional setup of a society
has to create space for these activities so that they can become more than fringe
practices. Benkler is correct to emphasis the co-evolution of law, technology,
behaviour and social practices, but I was disappointed to see no references to the large
institutional economics literature that exists on this topic. As in many parts of the
book, Benkler uses interesting and sometimes colourful examples to make his points.
For example, he discusses how the law dealt with an artist’s video showing U.S.
president George Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair lip-synching a love
ballad, and the legal treatment of shopbots.
To sum up, the book should be of interest to a wide readership, i.e. anyone concerned
about the future of the knowledge-based economy, and economic, social and political
alternatives to the current market-dominated model. Benkler makes the reader look at
advanced capitalist economies and societies in a new way. The book, although
sometimes repetitive, is full of interesting facts and new perspectives on the
networked information economy and its struggles with the industrial information
economy. Whether social production and exchange of information, knowledge and
culture will be able to secure enough space to warrant the label networked
information economy and society remains an open question.
The breath of topics covered and the multi-disciplinary nature of the book imply that
often only a selective review of the literature is given. This is counter-balanced, if not
more than compensated, by providing the broader picture which would not be visible
from a narrower disciplinary perspective. Somewhat more surprising is the neglect of
some prominent U.S. based researchers who have worked on a number of the major
issues raised in the book. For example, Paul David isn’t mentioned anywhere, despite
his prominent work on open science and open source. Benkler definitely comes across
as a man on a mission who is more concerned with getting his basic message onto a
big canvas rather than providing an academic tome that aims at a representative
coverage of the relevant literature.
The phenomena associated with the networked information economy highlighted by
Benkler, and the hypotheses put forward, deserve further theoretical and empirical
analysis by others based in a variety of disciplines. Some readers might interpret
Benkler’s networked information economy to foreshadow a new form of
(information-based) socialism. However, the industrial information economy and the
networked information economy are just two extreme cases, leaving many in-between
possibilities. For example, an alternative not properly explored in the book is that
social production and exchange, or something similar, might increasingly be taken up
by commercial businesses, producing new synergies between proprietary and non-
proprietary modes. Elastic Compute Cloud, the new venture by Amazon.com which is
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spearheading that company’s latest transformation, comes to mind, as do many
examples of peer-production within companies. Alternatively, what emerges might
transcend both capitalism and socialism, constituting a shift to a truly new type of
socio-economic system.2 There is need to relate Benkler’s work to the institutional
economics literature on varieties of capitalism etc. to which it contributes. There is
also need for empirical research, for example on the relative economic efficiency of
social production and exchange systems for information, knowledge and culture, over
market-based systems, and for specific studies of the motivational factors underlying
social production and exchange projects.
True to his mission, Benkler has made the book, and many of his other publications,
available for free on the Internet. The interested reader is referred to the Science
Commons reading room of the Creative Commons website at http://sciencecommons.
org/resources/readingroom.html, which links to Benkler’s website at http://www.
benkler.org/. Many of the references used in the book are also available from Science
Commons.
Notes and References
1. I recommend the following publications to anyone interested in Benkler’s
economic methodology: Benkler, Yochai (2002), “Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and
The Nature of the Firm”, Yale Law Journal, Vol. 112, No. 3, pp. 369-446; and
Benkler, Yochai (2004), “Sharing Nicely: On Shareable Goods and the
Emergence of Sharing as a Modality of Economic Production”, Yale Law Journal,
Vol. 114, No. 2, pp. 273-358.
2. For an example of a search for the latter, see Geoffrey Hodgson, Economics and
Utopia: Why the Learning Economy is not the End of History, Routledge: London,
1999.
Hans-Jürgen Engelbrecht
College of Business, Turitea Campus
Massey University, New Zealand
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