Grassroots Journalism and the Nature of the Media Conglomerate

If open source is better than capitalism at creating software (even the US govenment says so) and software and journalism have a lot in common which seems to be the case then Yochai Benkler's arguments(pdf) in favor of the economics of open source should also apply to the econmics of grassroots vs. mainstream journalism.

So with that in mind what conclusions can be drawn from Benkler's essay? I'm working on pulling and modifying some choice quotes. Post might slow down this coming week, the un-official craziest week of my life.

EDIT: Three beers later Kirk returned to his laptop; determined to draw some charcoal conclusions. So there are ideas that matter and then there are ideas that matter that nobody wants to think about. The latter category includes things like the singularity. It would be a world changing event and most rational thinkers agree that it is eventually inevitable but there is nothing to write about. It is chaos theory squashed into an hour and a half. I added some names to my link column on the right but I just don't have time to link to their sites.

I just got the OK to go to the Emerging Technology Conference and my employer is footing the bill. That I get to meet the people that I really believe are going to change the world (for the better) is something I find hard to belive. I wish I could plug my employer but people get fired for their blogs and I'd prefer to avoid that, needless to say not all Fortune 500 companies are evil.

I left a comment on one of my favourite websites and received an interesting response. I asked "How can France, Germany, etc. not understand that high taxes are bad for growth? It really isn't very complicated. Do they refuse free markets because they just hate America and are willing to suffer as long as they don't have to admit we might be on to something?"

And the reply, which I probably should have realized:
"They have free markets (insofar as any nation does). The problem (as you mention) is that they also have excessively high taxes. And here the problem is (awkward to say it!) democracy: the citizens will vote out any government that threatens its benefits."

And what a great point it is. So in 100 years people will look back at those that promised easy retirements and 35 hour work weeks as the destroyers of a large part of Western society. Democracy and Socialism are a dangerous mix.

I wrote about relativity a while ago. Relative to Communism and Totalitarianism, Democracy/Capitalism looks frikken genius. Parecon is the best alternative we've seen and it has been labeled Socialism 2.0. It boggles my mind. These systems are really brilliantly thought out, nobody would say that Marx was intellectually challenged but... the thought is infected with utopian idealism. What a waste that these great thinkers build an elaborate framework of ideas on a faulty foundation. Maybe that's why I like science, open source and alternative media. There is no tolerance for weak foundations.