The wealth of networks: how social production transforms markets and freedom

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 knowledgebased 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.