Capitalism, collaboration and Collective Intelligence

People as wise a Bill Gates have argued that capitalism is undermined by any movement to assemble a global "creative commons" that contains large bodies of scientific and cultural content

Don Tapscott, We are smarter than Me

Part of me bristles at Bill Gates's so utterly wholehearted embrace of capitalism that he would dis creative commons project just because it is collaborative. I would suggest *gasp* that capitalism is not all it's cracked up to be, and perhaps a little bit more recognition of our commonality might do the human race a whole lotta good.

But maybe it's just the traffic that makes me say that.

Let me explain. I've been bullied by people driving large vehicles for the last year, as I drive my (very) small, fuel efficient car around. Guys in big trucks like to tailgate me, which means as a defensive driver, I drop my speed in order to increase the gap between me and the person in front in order to allow enough time for the joker behind me to react without hitting me in case I have to suddenly brake. (Yes, a digression, but bear with me)

A few weeks ago in the local paper, a couple of newly transplanted Americans were complaining in the letters to the editor that Canadian pedestrians step out into crosswalks when the light is for them without looking for vehicles (that would be illegally entering the crosswalk). They said that pedestrians in American cities (their words, not mine) were more cautious (and hence less stupid?) I was confused at what the complaint was about. But being in PhD city again, I remember that as a pedestrian you take your life into your own hands here - the car rules, whether you have the right of way or not.

So what does this have to do with commonality?

Well, I think that the aggression of large trucks and the inability of drivers to stop for pedestrians stem from the same attitude. That attitude sees others in public spaces as objects, or potential obstacles in one's way. That attitude makes it easy to lose track of the fact that there are people in each of those cars, and the pedestrian wants to move through space efficiently just the same as you do. Would you not stop for a friend crossing the road? Would you tailgate the car that you knew was being driven by your mother?

It's because we so easily become overwhelmed by the number of people around us that we forget that they are people, who have the same feelings and thoughts as we do. There are so many people surrounding those of us who live in large cities that we forget that they are PEOPLE, not objects.

Capitalism also rests on the assumption that all the "agents" in the system are just that, parts of a system in which the individuality of each of those agents gets lost in the theory. Really, that's a lot of what Marx was talking about.* Collaborative creations, whether they are driven by a creative or an economic urge, can't help but remind us that we are not the only people on earth surrounded by objects or obstacles in our way. They remind us that some of those objects or obstacles are people. People who feel and think in ways eerily similar to our own (or sometimes, even more eerily, dissimilar to our own!)

There's another important part of that sentence, that I'm poignantly reminded of, having recently been in two different countries for their successive celebrations of their nations' creation. "capitalism is undermined by any movement to assemble a global "creative commons" that contains large bodies of scientific and cultural content". The global nature of our culture has been (over)stated many times before. But the kind of divisions created by nationalism - the dominant means for dividing cultures and peoples over the last few centuries - have also brought damage through misplaced patriotisms, boundary disputes, and the need to retain "sovereignty". Perhaps a reminder of our commonality, our collective intelligence, rather than divisions along national (or even ethnic) lines could do us a lot of good.

I realize that this blog post borders on the lines of... what, flights of fantasy? Some might accuse me of Pollyannism. Fair enough. But we've tried intellectual property rights, increasing copyright legislation (think DRM and P2P), nationalism, division, the spread of capitalism... perhaps its time for a new plan?

*I realize Marx was much more complex than this simple reduction, but much of his theory rests upon the assumption that people are people, not cogs in a machine.