Internet and Ideology

Russ Roberts writes

Seems to me the essence of the web is a decentralized world, a world whether information and power and ideas and solutions don't have to be top-down but are more likely to be bottom-up. It would seem to me that if you're a fan of tagging and social web sites and wikipedia, it's hard to embrace centralized solutions to social problems. But maybe not.

This is in the aftermath of his interview with David Weinberger, an interview which didn't really show off David's energy and wit. I have also puzzled at how someone who "gets" the spontaneous order of the Internet could retain faith in conventional left-wing politics. I wrote about that, using Weinberger as an example, four years ago.

Meanwhile, Peter Klein links to a paper providing an interesting demonstration that property ownership increases pro-market beliefs.

I still have hope that the Internet will foster disillusionment with conventional politics, rather than be a vehicle to mobilize more support for legacy candidates and ideas. On the Internet, you experience something that works well with minimal central control. One would hope to see people become more receptive to the notion of minimal central control as a general principle.

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