Elinor Olstrom won the nobel prize (first woman to win nobel economics prize) for her work showing that communities are able to manage community properties better than expected -- government and private management are not the only answers. I wrote in an earlier post that we as a society should be working on the most optimized, comprehensive, answers to any issue, however nuanced, complicated, large, new that answer may be. I helped to co-found a website called Open Congress, which I believe helps to pave the way for a community-managed political process by making information, organizing tools, transparent and usable -- only if we can change who gets engaged can we all understand the way to solve problems.

This excerpt from the NYTimes article on the economics prize is very relevant to our shared work and ideas at ANWF:

“Economics has been too isolated and these awards today are a sign of the greater enlightenment going around. We were too stuck on efficient markets and it was derailing our thinking.”

The prize committee, in making the awards, seemed to be influenced by the credit crisis and the severe recession that in the minds of many mainstream economists has highlighted the shortcomings of a unregulated marketplace, in which “economic actors,” left to their own devices, will act in their own self-interests and in doing so, will enhance everyone’s well-being.

The committee, in effect, said that theory was too simplistic and ignored the unstated relationships and behaviors that develop among companies that are competitors but find ways to resolve common problems. “Both scholars have greatly enhanced our understanding of non-market institutions” other than government, the committee said.

“Basically there is a common understanding that develops even among competitors when they are dealing with each other,” Mr. Shiller said, adding “when people make business contact, even competitors, they can’t anticipate everything, so an element of trust comes in.”

A prominent anti-corruption activist, Lessig recently wrote against the naked transparency movement. I agree with him that there shouldn't be a push for transparency as an end. It's obvious to organizing tool makers that transparency is a prerequisite to changing the way the system engages the public sphere - Lessig advocates for greater reform measures coupled with transparency. I am definitely for that. Strict work on campaign contributions though concentrates on reforming the political system without making assumptions about the actual mechanics of the political system and how the mechanics themselves affect the public sphere. His article is not against public participation, but strict work on campaign contributions does not address the issue of public participation. He's saying, "hey start working on campaign contributions directly"- to mobilize people on that issue, there needs to be more education to get people mad. Transparency is a part of that education and he needs it if he wants to inspire people to do something. He writes,

"But if the transparency movement could be tied to this movement for reform--if every step for more transparency were attended by a reform that would disabuse us of the illusion that this technology is just a big simple blessing, and set out to make transparency both good and harmless--then its consequence could be salutary and constructive. When transparency and democracy are considered in this way, we may even permit ourselves to imagine a way out of this cycle of cynicism....As with ProPublica or nonprofit newspapers, or a "cultural flat-rate," or a compulsory license to compensate for file-sharing, proposals for public funding can thus be understood as a response to an unavoidable pathology of the technology--its pathological transparency--that increasingly rules our lives and our institutions. Without this response--with the ideal of naked transparency alone--our democracy, like the music industry and print journalism generally, is doomed. The Web will show us every possible influence. The most cynical will be the most salient. Limited attention span will assure that the most salient is the most stable. Unwarranted conclusions will be drawn, careers will be destroyed, alienation will grow. No doubt we will rally to the periodic romantic promising change (such as Barack Obama), but nothing will change. D.C. will become as D.C. is becoming: a place filled with souls animated by--as Robert Kaiser put it recently in his fine book So Damn Much Money--a "familiar American yearning: to get rich."'

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