The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Yochai Benkler

Yale University Press, 2006 - Business & Economics - 515 pages

With the radical changes in information production that the Internet has introduced, we stand at an important moment of transition, says Yochai Benkler in this thought-provoking book. The phenomenon he describes as social production is reshaping markets, while at the same time offering new opportunities to enhance individual freedom, cultural diversity, political discourse, and justice. But these results are by no means inevitable: a systematic campaign to protect the entrenched industrial information economy of the last century threatens the promise of today’s emerging networked information environment.

In this comprehensive social theory of the Internet and the networked information economy, Benkler describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing--and shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people can create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront us and maintains that there is much to be gained--or lost--by the decisions we make today.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - RobertPollard - LibraryThing

Brilliant book. Must read. In keeping with the analysis in the book, Yochai Benkler made the full text available under a Creative Commons, Non-Commercial licence.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - hennis - LibraryThing

Very interesting book, explains in DETAIL the facets of peer production and collective intelligence. A must read, but quite difficult to go through.

About the author

Yochai Benkler is the Joseph M. Field 55 Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Yale University.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
• Author: Yochai Benkler
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Yale University Press, 2006
• ISBN: 0300110561, 9780300110562
• Length: 515 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economics / General