In this essay, I review a book by Internet-savvy political consultant Nicco Mele.
Mele combines a sophisticated understanding of what he calls “radical connectivity” and its applications with what strikes me as a romantic view of history and politics.
Mele is a young progressive who placed great hope in phenomena like the Obama Presidential campaign and the Arab Spring. In the essay, I try to point out how his perspective might change with more awareness of important libertarian concepts, notably public choice and spontaneous order.
“Whether it’s roads or school improvements (or budget issues), frustrated citizens are mobilizing connective technologies to organize ad hoc projects, sometimes to supplement government activity, but frequently to replace or preempt it.”
Does he actually give examples of this? How many potholes have gotten filled thanks to Facebook groups? How many Twitter followers does it take to get a charter school off the ground? I’d be glad to hear about the internet prompting some sort of Tocquevillean civic re-engagement, but I’m skeptical it can or will happen on any real scale. More likely, I’d suspect, is that it creates more opportunities for what’s been called ‘slacktivism,’ which is long on sentiment and short on real world impact. Or, alternatively, I guess you can make the case that the so-called Arab Spring showed social media’s value for organizing protests and disseminating information to participants, but again, how useful are big public demonstrations, really?
he actually does give examples