1. Benkler: “...battle over the institutional ecology of the
The Network Economy
New role of Culture in Economics
Implications for the nature of Markets, Property & Ownership
Creativity & Work
Commons & Ecology
Benkler: “...battle over the institutional ecology of the
digital environment”

2. Redefining Wealth Quantitative: Qualitative: Money & Material
Accumulation
Qualitative:
Well-being
Regeneration

3. McLuhan on Technology Extension of human senses & functions
Civilization: extending muscles & bodily functions like heating
Electronic technology: extending the human mind & nervous system

4. Questions
Is capitalism an intrinsically material-based and scarcity-based system?
How does information redefine property?
How do we support or remunerate culture-based production?
What is the appropriate balance of commercial & non-market production in the economy?
Does ‘globalization’ of information require economic globalization?

5. Related Questions
Who are corporate allies in the quest to free up culture flows?
What business models can tolerate non-proprietary information?
What are possible negative impacts of mass collaboration?
What are the implications for university research & education?

6. Knowledge-based Development
Dematerialization: intrinsic: substituting information for resources
Detoxification: ...great potential to tune into benign process & substances.
Decentralization: intrinsic part of the network economy

7. Hardware & Sustainability
Electronics: design for obsolescence. The Waste Economy.
Design for monopoly: incompatibility
E-waste & toxicity
Electronics & global labour exploitation.
Crucial role of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in reducing & reusing.
New possibilities for efficiency in the “World Wide Computer”

8. Work (Creativity) in the Info Economy
a growing proportion of work is involved in the production of “meaning & value”
a break from the historic role of worker as cog in the Megamachine
the decline of bureaucracy
people as means & ends of ‘development’; inversion of ‘investment-consumption’ relationship
all-round human development: underlying basis for “creative class” economy: freedom & individuation.
N.B.: The overwhelming portion of ecological development—green building, permaculture, renewable energy, eco-industrial networks, reuse-based waste management etc.--all require greater knowledge

9. Commons in the Info Economy
Sharing & conservation: key role of design.
Sharing: flip side of the new importance of creativity.
Green goods and info goods as “public goods”, not easily served by market exchange.
Key struggles today: over control of the Commons—the “2nd Enclosure”

10. Democracy & the New Commons
the Digital Divide
Net Neutrality & the Information Highway
Struggle over Bandwidth