In the February 26, 2007 issue of
Time magazine (p.51), Justin Fox writes about the connections between Peter Kropotkin's 1902
Classic Mutual Aid: A factor in Evolution, the "gift economy," Wikipedia, and open-source, volunteer-created computer software. The common denominator in the history of human progress is our tendency to help each other, beyond the abundance of "reckless individualism." (Kropotkin's works have been mentioned briefly earlier in this forum.) Yale law professor Yochai Benkler, a leading prophet of todays gift economy, is deeply interested in the growth of volunteer labor and the interplay of commerce and cooperation. To read his book,
The Wealth of Networks, go to
http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf.