Socialist software?

Stowe Boyd has a great post on why much of the skepticism about social computing is wide of the mark which he concludes with the following paragraph:

.... our orientation to social tools is a political act. Determining what you believe is good, or right, or what is the purpose of our lives in no small measure will determine whether you think Last.fm, Plazes, or 43places are cool. Participation in open social tools is egalitarian, at least to some extent. Our contributions become somewhat collective rather than personal, and that levels things out. If you are a progressive, and hope for an equalization of the inequities in the world, you might find joy in that participation. If you are conservative, you may view that dilution of personal investment as a sort of tax, or a waste of time. The eventual return of benefits through the generalized network may seem like wishing on a star: the fantasies of dewy-eyed idealist fringe lunatics.

It just struck me that this is the first time that I have even remotely seen a connection between the social in "social computing" and the social in "socialism". As I have said before I was never dawn to conventional bi-polar politics and the over simplification of "up the workers brother" was as unattractive to me as the blue rinse set of conservatism. But maybe, as mentioned in a previous post, we are seeing the emergence of a new way of taking collective responsibility for each other and a concern for the group's welfare over that of the individual that goes beyond either efficiency or the selfish desires of getting laid.

Comments

[Chris Corrigan]

The new partisan politics is not left-right, but top down vs. bottom up, complexity vs. simplicity. I think that's pretty clear. Social software is revolutionary in the same way that the left was in 1789: it represents the other side of a pole that hierarchy creates.

[John Barben]

The collective is connected
Opposition is expected
Barriers will be erected
Just be careful who's elected

[dave Snowden]

Chris's reference to 1789 is significant here
Revolutionary in an idealistic sense, based on a perception of rationality and atomism that went on the dominate the ideas that shaped the next couple of centuries.
Social software is a means of communication - like the phamplet was in the 18thC. It allowed (and allows) thinkgs to be said and distributed that coujld be contained.
However it is not different from the phamplet. Power and social convention (the powerful have only ruled becuase they could use social convention) are a part of the way they are. Such strucutres will emerge in the net as they did in the 18thC. To pretent they will not is the worst sort of idealism - it leads to oppression.

[Euan]

I have never, I don't think, claimed that this new means of communication in and of itself leads to a better world - it makes bad things happen better and faster just as it does the good things - but it is different in interesting ways and offers a wider distribution of sense making which will surely lead to different ways of distributing power which we ought to at least try to understand.

I am not sure about the word oppression but as the concerns raised by my Brave New World post make clear the ability to simply replicate and re-inforce existing inequalities clearly exists. All I am suggesting is that our means of challenging them and dealing with them are changing.

[Jon Husband]

Chris and Dave are on top of this (so to speak ;-) ... for another angle take a look at this brief article on MySpace as a corporate Trojan horse.