Hope for the future of our world resides in open systems, decentralized social and technological networks which reject the traditional top-down power model that has been with humanity for millennia. Not only is the concept of a strongman, commanding a hierarchy (closed network) perilously susceptible to corruption and narrowmindedness, it assumes that the leader's single brain will out-perform the collective intelligences of everyone beneath him. This may have been true hundreds of years ago, when the lives of the vast majority of people were lived within the scope of a single, lightly populated village; but in a technological society based on connectivity, connectivity on a scale we've never seen before in the history of our species, the closed, hierarchical network collapses beneath the weight of millions of educated minds collectively contributing to the advancement of a particular aim. The Starfish And The Spider is a clever discussion of both this idea and examples of how it has been successfully applied to every day life.
The title of this work is a wonderful illustration of the book's argument. A spider is the strongman. Everything, power, food, flows to him through his web. Kill the spider and the web dies. There's no one left to tend it, organize it. A starfish, by contrast, is a completely decentralized network. Cut off any part of the starfish and it grows back. There is no part of the starfish more vital to its functioning than any other part. The authors offer another, human analogy. The Aztec empire which, at its height, had a population in the millions and territory covering most of South and Central America, was felled by 500 Spanish conquistadors, captained by a man who deployed classic divide-and-conquer tactics against the Aztec's unpopular leader. Contrast this with the Spanish experience with the Apache tribes who held that the Apache culture was equally carried and advanced by each of its tribespeople, that if one warrior died, the next would rise up to carry on the ethos. Such a system confounded the Spaniards who, coming from a hierarchical society, couldn't conceive of a world built and administrated without leaders. Though many other causes contributed to the failure of the Aztecs and the endurance of the Apache, and though starfish are not immune to killing blows, the point is that our traditional notion of investing our faith and, our trust and our self-worth in a single savior only makes us emotionally and societally vulnerable to that leader's ouster. Distributing an equal share of faith and trust across a community of people ensures survival and persistence in the group so long as a single member of the group draws breath. It is a powerful and convincing reversal of fortune, the conversion of a weakness into a strength, that is demonstrated most often in the Internet-based phenomena of the 21st century like Napster and Wikipedia and Facebook, entities which would not exist, which would not have distributable content, without their millions of contributing users.
While the authors are successful in depicting the optimistic view of open networks, they fail to speak to some of the difficult challenges of leaderless movements. Yes, they are difficult to kill, but what if they've served their purpose? Will they naturally wind down, or will they have accumulated enough power that they will persists despite the wishes of their members? The Tea Party is an excellent example of a leaderless movement that, once it has gained momentum, will be difficult to stop. With no leader to subvert, the Tea Party is a powerful force for political and economic change in the United States. This is good. But what will be enough for the Tea Party? When will they be satisfied? When will they stop? Will everyone involved, everyone who has been given a purpose by the Tea Party, collectively decide to walk away, content in the knowledge they've done good, or will its embryonic leadership convince its members that more must be done? Simply put, is an open network susceptible to being converted into a hierarchical network by the twin temptations of power and money?
This is a worthwhile discussion of an important and powerful idea. It is argued well and it's certainly entertaining, but a failure to discuss some of the weaknesses of open networks left me wondering if this is just wishful thinking. The egalitarian principles of leaderless movements are potent forces for change in our world, change for the good, but egalitarianism doesn't have the best success rate. We can only hope that this time will be different. (3/5 Stars)
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