TIFI

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, talks about the economics of organizations with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The conversation centers on Shirky’s book. Topics include Coase on the theory of the firm, the power of sharing information on the internet, the economics of altruism, and the creation of Wikipedia.

And a great bit of discussion on representative vs. direct democracy and the possibility that networks can enable direct democracy.

Via EconLog.

Contemporary scholars of American cultural history have begun writing that Sha Na Na’s greatest achievement was the invention of a new American era: the “Fifties.” The whole notion of how artists can change the way a historical era is viewed, and relatively quickly, is interesting on its own.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.