a) I used to work for WPP.
b) I work in the world of employment marketing and was just advising a client today on the importance of building a community feel on their recruiting site – because of the changes in how the “youth of today” approach their work…

Great post.

“Socialism” “Anarchism” perhaps you all need a definition of terms. “Anarchism” is s theory of political and life organization, “Socialism” is an economic model. Generally speaking “Anarchism” aka “Libertarian Socialism” are both models of interpersonal organization that follow a “Socialist” economic model.

I would add a response to your antithesis comment Perry.

Capitalism is also the antithesis of the free exchange of the Bazaar. The Bazaar was not a closed space, where only those who had the money, proper dress, and proper action were allowed.

Now the United States is covered in private property bazaars(shopping malls) and we’ve got this Net Neutrality bill coming down that’s going to destroy the work of small media guys like me, just trying to get real video and interpersonal stories about Iraq to the masses.

I’m sure you’ll deny it and say that Net Neutrality has nothing to do with freemarket practice, but then neither did the forced opening of Japan’s ports last century.

There is no free market, only free association. The impact of a “market” denies liberty, because it defines all resources as commodities. Unfortunately, not everything has a price.

Ok, so agencies will never die out but unless they realise soon that businesses are going to have to start listening to the hundreds of different voices on the internet instead of the agency alone, (like Hugh’s most recent cartoon “We’ll be right back”), they are going to be out on their ears.

And in the context of the internet he is wrong. There is nothing socialist about being not motivated by monetary profit. My blog gets 20,000 visitors a day and yet I feel no need to sell space for advertisements, does that make me a socialist because I run my site without regard for monetary profit? Also genuine charity, which is by definition not profit driven, is also the antithesis of socialism because it is voluntary and non-coerced.

Sorry but I cannot bear incoherence and Sorrell’s remarks are incoherent.

I guess what I’m arguing is socialist in his context means not market/profit driven. The anarchist context of his argument puts lie to the idea of centralism/market control you both refer to – as anarchism is about self organisation, which is inherant in so many web projects (Wisdom of Crowds and all that).

I certainly don’t believe in the web as some kind of perfect market metaphor. That’s for sure. Bazaar, debating chamber, coffee house yes. Market no. Post-autistic economics people.

And as for the mindset of people who follow that route in Britain today, yes indeed, think Orwell (1984, not the man)… there are more surveillance CCTV cameras per capita in Britain that Israel.

Moreover Sir Martin Sorrell is clearly deeply ignorance of that either socialism or anarchism really mean. Socialist anarchy is rather like pregnant virginity or carnivorous vegetarianism.

Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, has warned media owners must find ways to attract and retain talent and create stand-alone digital divisions in order to compete in the era of internet blogs, open access and online communities.