Ahead of the Crowd

Collective Intelligence is the theory of collaboration that forms the core of Web 2.0. Authors Eric S. Raymond (The Cathedral and the Bazaar) and James Surowiecki (The Wisdom of Crowds) assert that (under the right conditions) better decisions and greater productivity will result from more people contributing their minds to the problem-solving process. From our perspective, the story of Collective Intelligence starts in the classical antiquity era and follows a path of rich intellectual development. Through the lens of history, we’ll see that the theory only makes sense in economic systems that offer equal opportunity to all.

You might think of Web 2.0 collaboration as a 21st century innovation, but its principles date back to ancient Greece. The classical era of Athens featured democratic institutions that ruled for over 500 years. The marketplace (agora) formed the center of civic life and the main communications hub. Athens’ rise in economic power through sea trade fueled the growth of democracy, which created political and economic rights for everyone except women, slaves, and aliens. Every man over age 18 who had completed military duty, regardless of wealth, could speak and vote in the Assembly, which set the laws. Just as economic growth and democracy emancipated Athens from the rule of tyrants, the Web today seems to offer individuals a level playing field against corporate and media interests.

Another interesting parallel between Athenian democracy and the Web is representation. Each citizen represented his own interests directly (with no elected representatives) and the modern Web similarly minimizes the need for intermediaries. Drawbacks of this model include the potential of extreme behavior. For example, Athenians had the annual opportunity to ostracize and banish unpopular people, somewhat like being voted off the island in a modern-day Survivor television episode.

Fast forward to English philosopher John Locke in the 17th century, when the ideals of economic freedom and political equality converged again. According to him, the individual is the ultimate source of political power. Government’s right to rule comes only from power delegated by its citizens, rather than the other way around. The theory of private property holds that a worker owns the value of his own labor. Locke’s theories of liberty form two preconditions needed to stimulate collective intelligence, not to mention their role in sparking the French and American revolutions.

Thinking on classical liberalism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by such American luminaries as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison further solidified respect for the collective wisdom. Even the inverted form, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time,” attributed to Abraham Lincoln, captures the essence of collective intelligence.