Activate 09 and Socialism 2.0

Been invited to the Activate Summit 09 (programme here), the Grauniad's conference on Politics, Economics, Technology and Society – strapline is "Building a better future through the internet".

Apart from the opportunity to (i) listen to some interesting people and (ii) talk endlessly and bore the pants off anyone who bothers to listen to me, it also gives an opportunity to argue with Umair (Haque), which should of course always be taken

Looks like a good lineup and some good topics overall. Also, they will be talking in one of the sessions about:

The means of production in the hands of the many: Will the internet lead to a rewriting of the rules of civilization?

Aka Socialism 2.0 - something I've been mulling over since I was in Berlin last year for a conference next to Karl Marx square in the autumn, just after capitalism shot its bolt. In may ways the "transaction costs" of socialism as a system are higher than capitalism (the invisible hand being a cheap organising system), but as the 'Net has massively reduced these costs it is now much easier to act in "social" ways of self organising which is arguably a more natural human way of structuring things (witness the rise in social networking).

Anyway, no one can argue that Social Nets haven't already had an impact on Society - now we await the impact on Politics, Policy, Regulation etc...... interesting times methinks.