Wired's Kevin Kelly has a meaty think piece centered around the idea that we denizens of the web are budding socialists, without even being fully aware that we're marching down that road. Think Wikipedia, Digg, Creative Commons. All, writes Kelly, are manifestations of "an emerging collectivism" akin to a Stalinistic vision of individual labor being compiled into a whole greater than any one of us. Kelly brands it "the new socialism."

The counterpoints aren't all that hard to come by. Often what Kelly is describing about collaborative culture is more up-from-the-bottom communitarianism than state-driven socialism in any of its historical flavors. Wikipedia is mostly a hobby for most folks. Digg is sport. And Creative Commons is arguably all about giving the worker (i.e. content creator) more control over their labor than they'd otherwise have. Facebook, an example for Kelly of that "mildest form of socialism" known as sharing, is a corporate entity that has figured out how to create huge value (in theory, at least) by giving a great many people a small bit of entertainment. We're happy. They're happy. One thinks Adam Smith would be pleased.

Anyway, love it or hate it, Kelly's piece is worth a read.