La importancia de las redes sociales puede parecer evidente entre ciertos interlocutores, pero como concepto intangible es difícil de visualizar para una gran mayoría. Así, es habitual que se confundan causas con consecuencias y medios con fines. De este modo, los especialistas en diferentes tipos de organizaciones se olvidan de lo realmente importante pero intangible, las redes sociales, y se centran en lo instrumental pero tangible, ya sea la arquitectura en el urbanismo o Internet en los negocios. Lo tangible, ya sean edificios o la web 2.0, juega un papel como instrumentos facilitadores. Además, en ocasiones, pueden esconder, a modo de “caballos de Troya”, cambios culturales al modificar los modos en que las personas interactúan en las redes sociales. Así por ejemplo, en mi opinión, el principal valor de la web 2.0 es introducir un nuevo modelo de comportamiento social basado en el papel activo del usuario.
Puede que el papel central de las redes esté pasando a ser reconocido. Un buen indicador puede dárnoslo el hecho de que una de las revistas más respetadas en el mundo de los negocios (y en especial en el de las grandes corporaciones) como Forbes acabe de dedicar un Special Report, The Power of Networks, a las redes sociales. Incluye 28 artículos que se centran en el papel que las redes sociales han tenido en el pasado y están teniendo actualmente en la dinámica social, política y económica. Por supuesto, también se discute sobre tecnología, pero siempre se trata como una herramienta que facilita o influye en el diseño de las redes.
Estos 28 ensayos se organizan alrededor de cuatro temas: Breakthroughs, Lifestyle, Technology y Community. Algunos de los artículos más sugerentes, por su temática y/o sus autores, podrían ser: The New Faces of America de Suketu Mehta, sobre redes de inmigrantes en EEUU; Mixed Media de Rupert Murdoch, sobre el futuro de los medios de comunicación; Open-Door Policy de Jimmy Wales, sobre su nuevo proyecto de buscador; The Disruptive Power of Networks de Vinton G. Cerf; Alter Egos de Philip Rosedale, sobre Second Life; The Blue Sky Project de John Doerr y Bill Joy, sobre financiación de negocios verdes; Wikipartia de Howard Dean, sobre nuevos modelos de acción política; Your Product, Your Customer de Seth Godin; o Adam Smith: Web Junkie de P.J. O'Rourke. Este último artículo explica lo que significa Internet utilizando las ideas que Adam Smith propuso hace ya más de dos siglos para explicar el funcionamiento de los mercados. En este sentido, Internet reforzaría las redes sociales, y por tanto los mecanismos de creación de riqueza y bienestar, al hacerlas más libres y resilentes a los intentos de control (por ejemplo del poder político) :
In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith said that an individual "stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons." …
The most ideally conceived and perfectly executed political systems (such as those devised by the Internet's wise, deep and knowing political bloggers) cannot give us the freedoms that we get from the free-market network. Networks are self-organizing and are therefore resistant to pressure from those interfering types--politicians--who want to organize things. Since networks are self-organizing they are, like all do-it-yourself projects, a mess. This makes networks too hard for any one person to understand, let alone dominate. Most of our lives are spent in channels or chains of command or circuits. (And usually the circuit has someone in it with a wire loose.) Networks release us from this. We are presented with numerous alternative connections. On the Internet these connections are, without intending a pun, virtually unlimited. We can take our business elsewhere or be that elsewhere by starting a business of our own. Networks aren't egalitarian. ... But networks aren't hierarchal, either. There's no top and bottom to them, no magnetic north of authority. It's all side-to-side and back and forth. Detours, shortcuts and work-arounds make a network.
And networks are what make the free market moral as well as free. The only way to get the members of the free market to make the detours, take the shortcuts or work the work-arounds is by persuading them. In a voluntary association force is not an option. Every free market transaction is both an exercise in liberty and an exhibition of respect for the liberty of others.
Quizás una de las ideas más originales y provocativas (y con toda seguridad polémicas) de este artículo sea la proposición de que Internet, a menudo acusado de ser un “paraíso para el fraude y el engaño”, es en realidad una garantía para las libertades de los ciudadanos (y por tanto para el respeto a la ley). Esta hipótesis es, ashat cierto punto paralela, a la idea de que en Internet las estrategias de márketing basadas en la sinceridad pueden ser más exitosas que en los medios analógicos:
That's the paradox of voluntary association: The personal liberty and moral persuasiveness of the free market depend on the coercive force of the law. We need law to protect property rights, to enforce contract, to thwart collusion and monopoly and to keep the weak safe from the strong. The political system that enforces this law then proceeds, all too often, to invade property rights, nullify contracts, promote collusion, create monopoly and become so strong that no one's safe.
Maybe the Internet can help. The voluntary association of the Internet has no town into which the bad guys can ride. Or the good guys, either. Persuasion, and only persuasion, operates the Internet. You can't send a punch in the nose down a DSL line. True, fraud is abundant on the Internet, but in fairness to thousands of clever Nigerians, fraud is a form of persuasion.
Individual users of the Internet can be coerced or, anyway, captured. Right now convicted hackers are probably showing a prison guard how to use his cell phone to get video of Paris Hilton without her bvds. But the Internet as a whole is hard to coerce. Governments think otherwise, forgetting the vast supply of dateless, pimply adolescent boys with Star Wars figurine collections. Give one of them 45 minutes and a Mandarin language-recognition program and he can link 1.3 billion Chinese to the Brady Bunch Family Planning Secrets chat room.
The law tries to intrude on the Internet with the excuse that the law is protecting intellectual property. We don't know how the innumerable copyright- and patent-infringement cases will fare in the courts, especially if Ruth Bader Ginsburg has her laptop on the bench and gets distracted by Barack Obama in a Speedo on YouTube. But it's probably too late for the law to do anything, anyway. Perhaps we should give up on intellectual property and just face the fact that bright ideas aren't worth as much as we thought they were. Think about the last bright idea you had. Remember your spouse's response?
The Internet is an advance for voluntary association. It adds freedom to markets, decreases the force of coercion and gives persuasion greater sway over power. Maybe the Internet really is a wonderful new world. Adam Smith doubtless would e-mail his approval--unless, of course, people allow themselves to be persuaded to do things that are even worse than what they're forced to do. I hear al Qaeda is very Internet savvy.
