Future Perfect

they work their magic through a decentralized network that can be wonderfully diverse in the cultures and perspectives it connects. Markets are also systems defined by the generative power of exchange, though over time that exchange has come to involve more restrictive concepts of intellectual property. When we talk about the importance of start-up

peer progressives do not believe that markets are capable of satisfying all of our human needs.

At Whole Foods, no one is allowed to make more than nineteen times the wages of the average worker. (For U.S. companies, the average ratio is more than four hundred to one.)

Gandhi’s quip about Western civilization: “What do we think of free markets? We think they would be a good idea.”

Peer progressives are wary of excessive top-down government control and bureaucracy; they want more civic participation and accountability in public-sector issues that affect their communities. They want more choice and experimentation in public schools; they think, on the whole, that the teachers’ unions have been a hindrance to educational innova

What the peer progressive wants to do is reward people for coming up with good ideas—and reward them for sharing those ideas.

Is it possible to believe that the Internet and the Web are pushing us in a positive direction, without becoming naive cyber-utopians? Can the peer progressive believe in the Internet as an engine of progress while still acknowledging the fact of Al Qaeda?

Democracies on occasion elect charlatans or bigots or imbeciles; markets on occasion erupt in catastrophic bubbles, or choose to direct resources to trivial problems while ignoring the more pressing ones. We accept these imperfections because the alternatives are so much worse.

The peer-progressive response differs from both these approaches. Instead of turning a blind eye to market failures, it assumes that these problems are widespread, and actively seeks them out as the central focus of its agenda. Instead of building a large government agency to combat the problem, it tries to build a peer network around it, a system