Jeff Jarvis (apparently one of the infamous "warbloggers") has proposed a Weblog Foundation to compensate bloggers who want to blog full time and/or who contribute "good" to the world by providing valuable information to their readers. It's an interesting idea, but what's even more interesting is that Jarvis and other defenders of the Foundation idea are convinced that the idea is consistent with capitalism. In a post titled "Snark attack!" Jarvis writes:
 More snarky words are being written about the Weblog Foundation. No surprise. It's the Internet. That's why we love it, eh?
But what does surprise me is that webloggers -- or at least some of them -- don't want money, don't like it, think it's a bad thing.
I thought we were past defending capitalism (except, perhaps, in Cuba).
But capitalism has able defense from Eric Olsen and Richard Bennett. They do it better than I could. 
But if you go to Olsen's post (which quotes extensively from Bennet), what you find is not a defense of capitalism, but a defense of socialism. Olsen writes:
I see the purpose of the foundation pretty much as does Jeff: as 1) a declaration that this work deserves compensation, and that people who choose to provide this service to the public shouldn't be compensated for their efforts with starvation. In a capitalist system, compensation equates with prestige and bloggers do not deserve zero prestige for their efforts; and as a result, 2) a collective safety net of some kind is in order to facilitate the transition to the inevitable bloggy market economy that is coming.
In other words, the Foundation will make it possible for participating bloggers to survive outside of "free" markets and the dictates of supply and demand -- it will create a managed economy that frees these bloggers from the restrictions of the market economy. This is not capitalism. What's great is that Olsen (and Bennet) do a great job revealing the ways in which capitalism is antithetical to their goals as bloggers, and to the goals of those who care about free speech, good news coverage, and a well-informed global populace. What's baffling is who they can think they're defending capitalism, or why they'd even want to.
Along these lines, Olsen helpfully quotes Matt Welch, who likens the Weblog Foundation to a union of bloggers:
Within three months, there will be at least five companies dedicated to monetize and enhance the blogging phenomenon. Two or three will be owned by especially smart friends of mine; from what I[base ']ve heard we[base ']ll have all kinds of exponentially different new toys at our disposal very soon, plus some handy variations on the different tip-jar concepts. What Jeff[base ']s idea does, in theory, is to pre-emptively organize a big batch of bloggers (and only those who wish to join), so that they can negotiate/brainstorm/act as a sort of bloc, when the day comes that people want to implement these new schemes. It could be like a much looser and far more interesting National Writer[base ']s Union (which, incidentally, treats online writers like the plague when it comes to things like libel insurance). Yes, there[base ']s the usual cat-herding problem, and I[base ']m guessing many of the blog kids aren[base ']t exactly AFL-CIO types (nor am I), but I[base ']m continually surprised by the stimulating fun generated whenever three or more bloggers actually meet in person, and I think there[base ']s some tangible use in having a loose, opt-outable organization of a bunch of us for when the Idea People knock on our doors.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, unions of the type Welch here describes were (and are) organized expressly to defend their members against the excesses and dictates of capitalism. Again, what Olsen, et al. are proposing is exactly that -- a way to defend bloggers (and their ideals) against the demands of capital. I think anyone who's followed the Microsoft anti-trust epic would agree that capitalism is simply not_ the way to ensure creativity, innovation, or democracy. Larry Lessig's Creative Commons and everything surrounding the fight against big media and intellectual property rights is yet more evidence of the fact that capital is antithetical to the values many of its staunchest defenders espouse.
10:35:47 AM 
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