Top Down v. Bottom Up

The old way of doing things is highlighted well in this other article, this one from yesterday's NY Times Weekend Edition section. In Class of '08: The Snare of Privilege , the role of Political and Social Elites is dissected. Hard to believe that every president in the past 20 years has graduated from Yale (OK, that's just three presidents, and two from the same family). Enough of a good thing already! But this odd fact certainly makes the case for the enduring, if little understood power of Elites in our society and politics. Just why do the Ivy League colleges endure?

Controlling the levers of power and working the controls from the background, Elites sit atop a hierarchy and manipulate the masses through processes like elections, with the purpose of maintaining their exalted position in society - it's far preferable to hand the reins of power over temporarily to another elite than it is to subvert the entire system of Elite control. In America, Elites stick together through things like exclusive access to Ivy League schools and fraternities and sororities, country clubs and cotillions. Such is the essence of Elite political theory.

My professor from the UT Graduate School of Government, Dr. John Higley, is one of the authors of this theory, claiming that Elites have always ruled society, and presumably, always will. He certainly made an impression on me twenty years ago with his ideas. I ran into Dr. Higley at the health club two days ago and he clued me into the upcoming NY Times article.

My question to ponder here is whether networks will be able to change this truism of the hegemony of Elites. It could be that technology and a growing awareness of the power of Social Networking may yet bring that about.

Gorenberg, a partner in the San Francisco venture-capital firm of Hummer Winblad, was representative of a certain kind of prosperous Northern California Democrat whom the war and the general climate of Bush-administration malfeasance had pushed from casual supporter to committed activist. And he was representative of Silicon Valley, in that he thought in terms of networks. Partly, this was his job: a venture capitalist looking to invest in the next big thing must know everything that is happening and everyone who is making it happen. But everyone else was thinking about networks, too. The Valley was still emerging from the crash of 2001, yet it was already clear that the next boom would be in social-networking entities like MySpace and Facebook, which created vast, interconnected communities on the Web. The Amazing Money Machine by Joshua Green in the June issue of The Atlantic

This is indeed an excellent article - you should pause and check it out - because it lays out how truly revolutionary the campaign organizing of Obama has been. Let's face it, did any of us imagine a year ago that we'd be watching Hillary's juggernaut stalling at this point? Certainly, Hillary, the DNC, and her legion of supporters didn't. We're witnessing the changing of the guard between 20th and 21st century politics, as Hillary's candidacy slowly grinds to a halt and struggles to find a way to accept defeat. It's awesome and painful to watch.

I asked Roos, the personification of a buttoned-down corporate attorney, if there had been concerns about Obama's limited CV, and for a moment he looked as if he might burst out laughing. "No one in Silicon Valley sits here and thinks, 'You need massive inside-the-Beltway experience,'" he explained, after a diplomatic pause. "Sergey and Larry were in their early 20s when they started Google. The YouTube guys were also in their 20s. So were the guys who started Facebook. And I'll tell you, we recognize what great companies have been built on, and that's ideas, talent, and inspirational leadership."

"Ideas, talent, and inspirational leadership" are also the hallmarks of change agents. We need more of those in the metropolitan broadband industry right now.

It may or may not happen that this election will see Obama rise to the presidency. But his campaign promises to leverage technology and raise to prominence the power of social networks and the internet. Folks, the toothpaste is officially out of the tube. There will be no putting it back in after this election cycle. Social networks are here to stay, and we have only begun to investigate their power to promote Progressive Politics and harness the power of the people.

If I were a Political Elite, I'd be sweating right now. I think they are. In the absence of an evolution of power, which has never seem to come, I'm hoping for a gentle revolution with Obama, one focused more on Bottom Up change and The Wisdom of the Crowds.