2.0 is changing definitions of public goods. Or is it?

Nicholas Gruen, economist and former chair of the Australian Gov 2.0 Taskforce debates the ways in which 2.0 thinking and technologies are changing economic definitions of public goods.

In this far-ranging discussion, Nicholas explains how Gov 2.0 is a nexus between ‘Jefferson’s dream’ of the transformative potential of ideas as public goods, and ‘Schumpeter’s nightmare’ of the chaos of direct democracy.  He argues that democracy is chaos unless it’s mediated by specialists, and that the social web actually makes it harder to get the leaders we need to govern.