The last place I want to find myself is in the middle of an intellectual firefight between Clay Shirky and Henry Farrell, two of the smartest people I know! And I'm sorry to enter the discussion so late. In my defense, I started this post three days ago and then got swamped.

I don't have much to say about the question that's consumed most of this discussion, which is whether the near-infinite number of communities in which one can acquire status changes the "zero-sum positional conflict" of status. Henry is skeptical that being famous in, say, World of Warcraft is comparable to being a famous soccer star, as measured by money, attractiveness to members of whichever sex or sexes one wants to be attractive to, etc. That may be, but it seems reasonable that the kind of person who is today a legend within WoW (pretty much the only thing I know about World of Warcraft is that that's the shorthand for it!) would have had, in 1970, far fewer outlets for that particular kind of satisfaction and status. And status is hardly the only source of satisfaction: these zones create more ways for people to find the satisfaction that comes with active engagement in creation, cooperation or competition.

But in reading Here Comes Everybody, I was much more interested in the implications of low transaction cost organizing in domains which are probably inherently zero-sum, notably political power, which Clay got into in one post. A central problem of all democratic politics is the enormous inequality to organize in support of your claims. Corporations are already organized (which is one reason we try to limit their influence) and certain minority interests (AIPAC, the NRA) have an easier time organizing than others, whether because of the single-minded intensity of their members, or their wealth.

But other constituencies and other interests are never able to organize, even if they have the support of larger numbers, for any number of reasons - lack of intensity, geographic dispersion, lack of wealth or strong economic interest.

To use Clay's terms, there is political organizing that falls below the "Coasian floor." (Mancur Olson's book, The Logic of Collective Action, is one landmark in the literature that covers this territory, and it is also central to the critique of the Democratic Party as a collection of special interests and identity politics -- what that really means is that certain organized constituencies -- labor, environmentalists -- were heard, but many others weren't, because the transaction costs of organizing were too high.

So Clay's example of the DLC vs. the Netroots is not just two ideological factions at work. What's most interesting about the Netroots has been that it has helped to seamlessly organize around issues that previously fell below his "Coasian floor." Two good examples of that are the organizing around Net Neutrality and the 2005 bankruptcy legislation. As Art Brodsky noted today, Rep. Donna Edwards took office yesterday on a campaign that was driven by enthusiastic support from net neutrality advocates, and by her critique of the incumbent, Al Wynn, for his vote on the Bankruptcy bill. You can be damn sure that when Wynn decided to vote with his organized, cash constituents on these issues he had no idea that there would ever be an organized force on the other side, much less one with the political power to help defeat him.

So the Netroots doesn't just represent a left alternative to the DLC. It represents one of many models of organizing that, by reducing the costs, can make it possible to put hundreds of new issues and constituencies into the game. Act Blue is an even more promising model. A couple decades ago, EMILY's List was a breakthrough, in organizing donors to support women challengers, but it was a huge undertaking, and it had particular power because no one else was doing anything like it. Now all you need to do is set up an ActBlue page and organize donors around an issue like net neutrality or anything else.

And Barack Obama's million-plus donors and ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in small contributions is not just a testament to his appeal, but to structures such as ActBlue and others that emerged independently.

Aside from any specific candidates that benefit, this is the biggest change in the practice of democracy that's occurred probably since the emergence of the party system in the U.S. And I think that, like Al Wynn, we take the inequalities in the ability to organize so much for granted that it will take many more years to fully take advantage of what's becoming possible.

Low transaction-cost organizing will present many challenges to the way we think about politics and how to regulate it. Much of the regulation of money in politics, for example, is based on limiting organized money (PACs, bundling) because some people can organize and others can't. Instead, perhaps, it should seek to encourage greater organizing, reduce the transaction costs even further. And, of course, even with low transaction costs, real political equality is impossible -- and perhaps we will even come full circle, where everyone can organize and be heard, and then once again the only ones who matter will be the ones who bring the really big cash. But for now, it's all an improvement, just as it's an improvement to be able to find infinitely new ways to find status and satisfaction.