It might seem very odd to look to a long-dead Russian anarchist for business advice - Peter Kropotkin's big idea that there are important human motivations beyond what he called "reckless individualism"- is very relevant these days. Kropotkin an aristocrat who, after being imprisoned for his insurrectionist activities, escaped and fled to England in 1876. More to the point, he proposed in his 1902 book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, that the survival of animal species and much of human progress depended on the tendency to help others. Volunteers created computer software like the Linux operating system and the Firefox Web browser have also established themselves as significant and lasting economic realities. That's not true yet in the worlds of science, news and entertainment: we're still figuring out what the role of volunteers will be, but that it will be much bigger than in the past seems obvious. The world’s economic might be changing and people might take full advantage of ‘free labour’ of the new world for their own benefit.
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