I was browsing Zopa again today and realised I made a mistake in yesterday’s post. It turns out you can see the borrowers just like Kiva, so it is even better than I originally thought. A truly brilliant company.

It’s all doom and gloom at the moment amongst the commetariat. Ambrose Evans Pritchard predicts a depression no matter what we do saying that it will take years for the toxins to wash through the system. I disagree. What we are seeing now is the breaking apart of 20th century capitalism to make way for its replacement. Nobody knows exactly what will happen, whether the bailout will fail or succeed but it is clear to me that within this crisis lies the opportunity to reshape the way things work. And the opportunity could only emerge this way.

It is not limited to commerce. Government too is subject to the same decentralising forces and again the replacement is better than the original. Barack Obama has run his campaign in a completely different way than anything which has gone before. This is not to say he has thrown out everything but taken new tools to turbocharge the best of what happened in the past. In a way his campaign is similar to what George Bush did in 2000 and 2004. Both men have a core of ultra committed supporters who galvanise and organise people around them into an impressive ground operation.

The new model

The right wing throws the jibe ‘community organiser in chief’ at Obama to portray him as a lightweight but it’s the reason why he will win. By embracing online fundraising Obama has tapped a new revenue source which is much cleaner and frees him from the rubber chicken circuit. In doing so he has demonstrated a new way of approaching politics and fundraising which is far better than it’s 20th century equivalent. It allows a much more direct connection with his supporters and allows them to contribute much more than just cash.

Another example I have written about before is Kiva. The 20th century model of aid is state to state which has all the drawbacks of bureaucracy at the donor end coupled with corruption at the recipient end. By contrast Kiva makes a direct connection, individual to individual, and as such is far better way of distributing funds. The individual lending the money also acts as assessor of the project and the individual receiving the money approaches them as an equal without having their sense of independence taken away. Aid is good in some short term circumstances but long term, enterprise is the only sustainable model.

What needs to happen is for these experiments to be extended to the Western financial system. In one sense it means going forward to the new model but in another going back to a past in which credit unions and building societies made loans. Regulation will have to change to facilitate these new models. It can be lighter because instead of relying on the state for oversight, just like Kiva, we can rely on the small lender. If the current crisis allows smaller, nimbler lending to take hold and provide real competition to these large institutions which go gambling then hold a gun to the taxpayers head when things go wrong it will be a great thing. As always the best opportunity lies amidst the crisis.

Pic: Julian Bleecker

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I am a late convert to blogging having started this May. I first started to notice blogs in 2003 and I had a rather sniffy attitude, thinking that MSM would always be better quality. I was wrong. Now blogs are some of my most frequent sources of news and alternative comment, not only that the newspapers and magazines I prefer are the ones which have best embraced the blogger spirit like the Guardian and Economist.

Blogging software is, like Kiva and OLPC, one of those technological innovations which truly can change the world. These platforms give ordinary people a voice without having to jump through hoops. Blogging is especially important in those countries which don’t have a free press, one of the pillars of democracy. The 2008 World Information Access report has just come out, the BBC reports:

“More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report.”

“Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised public policies and took political figures to task.”

“Jail time followed arrest for many bloggers, said the report, which found that the average prison sentence for blogging was 15 months. The longest sentence found by the WIA was eight years.”

I remember reading that the fax machine heralded the end of the Soviet Union as new technology meant that control over information passed from the state to the individual. It is happening again now and this time it is the Internet and blogs which are people’s chosen tools. The bravery of the individuals who seize them in undemocratic societies and risk jail is impressive. These bloggers are an inspiration to us in the West who take our freedom of speech for granted. Maybe future democratic constitutions across the world will enshrine the freedom of the blog alongside freedom of the press.

Read more:
On changing the world
On blogging

Pic: World Information Access 2008