James Surowiecki (2004) THE WISDOM OF CROWDS: WHY THE MANY ARE SMARTER THAN THE FEW AND HOW COLLECTIVE WISDOM SHAPES BUSINESS, ECONOMIES, SOCIETIES, AND NATIONS (New York: Doubleday)
296 pages. The book was originally reviewed by Lance Morrow, (2004) “Triumph of the Masses” TIME, May 24, p. 78.

Most information at this point in history is that the few guide the many. In “Pareto’s ratios” 20% account for 80% of most everything. According to “Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy” the few run the public. The most rewarded of a movement are those that win and run the new regime or government. In other words, the few benefit from the action of the many. For LeBon, crowds demonstrate our collective ignorance. Crowds can bring the worst out in us. When Marx describe the masses, they are enlightened when they realize how little power they have not owning the means of production (false consciousness.) Pareto also warned that the masses become lionized only when the talented are shunted and remain at the bottom. If they are able to move up, they can be pacified and no longer will represent the masses (the circulation of the elite.)
All suggest that the few run the many. If they do not succeed, they will be replaced by another group of elite, claiming to represent the people.

Surowiecki, an economics and financial writer for the NEW YORKER essentially throws out the above paradigm and suggests that the masses are generally but imperfectly correct. Sociologist may quibble in a salient fashion about the interchange of the terms of collectivities, crowds, masses, mobs, movements and related. All have different meanings. However, the author appears to use these as synonyms for the “many.”

He suggests the following to support his thesis.

1. Galton asked a crowd to estimate the weight of a dressed carcass of beef. The valid answer was 1,198 pounds. The crowd privately wrote their answer on stubs of paper and guessed 1,197.
2. He borrows Hayek’s “spontaneous order of the masses.”
3. He suggests the power of starlings and their collective wisdom of survival by flying in certain formations.
4. He cites the intelligence of a big city pedestrian flow or humans reacting in a traffic jam.
5. He reviews a 1958 experiment where New York City students were asked to meet another student and where they would be when the stranger arrived in town and did not know directly how to find their big city friend. All said that they would go to the information booth of the Grand Central station.
6. Scientists all over the world within a short period and without overall supervision were able to contain the SARS virus in a matter of weeks.

This thesis is quite controversial and if it is survives the usual Hegelian dialect of reviewers and critics will moderate the place of intellectual legends of both the right and the left. If this new paradigm succeeds the few guiding the many may be retranslated into the few may guide the many in only certain circumstances.

The book appears to be a valuable contribution to the literature on institutional change.