Book Review: Republic Lost

I had Lawrence Lessig's recent book, Republic, Lost on my to-read list for some time. However, after hearing that he narrated the audio version, I snapped it up in prep for a recent road trip. Lessig is a fantastic speaker and in general I believe that audio books narrated by their authors are better than those narrated by others.

Best known in the tech community for his work on copyright & Creative Commons, Lessig turned his attention a few years ago to corruption in government. Republic Lost is his first full-length book on that subject.

It is an important book that I highly recommend reading, though I can't promise you'll find it uplifting. It's downright depressing in parts. Solutions are offered but the author is the first to admit that they have very slim chance of working and that without them things will only get worse.

The main point of the book is that government (and he focuses on Congress in particular) is corrupt, and that this corruption is not so much the corruption of individuals but rather a systemic corruption that makes it impossible even for honest politicians to succumb to it.

What makes it a unique work is that Lessig, in his usual style, provides what to me anyway seems like a near-bullet-proof breakdown of his argument. I fail to see how someone, in the face of all he argues, could deny the systemic corruption exists or hast the effect it does.

Lessig provides a number of options on how it could be addressed, ranging from the likely-possible-but-minimal-impact (e.g. everyone should post/tweet every example of such corruption they see) to the high-impact-but-near-impossible (hold a constitutional convention for campaign finance reform). He himself acknowledges that most of his solutions have a very slim chance of working, but as he also puts it, what choice do we have but to fight?

Personally, I'm going to do three things: First, I'm going to read more on the subject and post when I see good examples, per Lessig's recommendation above. Secondly, I'm going to give some money to his organization, RootStrikers. Finally, I'm going to recommend this book to others, which is what I'm doing here. Go read it. It's important.

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It

RIP: A Remix manifesto

I watched this pretty decent documentary on the Air Canada flight back from Montreal on Saturday.

A couple intesting takeaways:

- How cow. Girl Talk doesn't use a mac? Microsoft lost marketing opportunity FAIL!

- It's pretty awesome that a major airline like Air Canada airs a documentary that itself states that it is in violation of copyright.

Anyhow. Mini review:

The movie itself doesn't have a lot new to offer folks that have listened to Lawrence Lessig's lectures or read any of Cory Doctorow's (many) pieces on the subject (both of whom appear in the doc). If you haven't, then it's a good crash course. On the down side, it doesn't do much to at least try to give perspective on the other side of the argument.

Lessig's TED Talk

...is just brilliant. He's such an awesome presenter and his talk is right on the money (pun intended). Go watch: