Authenticity in the 21st century Bazaar

My friend @DrewCarpenter sent over a link to this book along with a radio interview with its author Rajni Bakshi.  Bakshi presents a VERY interesting way to think about how commerce works across the spectrum of capitalism to communism, using the concept of the Bazaar that this article asserts we have been straying from for the last 400+ years...

Authenticity and transparency are topics scattered through social media discussions, and have the potential to be force multipliers to drive the efficient production espoused in the classic Atlas Shrugged, without the selfishness of greed and fear that can follow in its wake.  This NYT book review of a recent Ayn Rand biography does a nice job of considering this balance across economic, social and political planes.  After the market crash, do we still think Gordon Gekko was right in believing "Greed is good" and market externalities are the burdens of the weak...?

The truth is that in the beginning as in the end, "we the people" are social animals.  Efficient market theory doesn't account well for what it takes us to maintain strong and honest relationships between each other - it remains difficult to "price in" the value and the cost.  If anything, social media is forcing us to recalculate and calibrate those values and costs as they increase, since a bad choice today can be communicated widely across a network and the world like a single match can scorch a forest.

There are some great entrepreneurial examples of authenticity and total transparency emerging, but I have to confess that when I heard of Unvarnished.com I hesitated, just like others are transparently confessing themselves.  While Unvarnished lets people publish anonymous reviews of co-workers or friends/enemies, there is little to no control of our personal and professional image using this tool.  Our friend @AaronStrout is proving brave by appearing in their Beta leaderboard for Marketing.  Nice leadership!

It raises a huge paradox for those of us working to relinquish the tight control we have learned to manage of every aspect of our lives.  We seek to be professional and personal "trust agents", with forms of spiritual development to enjoy the fruits of faith and "pay it forward" to others.  After all, if we can't live by and succeed from our actions and our reputation, then what do we really have?

With 500+ million Facebook members alone, social media networks are here to stay.  Crowdsourcing and UGC (user-generated content) makes us more honest, less selfish and more accountable to each other.  Ayn claim she was transparent and authentic, but it was a mean and selfish transparency that she hid from people and made excuses for.  Sorry Ayn, but as opposed to the "Mad Men" marketing of the 60's, social media is making it suck to be selfish.

But the question still stands:  will embracing Unvarnished through Facebook Connect be like opening Pandora's Box and risk corrupting our image across the real-time digital networks we have been assembling for the last 10 years?  Ultimately, can we enjoy the higher plane of efficient social, political and economic market theory that Bakshi introduces, without bleeding the human relationship capital in the process that Rand's Objectivism selfishly continues to advocate?

I don't want to live and die sad, mean, lonely and angry like Ayn Rand.  I'll pay the authenticity tax and take my chances.