"Cass Sunstein recently described how Wikipedia moves us past the rigid limits of socialist planning that Friedrich Hayek attacked on the grounds that "no planner could possibly obtain the dispersed bits of information held by individual members of society. Hayek insisted that the knowledge of individuals, taken as a whole, is far greater than that of any commission or board, however diligent and expert."

"There’s ample evidence that Hayek was right in an examination of the failure of planned economies – smart men sitting in a room do a far worse job of setting the price of copper ore or bread than the collected actions of thousands of consumers, iterated over time."
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/11/30/cass-sunsteins-infotopia/

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2006/11/30/cass-sunsteins-infotopia/