oct
18
2011

The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest

Yochai Benkler, Berkman Center Faculty Co-Director

 
 
Tuesday, October 18, 6:00 pm
Austin West Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School
Co-hosted by the Harvard Law School Library
Reception to follow

 
Harvard Professor Yochai Benkler (The Wealth of Networks) is one of the world’s top thinkers on cooperative structures. In his new book, The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest, he uses evidence from neuroscience, economics, sociology, biology, and real-world examples to break down the myth of self-interest and replace it with a model of cooperation in our businesses, our government, and our lives.

About Yochai

Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Since the 1990s he has played a part in characterizing the role of information commons and decentralized collaboration to innovation, information production, and freedom in the networked economy and society. His work can be freely accessed at http://benkler.org.

Links

• The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest (Amazon)
• David Weinberger liveblogged the talk
• Harvard Law School coverage
  

(Photo via Joi)

Click the play button below to start the audio.

Location

Berkman Center for Internet and Society

License

Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Unported

Copyright Holder

The President and Fellows of Harvard College

RB 183: The Cooperation

Are human beings, as consultants, researchers, and the authors of business books have thought for years, fundamentally motivated by self interest? Or is there a deeper cooperative instinct that drives human beings to work? Those are the questions that fuel Yochai Benkler's investigation in The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest. In it Benkler challenges the rather embarrassing idea that people are primarily selfish by citing examples — from collective farming to neuroscience to the world's richest corporations — demonstrating that people are a lot more cooperative than they get credit for. Benkler spoke with David Weinberger about his new book for this week's Radio Berkman.

Produced 21 Sep 2011

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