Here we have a good story, showing an important side of Jimmy Wales. Libertarians are in general, poorly understood. I say this because of the how few votes they get when they run for office. I say this because of the criticism they get. I for one happen to believe the libertarians have got 90% of it figured out. While Wales is going to be faced with many problems in the future, I believe his knowledge of Rand and Hayek will serve him well. What will also help him, is to have some liked minded people at Wikipedia that he can count on.

From reasononline: "On other occasions, Wales has offered a more erudite account of the site's origins and purpose. In 1945, in his famous essay "The Use of Knowledge in Society," the libertarian economist F.A. Hayek argued that market mechanisms serve "to share and synchronize local and personal knowledge, allowing society's members to achieve diverse, complicated ends through a principle of spontaneous self-organization." (These are the words not of the Nobel Prize winner himself but of Wikipedia's entry on him.) "Hayek's work on price theory is central to my own thinking about how to manage the Wikipedia project," Wales wrote on the blog of the Internet law guru Lawrence Lessig. "One can't understand my ideas about Wikipedia without understanding Hayek." Long before socialism crumbled, Hayek saw the perils of centralization. When information is dispersed (as it always is), decisions are best left to those with the most local knowledge. This insight, which undergirds contemporary libertarianism, earned Hayek plaudits from fellow libertarian economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman as the "most important social thinker of the 20th century." The question: Will traditional reference works like Encyclopedia Britannica, that great centralizer of knowledge, fall before Wikipedia the way the Soviet Union fell before the West?"  Hayek

My comments again: The market finds its own price. God doesn't decree the price, governments only foul up the market clearing price, and create waste and inefficiencies. This does relate to Wikipedia in that, when the market has done its job, Wikipedia has the correct and accurate article. Interfere with the market, and Wikipedia doesn't have the correct article. What Wikipedia is, is those putting the most money into an article, own it. Shocked by this are we? Don't be. Time equals money. Those putting the most time into an article will own it, and that's the same as putting the most money into it. Each article is owned by those caring the most about it. Markets have accomplished so much that is good. Wales happened to be in the vicinity when a new one was invented.

(6/19/07: The Salma Hayek photo has been removed. Yes, it had something to do with cafepress.com, an outstanding company that I endorse.)