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Those particular authoritative institutions are usually trying to control the oh-so-wise crowd. In other words, you're asking how the authorities can use the c

• steamer25 17y ago
  I think the OP's question was asked in innocence... They were probably looking for something along the lines of a web-based registry where various agencies could post their more vexing problems. But yes government, with it's monopoly on force and tendency towards regulation is fundamentally antithetical to the crowd. Government can achieve certain efficiencies through uniformity but mandates don't really foster innovation. To more thoroughly answer the OP, government can work with the crowd to 'promote the general welfare' by limiting itself. Ideally, the more remote levels of government should tolerate the experimentation and even the failings of the more local levels. By "tolerate" I mean less regulation but also withholding subsidies and bailouts. As Jefferson said, "The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits." The reason for this is twofold. 1) Government cannot create an incentive/bailout/subsidy without diminishing other, more successful pursuits through a taking. 2) By propping up self-destructive behavior, government enables it to perpetuate. The experimentation of the more local levels of government and ultimately the individual citizens that compose self-government _is_ the exercise of the crowds. E.g., think of the unsolicited advancements the Wright brothers brought to the military.