The Rational Optimist expounds this theme at length. A summary is: produce narrowly, consume widely. Surprisingly, it benefits everyone to produce what they a

The Rational Optimist expounds this theme at length. A summary is: produce narrowly, consume widely. Surprisingly, it benefits everyone to produce what they are best at and trade for the rest, even when you trade for something that you are better at producing (i.e you are even better at producing something else). Thus, people can optimize locally. EDIT uh, article is by the same guy. Great book though he gets a bit rabid at the end. There's an especially striking story of skill loss in Tasmanian native Australians, due to being cut off from the mainland and having too small a population for the requisite collection intelligence to maintain those skills (doesn't prove it of course). Just now, I'm reminded of what someone said of MS: because millions of people use it, it's worth it to work on little details - so you can have a menu specialist. IIRC, collective intelligence isn't so much about how many people put their intelligence into it, but how many people need it (i.e. the market). The collectivity comes in in that other people similarly specialize in something else.