[jmpeters]

The author is in search of generalizations where none exist. The closed nature of the Mac and the iPod says more about the personality of one individual -- Steve Jobs -- than it does about some larger trend. The statement that "new technologies are becoming so complex that many are beyond the possibility of democracy playing a role in their development" is belied by Linux and other large-scale open-source systems, which are every bit as complex and as impressive as anything produced by "corporate or government initiatives overseen by elites."

There are plenty of successful examples of both top-down and bottom-up approaches to innovation in the marketplace today. Innovation is alive and well, especially in the high tech world, and attempts to put the great diversity of innovation happening today into one of two tidy academic cubbyholes seems like a waste of time.