In 2003, James F. Moore proposed the hypothesis that the internet is emerging as the second superpower. Lately, John McNutt has been documenting online volunteer responses to Hurricane Katrina, and hypothesizing that the internet is (if not the second superpower) the new social welfare delivery system.

John says that a network is more effective than a conventionally structured agency during an emergency. I'm not entirely certain that this is always the case; I'm a Weberian at heart, and when phone service and electricity go down, I take comfort in knowing that there's a rational-legal bureaucracy working to restore it.  However, as John points out that the latter is a model better suited to the industrial age, and that in the current information age networks will rule.

I'm intrigued by this argument, and admire those who are taking the lead in testing its validity in the nonprofit sector. I usually think of "further research is needed" as weasel words, but when it comes to understanding whether the internet is the new social welfare delivery system, it seems to me that further research (assuming that it is well-planned and well-executed) is very necessary.

CLARIFICATION:  I am summarizing a series of extremely informal conversations with John McNutt.  Several readers of my blog have asked for published references, but John is just at the beginning of this line of inquiry, and (as far as I know) no peer-reviewed research on this topic has been published by anyone.