Jonathan Rauch defends “the constitution of knowledge”

The Constitution of Knowledge. By Jonathan Rauch. Brookings Institution Press; 280 pages; $27.99 and £22.50

IF THIS REVIEW contains errors, they will probably be spotted by the first editor who reads it. If a mistake sneaks past him then other editors, who pride themselves on being able to find bloopers, will probably intervene. If they are all asleep at the keyboard, The Economist’s fact-checking team will embarrass them by flagging the mistake. And if all these safety features fail, then a reader will write to point out the error, which will then be corrected with a slightly sheepish apology.

This system, which has corollaries in science, law, academia, finance and everywhere that facts still matter, forms one node in an enormous decentralised, depersonalised network. Jonathan Rauch, a former journalist at The Economist and now at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, calls the rules that govern it the “constitution of knowledge”.

Unlike America’s constitution, this one has no identifiable authors. Instead, the rules were discovered by trial and error over the course of centuries. In Mr Rauch’s telling, the constitution of knowledge draws on the same inspiration as the Founding Fathers: a mash-up...