Grant published Plenitude: Culture by Commotion in 1997, a book that is available online through Grant's site. In an August/September 1998 Reason article about the subject, adapted from his book, McCracken explains the concept as being derived from Plato. "But while the blooming, buzzing diversity that caught Plato's eye was a property of the natural world, our plenitude is a property of the social world. For us, plenitude is a matter of lifestyle, belief, behavior, and an ever-increasing variety of observable ways of living and being that are continually coming into existence. Plenitude is everywhere among us, especially in our culture and our politics, where it is the source of gross misunderstanding and profound conflict," he writes.

In this article, he both cuts into objections to the nature of plenitude from the right and narrow conceptions of what plenitude means from the left. "But plenitude is a restless creature. It will not forgive fixity. It will not endure stasis. It will not allow identity politics to insist on certain orthodoxies because these are 'good to think' and variously clarifying of what the emergent group might become. Plenitude resists conformity, orthodoxy, conventions, and rules," he writes.

Also, see Grant's thoughts about how plenitude is creating a fat middle in addition to a Long Tail.

Now, back to "What Scarcity?" The author points out that the old mode of thinking was that "limited production capacity created a market based on scarcity," but now "publication has become so cheap that it is now cost-effective for smaller companies to subsidize anyone's publication--to the point where publication for the individual author is effectively free. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, this has largely removed the monopoly that the publishing industry held due to the scarcity inherent in the market."

Now, of course, the power of established brands with their distribution deals makes the reality of how these publications reach readers still lean solidly in the favor of big companies, but the ability to publish has become extended exponentially. The author points out that, "the industry has reacted to the loss of their monopoly by ignoring the loss and/or pretending that the scarcity has not disappeared. On those occasions when they deign to notice that publication is cheap, it is pointed out (at length) that the industry maintains a large collection of professionals who will work hard to turn a manuscript into a polished product. This is intended to be an incentive to maintain the illusion of the scarcity market."

Coupled with the rise of a Long Tail marketing mode, the author believes that, since "publishing is a gateway industry," "when the gateway is no longer essential, it must make itself important or it will not survive." The post goes into much greater detail and is worth a read. Aimed at writers, the gist of the post is that "the publishing industry cannot promise you sales, but more importantly, they cannot promise you publication. Self-publication will not change the fate of the entire industry, but it will give you an opportunity to take your fate into your own hands."

This paradigm shift from scarcity to plenitude and from exclusivity to the Long Tail has a lot of impact on the economic models of our country. Utopians who celebrate the complete freedom of the creator from publishing regimes are exactly that...utopian...but there is no doubt that the structure of power is shifting dramatically, and I think the traditional books publishing world is an important place to look for tracking these changes over a long period of time.