WikiLeaks' Marketing Strategy: A Stroke of Genius

Gary North
Dec. 07, 2010

To understand what WikiLeaks has done, we must understand economic cause and effect. Let us begin with a comparable market: the market for gambling.

Governments have laws against gambling. Why? The justification is moral principles. This reason is less persuasive, once the government sets up state lotteries and also licenses taxable gambling, such as horse racing. The real reason is the governments want to monopolize the vice. They expect greater tax revenues.

Governments arrest bookies. But bookies are merely providers of the service. The source of demand is the individual gambler: the guy who is placing the bets. The infrastructure that delivers the service is surely basic to the process, but it is the individual citizen who is the prime mover. Why? He is paying for it.

Want to understand the process? Follow the money. It ends with the customer.

The government prosecutes the bookie because it is cheaper than following the money to the sources. It's a matter of the economies of scale. But it is hypocritical to blame the bookie. It is cheaper to arrest and try him than to arrest and try all of his customers, but he is not the source of the practice. Customers are.

Back to WikiLeaks. Who is the source of the problem? Readers of articles about the scandals. This is gossip for educated people. This is Jerry Springer for college graduates. This is "You know what she said about him?"

Readers are going to websites: plural. They are not going to WikiLeaks' site. They are going to the "bookies'" sites: The Guardian, Der Spiegel, , and the New York Times. These are the national "newspapers of record." These are the Establishment's main news sources in the West.

Do you see what Julian Assange has done? He has pitted one against another. He gives them first shot at the leaked documents for a few days. Then he releases them to everyone. "Want a scoop? I'll provide it. Want to be an also-ran? Just sit on the story." He has them salivating for the next release. The papers have staffers ready to read, write, and post.

This strategy is working. The Establishment press is all over these stories.

The public, Pavlovian to the core, can't wait to get the next bit of gossip. "And then she said this!"

This is National Enquirer for the literati.

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