I also think that Lessig is a bit too comfortable with Web 2.0 hierarchies:

http://madisonian.net/2009/01/18/the-picture-and-the-paint/

I think you’re right, Lessig does have a strong constitutional background, so I can see where he’s coming from. Unfortunately, he does seem to have a very American-centric view of the law, which has always baffled me a bit, as he’s well travelled.

While I haven’t taken this whole blog tempest du jour quite as seriously as you (I’ve skimmed Kelly, Lessig, and the responses and haven’t read Helprin at all), my impression, like yours, is that Lessig seems a little too eager to distance Creative Commons from socialism.

My only reason for commenting is that I want to say this is primarily about Lessig, not about an American stance toward socialism. Remember that Lessig started as a constitutionalist and that he clerked for two conservative judges, Posner and Scalia, who must have influenced him in some ways. His most well-known case, Eldred, was about trying to limit copyright by going back to the original intent of the framers. His personal history explains a lot about his current thinking.

Though it is true that “many other American academics” aren’t really competent on international and comparative law, contrary to the impression one might get, there are some folks in the legal academy over here with more cosmopolitan and internationalist sympathies.