" ... the "collective" nature of the folk process is cumulative rather than collaborative. No one is arguing that these songs were created by committee, even less that the singers were passive carriers."

Exactly, Mr Jones! And this should be obvious - even to SO'P - how could it be otherwise unless we happen to know the exact identities of every singer of every song shaped by the 'folk process'? I agree that it would be wonderful to celebrate the individuals who contributed to the process but we can't because we have very little information about them and most of them are dead. We can only surmise that they lived within communities and probably sang their songs within those communities. Occasionally an individual singer may have had an opportunity to sing his/her songs to members of other communities. The fact that we don't know who many of these people were is an accident of history - not some deliberate act of class warfare.