Not to be a damper, but I'd guess that much of it has to do with the problems of varying state laws (in the US) and varying international laws (throughout the world).

I mean, lawyers can't know all the laws everywhere. Therapists have to be licensed in each state they work it. Etc etc etc.

To some extent, I really think that global networking has just shown us how local we really are.

It seems like you'd lose the peer pressure effect of a commune when all the members are geographically dispersed. A close-knit online community provides it to an extent, but if I can't look someone in the eyes when they tell me they truly deserve to be compensated for [whatever], well, I think trust will slowly erode and will shatter if anyone violates it outright.

Anyway, I think your concept is interesting. Much of the progress made in the capital markets has potential to be converted into this kind of community risk-sharing scheme. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that, but the sophistication of risk analysis and pricing is impressive. Some of it is scary Enron-style black box stuff, but a lot of it is really smart and straight-forward.

Some very good thoughts here (PDF) on how social evolution is beginning to incorporate networks (meaning non-hierarchical organization of society). Examples abound. The bunnypin conspiracy is one of these examples.

And an extension into the spheres you are talking about, but in the framework of international diplomacy.

I've worked with these guys for over ten years. Most of my work has been dealing with what we call "dark side" issues, but I've had considerable luck with "bright side" stuff too. I'd love to kick this around a bit.

I can tell you that non-hierarchical organization has some built-in problems, the worst of which is the freeloader / noise issue. Networks require much more in the way of communication costs and it's easy for them to get all farked up.

This is probably what's been happening to MeFi and Matt has correctly arrived at the empirical solution of centralizing things a little bit more -- with all of the hoohah that attends bureaucratization and the routinization of charisma.

I've built several very large-scale voluntary networks for defending and protecting civil society. It's remarkably easy if you know how things work. Not every attempt will result in a stable and functioning network, but the ones that do take off don't require enormous resources.

One thing I do know: you can't do this only by remote communication. It takes face-to-face. A lot of face-to-face. It doesn't have to be everybody together all at once in the same place at the same time, but people have to build social relationships.

Like meetups. Exactly like meetups. Meetups are the most powerful social network building tool there is. Life is a dinner party.

Luther Gerlach and Virginia Hine have an amazing book called People, Power, Change that describes the dynamics of how movements and social networks operate, grow, evolve and become established.

Your PDF link is empty.

Tribes, Institutions, Markets, Networks: A Framework for Societal Evolution by David Ronfeldt (PDF)

Excellent, warbaby, thanks. That'll whet my whistle for a bit.

Sterling talks about this idea too, in one of his recenter short stories, but in a semi-anonymous gift economy kind of deal.

I think this idea is kind of inevitable really, but could suck unless it is allowed to grow in a really slow and organic way. Whatever web 3.0 attempts to commoditize it will make it another good idea gone bad. I think some combination of what you are talking about loquacious and what Sterling talks about in that story could really have a huge impact. A peer to peer thing of ours, I loves it.

fwiw, I am a semi-blooded shade tree accountant, with the continuing ed certificates to prove it. I'd love to talk about this more, if only for speculative fun.

I actually had a dream/told myself a story about something like this last night, now that I think about it. Hmmm. More of a way for petty thieves to sort of have an on demand crew should they need it. I was trying to come up with some bylaws, rules and terms of service when I fell back to sleep.

Funny. I was going to make a post here about the New Orleans "Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs" (Zulu is the most famous) that grew out of what was called Benevolent Societies - "the first forms of insurance in the Black community where, for a small amount of dues, members received financial help when sick or financial aid when burying deceased members".

Yeah that is like that jammie in Mexican communities in LA (probably not just in LA) where everyone kicks in a part of their paycheck into a pool and then you get the whole pool x times a year. I forget what that is called, but it has a neat name.

Comida? (sp?) My GF did it with a cow-orker once. It was openly referred to as the Mexican Lottery by Latino and gringo alike. I think she paid $50 a week or per paycheck until she got to $1000, and then got it all back.

Personally, that crosses my trust threshold, but then it wasn't my cow-orker and I didn't know much about it. But it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and sounds super iffy. There's little to no recourse if the "fund" collapses before you get your pay-in back. I wonder what the benefit for the fund holder is? I know that the one my GF was using kept the fund money in a real bank, so maybe they just accumulated the interest from it, or actually put the float money into a 6 or 12 month CD while waiting for the next payout cycle.

But it's basically a weird way to save up money, especially for marginal people afraid of banks.

Somewhere, though, I imagine that there's a catch in the system or a benefit to the fund managers.


The sort of thing I'm imagining is a bit more complex then this. On one facet it behaves like a not for profit LLC style corporation, constantly looking to get the best deal on group-buy discounted goods or services for it's members. On another facet it could be a health insurance broker, or broker of other insurance or insurance-like services, say, legal assistance. On the inside, it can also function as a barter network, a job placement network, a social vetting network, and more.

It's the sort of thing that would require real money to be spent to be done, but the idea is that it consumes a small part of the money one would already be spending on cost of living items, which is offset by reducing the total cost of those cost of living items.

In the very real sense, it should pay for itself and after initial startup, should actually generate income for itself - through cost reductions via aggregate buying, and even perhaps through managed investing - and allow for growth and the appointment of real staff, whether they are full time, contracted and retained for on-call, barter-compensated, volunteers rewarded with stipends or other.

The major differences between this sort of arrangement and traditional instruments is that in a good social network many different kinds frictions can be reduced or eliminated. Barter can be employed more effectively - and barter is something that doesn't happen very often in a traditional setting.

The person you call up on the phone to discuss issues with, say, your health insurance, is someone you already know - which would hopefully lead to more niceties and more mutual respect in both directions in a manner not found as often in a traditional setting.

There would be a critical mass required for it to work. Too few people and ther wouldn't be enough resources to capitalize on. Too many and it would probably come unmanageable or even polluted, and too friction prone. Memberships and invitations would have to be carefully controlled.