Comments - Can Consumers Collectively Own 'Producers'? - P2P Foundation2024-03-29T01:21:14Zhttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=2003008%3ABlogPost%3A4761&xn_auth=nothanks for that very interest…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-08-09:2003008:Comment:59862008-08-09T06:47:16.000ZMichel Bauwenshttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/MichelBauwens
thanks for that very interesting info.<br />
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just done, alternative approaches to markets and capitalism:<br />
<br />
Resources on transforming markets:<br />
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- Market, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Market (and its equity aspects)<br />
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- Markets without capitalism, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Markets_without_Capitalism<br />
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- Non-capitalist markets, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Non-capitalist_Markets (and the view of Gesell)<br />
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- Reforming Markets, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Reforming_Markets<br />
<br />
- Market Socialism,…
thanks for that very interesting info.<br />
<br />
just done, alternative approaches to markets and capitalism:<br />
<br />
Resources on transforming markets:<br />
<br />
- Market, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Market (and its equity aspects)<br />
<br />
- Markets without capitalism, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Markets_without_Capitalism<br />
<br />
- Non-capitalist markets, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Non-capitalist_Markets (and the view of Gesell)<br />
<br />
- Reforming Markets, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Reforming_Markets<br />
<br />
- Market Socialism, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Market_Socialism and Self-managed market socialism<br />
<br />
- Market aspects of open source, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Open_Source_-_Market_Aspects<br />
<br />
- Open Market, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Open_Market<br />
<br />
- Market 3.0, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Market_3.0<br />
<br />
Resources on transforming capitalism:<br />
<br />
- P2P Capitalism, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Capitalism<br />
<br />
- Cooperative Capitalism, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Cooperative_Capitalism<br />
<br />
- Natural Capitalism, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Natural_Capitalism<br />
<br />
- Capitalism 3.0, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Capitalism_3.0<br />
<br />
- Open Capital, http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Open_Capital (and the Open Capitalist Project)<br />
<br />
- Patient, cooperative, and good capital This reminds me of the work o…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-08-09:2003008:Comment:59842008-08-09T00:33:23.000ZEric Huntinghttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/EricHunting
This reminds me of the work of economist Louis Kelso -the inventor of the Employee Stock Ownership Program or ESOP- who proposed a companion concept; the Consumer Stock Ownership Program or CSOP. These were part of a larger program he called the Capital Homesteading Act. A contemporary of Buckminster Fuller who purportedly was involved in the Old Man River City project, Kelso was a proponent of what he called a Third Way of economics that used the tools of capitalism to achieve the…
This reminds me of the work of economist Louis Kelso -the inventor of the Employee Stock Ownership Program or ESOP- who proposed a companion concept; the Consumer Stock Ownership Program or CSOP. These were part of a larger program he called the Capital Homesteading Act. A contemporary of Buckminster Fuller who purportedly was involved in the Old Man River City project, Kelso was a proponent of what he called a Third Way of economics that used the tools of capitalism to achieve the socioeconomic egalitarianism of socialism without its centralized structures of bureaucratic control. There is much information on this at the Center for Economic and Social Justice, a Washington organization that has been promoting Kelso's theories for decades. I've been quite interested in his concept of Community Investment Corporations as the basis of eco-community development.<br />
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http://www.cesj.org/ Check out
Marcin Jakubowski…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-06-26:2003008:Comment:54442008-06-26T13:37:53.000ZSepp Hasslbergerhttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/Sepp
Check out<br />
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<a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowski-on-a-policy-to-expand-material-peer-production-through-land/2008/06/25"><b>Marcin Jakubowski on a policy to expand material peer production through land</b></a><br />
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as a way to jump start consumer ownership of local productin - starting from the basics: food and where food comes from which is the land.
Check out<br />
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<a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marcin-jakubowski-on-a-policy-to-expand-material-peer-production-through-land/2008/06/25"><b>Marcin Jakubowski on a policy to expand material peer production through land</b></a><br />
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as a way to jump start consumer ownership of local productin - starting from the basics: food and where food comes from which is the land. How could a restaurant be con…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-06-01:2003008:Comment:51932008-06-01T17:47:35.000ZSepp Hasslbergerhttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/Sepp
How could a restaurant be consumer owned?<br />
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I suppose it would have to start out in a way similar to the beer bankroll, where consumers get together to do the initial buying (or newly establishing) the business act.<br />
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Once a restaurant is in the hands of habitual consumers (question: how to interest enough people who are regulars of a certain restaurant?) it would continue to serve its habitual customer base. But any restaurant can't survive only on the habitual customers. There will, therefore,…
How could a restaurant be consumer owned?<br />
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I suppose it would have to start out in a way similar to the beer bankroll, where consumers get together to do the initial buying (or newly establishing) the business act.<br />
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Once a restaurant is in the hands of habitual consumers (question: how to interest enough people who are regulars of a certain restaurant?) it would continue to serve its habitual customer base. But any restaurant can't survive only on the habitual customers. There will, therefore, be a good many clients who just happen in once but who don't stay.<br />
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What do those occasional clients get out of their visit to the restaurant? It could only be a lower price for their meal. I see no sense in making these customers owners. There would be no profit for them, and for the restaurant it would increase accounting in a not indifferent way.<br />
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Still, getting a meal at close to cost would be a possible way to attract customers, a thing any restaurant has to do to stay in business.<br />
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But in the end, I think, you would end up with a model not so different from the beer example. You would have the habitual customers be the actual owners. Of course there could be the case of new customers who stay and become frequent visitors. They probably would like to acquire some of that ownership, that you say would be financed by the part of price they pay that is over and above cost. But the first ones had to "buy in" by making an actual investment. How would the late comers be required (would they at all?) to make up for that first investment of the original owners? Thanks for the pointer Sepp.…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-06-01:2003008:Comment:51912008-06-01T17:02:02.000ZAGNUciushttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/AGNUcius
Thanks for the pointer Sepp. I love beer, especially Free (as in Freedom) beer. ;)<br />
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Unfortunately BeerBankroll is not truly Consumer Owned for two reasons:<br />
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1. The initial investors are being persuaded to invest for profit instead of product. If they would pay me in "at cost" beer, I would invest today!<br />
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2. Many of the consumers are not owners and do not automatically gain ownership according to the amount they pay above cost. Because of this, the organization is not self-balancing, and will…
Thanks for the pointer Sepp. I love beer, especially Free (as in Freedom) beer. ;)<br />
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Unfortunately BeerBankroll is not truly Consumer Owned for two reasons:<br />
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1. The initial investors are being persuaded to invest for profit instead of product. If they would pay me in "at cost" beer, I would invest today!<br />
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2. Many of the consumers are not owners and do not automatically gain ownership according to the amount they pay above cost. Because of this, the organization is not self-balancing, and will continue to move further and further from being Consumer Owned as it grows.<br />
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The quick way to check if any corp/org is Consumer Owned is to find out where the profits are going. If "price above cost" is being reinvested into the enterprise, AND if each of those reinvestments eventually 'vest' back to the consumer who paid it, then the Consumers will always be the Owners. But if that difference is treated as a reward for the current owners, or is reinvested but without regard to the original payer (the consumer), or if it is thrown away toward some random charity, then the chance for Consumers to remain Owners during growth is slowly eroded until you end up with another typical Capitalist situation.<br />
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Since it is impossible for a consumer to pay profit when they have sufficient *real* ownership (being paid with product, not just typical corporate shares that payout profit) in the sources of that production, the only people that will be paying profit are the late-comers. If we pretend they are not Consumers, and therefore do not 'deserve' ownership, then we can pretend BeerBankroll is Consumer Owned, but the truth is that BeerBankroll is Originator Owned, and intends to keep price above cost, just as almost every other business in the world.<br />
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On the front page at http://BeerBankroll.com Step 3 reads "Sell tons of beer and make a tidy profit". This proves that the they are not Consumer Owned, and do not intend to to be since profits safely approach zero in a Consumer Owned corporation. Allowing price to meet costs is not a problem for a Consumer Owned business - it is one of the main goals!<br />
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Thanks again for bringing this up. I don't mean to sound so negative. I'm only trying to be accurate.<br />
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I am trying to figure out how to write the next part of this that shows how to protect the worker's ability to consume and intend to also make it a response to Vinay's request at http://GlobalSwadeshi.net to map out how a Consumer Owned restaurant would function. It seems that some activity i…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-06-01:2003008:Comment:51892008-06-01T14:48:13.000ZSepp Hasslbergerhttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/Sepp
It seems that some activity is already going on consumer-owned producers.<br />
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Have you seen ...<br />
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<a href="http://www.beerbankroll.com/"><b>BeerBankroll</b></a> is taking a similar approach to the creation of a new, community managed brewery.
It seems that some activity is already going on consumer-owned producers.<br />
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Have you seen ...<br />
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<a href="http://www.beerbankroll.com/"><b>BeerBankroll</b></a> is taking a similar approach to the creation of a new, community managed brewery. Next step will be another con…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-05-19:2003008:Comment:49412008-05-19T20:06:52.000ZSepp Hasslbergerhttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/Sepp
Next step will be another contract - for the workers - as an open source continuously amendable document.<br />
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Well - maybe not continuously amendable but certainly subject to any adjustments the parties feel to make.
Next step will be another contract - for the workers - as an open source continuously amendable document.<br />
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Well - maybe not continuously amendable but certainly subject to any adjustments the parties feel to make. If you don't like to call the…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-05-19:2003008:Comment:49232008-05-19T15:57:14.000ZAGNUciushttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/AGNUcius
<i>If you don't like to call the reward for the success of an entrepreneur a profit, call it a bonus, but the fact remains that it is intimately connected with the performance (and perhaps even with a bit of good luck) of the enterprising individual.</i><br />
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I don't care about the name; I'm concerned WHERE the value comes from - or in other words, HOW that pool is increased.<br />
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I'm willing to accept your analysis if it 'works' for the construction of an alternate economy, but I am not sure it will…
<i>If you don't like to call the reward for the success of an entrepreneur a profit, call it a bonus, but the fact remains that it is intimately connected with the performance (and perhaps even with a bit of good luck) of the enterprising individual.</i><br />
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I don't care about the name; I'm concerned WHERE the value comes from - or in other words, HOW that pool is increased.<br />
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I'm willing to accept your analysis if it 'works' for the construction of an alternate economy, but I am not sure it will always make sense.<br />
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For instance you say:<br />
<i>"But whether you call it a wage, a bonus or a profit, the money has to come out of a "pool", which is money that isn't eaten up by costs. So a pricing "above cost" will be necessary to create the pool of money the entrepreneur can take his/her bonus from. There is really no way around this."</i><br />
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But the way I envision a consumer-owned company, there are points in time where each consumer has "just enough" source ownership that no selling of product ever need occur. In those fleeting (since consumer choices change and the productivity of sources change) instances, there will be no "price above cost" because the consumers would have already paid for all of the costs of production before production occurred, and the product itself is not sold - as it is already the property of those intending to consume it.<br />
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So when a group of honey eaters have "just enough" ownership in beehives to supply them with the honey they desire, and one of them is an entrepreneur that deserves bonuses, then why would it be a problem to pay that bonus as a cost - a sort of extended wage? There would be no "price above cost" to draw from because when the consumers are the owners in sufficient amount, there is no selling of product (honey)...<br />
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Ah, but maybe you want to draw the bonus payments from "price above cost" because you are saying the entrepreneur deserves the bonus ONLY when he is able to produce more than the owners paid for the amount they intended to consume for themselves. In that case the extra product could be sold to non-owning consumers at "price above cost" ... (actually, if the honey was really 'extra', and the current owners had already paid all costs, then ANY price would be above cost since this 'extra' product would itself be 'bonus') ...<br />
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I'll have to think more about this. I always assumed the "price above cost" meant the consumer was pleading for growth, and so should be treated as his investment (he paid it) in more sources. But I do see that it might also make sense to reward an entrepreneur/manager's efficiency by causing part of that consumer's payment to be treated as a bonus. But what about the manual-laborers? Shouldn't we also 'bonus' them?<br />
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Hmm... Thanks for the interaction, I think we are making progress and even beginning to address the resistance I always receive about protecting workers even though there is another way consumer-ownership protects workers that is much more powerful based on the fact that every worker is also a consumer (of something), so must have ownership in the sources of THAT production to be safe.<br />
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Anyway, I am still trying to find a way to make that presentation. But whether you call it a wag…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-05-19:2003008:Comment:49032008-05-19T09:07:36.000ZSepp Hasslbergerhttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/Sepp
<i>But whether you call it a wage, a bonus or a profit, the money has to come out of a "pool", which is money that isn't eaten up by costs. So a pricing "above cost" will be necessary to create the pool of money the entrepreneur can take his/her bonus from.</i><br />
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Let's call it a surplus instead of profit.<br />
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<b>Profit -</b> income above cost that is used to reward financial investment in a business.<br />
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<b>Surplus -</b> income above cost that is used to reward performance, enhance collaborative…
<i>But whether you call it a wage, a bonus or a profit, the money has to come out of a "pool", which is money that isn't eaten up by costs. So a pricing "above cost" will be necessary to create the pool of money the entrepreneur can take his/her bonus from.</i><br />
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Let's call it a surplus instead of profit.<br />
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<b>Profit -</b> income above cost that is used to reward financial investment in a business.<br />
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<b>Surplus -</b> income above cost that is used to reward performance, enhance collaborative efforts or distribute ownership in a consumer owned productive unit.<br />
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Just to sort out the two very similar but yet very different uses of price above cost. Good train of thought, and I…tag:p2pfoundation.ning.com,2008-05-19:2003008:Comment:49012008-05-19T08:27:51.000ZSepp Hasslbergerhttp://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/Sepp
Good train of thought, and I think we are getting closer to understanding what the problem may be.<br />
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<i>I agree it is important to compensate anyone for work - even if 'just' the mental work of ideas. But payment for work is called wages, not profit.</i><br />
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Yes, payment for "work" is wages. But then, an entrepreneur may be more like an artist or an explorer, rather than a worker. There is a certain excitement in the "work" of an entrepreneur that has a corresponding reward, which just isn't an…
Good train of thought, and I think we are getting closer to understanding what the problem may be.<br />
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<i>I agree it is important to compensate anyone for work - even if 'just' the mental work of ideas. But payment for work is called wages, not profit.</i><br />
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Yes, payment for "work" is wages. But then, an entrepreneur may be more like an artist or an explorer, rather than a worker. There is a certain excitement in the "work" of an entrepreneur that has a corresponding reward, which just isn't an agreed-upon wage.<br />
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Maybe I am seeing this in too romantic a light, but think of an explorer used to survive in the jungles who finds previously unknown details of geography, biology or history. Offer him a safe and guided tour of a jungle and he will likely decline. There is no challenge.<br />
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If you don't like to call the reward for the success of an entrepreneur a profit, call it a bonus, but the fact remains that it is intimately connected with the performance (and perhaps even with a bit of good luck) of the enterprising individual.<br />
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But whether you call it a wage, a bonus or a profit, the money has to come out of a "pool", which is money that isn't eaten up by costs. So a pricing "above cost" will be necessary to create the pool of money the entrepreneur can take his/her bonus from. There is really no way around this.<br />
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I think we are hung up on the word "profit" because it signifies different things to different people. To me as an entrepreneur, profit signifies a pool of resources that can be used to distribute rewarding merit. But profit may also signify the very opposite, which is "money made" just for the sake of rewarding the use of purely financial "investment". In that way, profit is disconnected from merit and becomes an object of speculation. It also is then pushed in a rather non-human way, disregarding what is destroyed (humans, environment) in the process, because the overriding motive is ... the profit.<br />
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So yes, there should be a clear distinction between profit as a source of cash to reward merit of those who actually work and profit as a surplus that is drained from the enterprise to go to people who are not in any way connected with the actual work, people who merely have provided some financial investment.<br />
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A good discussion of this can be found on the P2Pfoundation's wiki:<br />
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<a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/In_peer_production%2C_the_interests_of_capitalists_and_entrepreneurs_are_no_longer_aligned">On the difference between capitalists and entrepreneurs</a><br />
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To bring this back to the area of peer production or consumer owned enterprise, I'd like to point to a quote in Michel Bauwens' <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/P2pFoundation/~3/293021606/18">notes on his recent talk</a> at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences here in Rome.<br />
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<b>Charles Leadbeater, in We Think summarizes the explanation of Yochai Benkler,</b> referring to his landmark book on “The Wealth of Networks”:<br />
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<blockquote><i>“Benkler’s explanation for how open source communities coordinate themselves runs something like this. The raw material of these collaborations is creative talent. But creative talent is highly variable. People are good at different things and in different ways. It is very difficult to tell from the outside, for example by time and motions studies, who is the more effective creative worker. It is very difficult to write detailed job descriptions and contracts for creativity, specifying what new ideas need to be created when. Creativity cannot be delivered just-in-time. Open source communities resolve the difficulties of assessing creativity and quality by decentralising decision making down to individuals and small groups. They decide what to work on, depending on what needs to be done and what their skills are. There is little sense in working on a project that is already well staffed and where your contribution will add very little. It is very difficult to pull the wool over the eyes of your peers: they will soon spot if the contributions that you make do not really come up to scratch. That allows people to work on just their bit of the puzzle. Good central design rules allow the whole thing to add together. Work in open source communities gets done when creative people self-distribute themselves to different tasks, they submit their work to open peer review to maintain quality and the product has a modular design so that individual contributions can be clicked together easily.”</i></blockquote>
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To me this means that "consumer owned" must not be seen as owned in the sense of an investment of capital but as "owned and run by consumers" in the sense that any one of the co-owners will contribute not only an initial investment to buy the company but will contribute to the best of their ability to the running of the company. In that sense, employees and managers are part of the old paradigm, the way capital used to run an enterprise. We will have to find new designations for the functions people fill to make an enterprise work, and figure out how to compensate them (either in money or in goods or in something immaterial, such as honor) for their contribution.