Let me try again (again, credit to Clay Shirky, "Here Comes Everybody", but note that I'm digesting that book slowly--I'm on page 88/304 in ~6mo):
1. Individuals can make modest achievements.
2. Collaboration is required for more ambitious achievements.
3. The firm, with all its overhead, was a step forward. It allows groups
to make even more ambitious achievements. Hierarchical management ("The
Visible Hand") was a key innovation.
The firm must survive to be effective at all, so survival must be job
one for the firm. However, resources spent on survival don't contribute
to the mission, and therefore are an example of an inefficiency built
into the model. By analogy, the various thermodynamic models of engines
have inefficiencies which can't be machined out. More precise parts
can't make the engine more efficient, you must change to a different
class of engine if you want to be more productive.
The productivity of firms (for-profit, non-profit, whatever) has proven
to be worth the cost, and currently our social and legal infrastructure
favors this form of collaboration.
Rion D'Luz wrote:
> Yes, you could; but it would not strengthen the arg that the org's
mission is
> it's survival, because all your examples (and mine) are not driven by
survival,
> but achieving a higher mission
4. Our examples (let's not forget Open Street Map) are meant to show
that even very primitive instances of new models for group effort
are trumping firms with the clear advantage in terms of legal
infrastructure, mindshare, and other resources.
> Yes, I hate to use that tired word 'enabling', but the gist of what we are
> discussing is how newer tech is permitting people to do more with less and
> to get around|over traditional org structures to accomplish that...
Simple, and so capitalizing on, studying, or even just being conscious
of this fact should be a major focus for our generation.
We should battle the bias against distributed cooperation built into
the legal structure of authoritarian free enterprise, and battle the
descent into socialism. Highlight the alternatives to the powerful, or
build systems to make them obsolete.
>> [Beware! Editorial content: worse, our politicians seem to be rapidly
>> slipping toward socialism. Are we doomed to repeat last century's
>> mistakes instead of getting on with this century's possibilities?
>> Disclaimer: I was trained as an engineer, not educated in the liberal
>> arts. YMMV. I try to keep an open mind].
> Sorry, no: we are marching headlong into facism, as the recent posts on
> slashdot
> will easily bear out. Socialism is what the southern hemisphere is reverting
> to;
> denouncing neo-liberalism (corporatism) and spreading the wealth.
> And they're not repeating anything, but forging a better way (in their HO)
> foreward;
> whilst we further enrich those who've plundered our national wealth
> (read: disaster capitalism)
Socialism is a reaction to authoritarian free enterprise. I would argue
that socialism concentrates the power in fewer hands so it should be
more feared. Intellectual property rights--the artificial control of
ideas--are a tool of both. Spectrum rights--the artificial control of
the airwaves--are a tool of both. Distributed technology has proven to
be more efficient in both cases, and yet they persist.
I'm desperately clinging to the notion that the examples in this thread
are on-topic.
--
Anthony Carrico
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