Part 2 of my narrative on discovering a socioeconomic model, which I call “utilicontributism,” for the time being. In addition to the authors and books mentioned in part 1, I also want to mention the works of Patrick Anderson, Christian Siefkes, and Dmytri Kleiner, whose writings helped frame and test perspectives I had not encountered before. I might not have run into their thinking so soon, or at all, had it not been for the hub the P2P foundation has become. This second half of the background narrative continues with trying to create a service model infrastructure for copyright.

Brainstorming a new framework

Means of facilitation between users and creators had to be non-profit. The organization had to exist completely and only for the purpose of facilitation: we needed trusts. Trusts could establish that purpose as the purpose of the organization, and provide legal means to enforce that mission and duty. A “businesstrust” could be purpose-driven, not profit-driven. Peter Barnes had identified trusts as a check and balance to corporate interests, looking after resources like the air and water, but I was seeing them in a new light. Trusts could maintain a non-profit mission while providing democratic oversight to their trustees. They could, if they got enough momentum, out-compete corporations: they only need to listen to customer needs and break even.

Further, it had to be opt-in. Would customers be investors, too? Dee Hock’s tale of the creation of VISA played in my mind. These organizations needed basic principles that kept them democratic. The benefits of joining had to carry a responsibility to support the purpose and principles of the organization. All creative works (information), once released in the system, would be free to distribute outside the system. They would each be, in short, GPL-ized.

So to build this new system that could support users and creators, what would be needed?

First, a value exchange system. In other words, a non-profit Paypal or VISA. It had to be reliable, trustworthy, and charge only enough to cover operating costs, whether the charge was per transaction, or per time period, like a subscription fee. The trustees could ultimately decide the best method for this fee, changing it if needed. I came to call this the “banktrust” concept.

Second, a virtual agora that was part marketplace, part directory of works, part playground, and part personal media center. It needed the same properties as the banktrust: reliable, trustworthy, democratically-controlled, and non-profit. It would be essentially an enabling layer of metadata for all the works within it, which would have to be freely available. It would handle all methods of compensating creators: grants, prize contests, pledges, milestone-funding, auctions, and donations. It would use the metadata layer to provide unprecedented visibility to the “long tail:” people could find anything in the system, no matter how obscure, and use the metadata for recommendations, and use their friends metadata for recommendations. I was envisioning a super hybrid of Amazon, imdb, Facebook, Steam, MySpace, iTunes, Last.fm, and Google. The look and feel could be customized for communities and individuals: all that was necessary was a solid layer facilitating communication, transaction, and development between and for all members. They would build what they needed on top of it, just as they have with the internet. I didn’t need to guess what they’d need beyond that. The same with compensation models: members would try different models and use what best fit. I didn’t need to worry about it. Build it, and if they come, everyone wins. As Buckminster Fuller observed, an alternate reality will make the old reality obsolete.

The critical leap: a service model for property

Michel Bauwen’s observation on the flipped notions of scarcity bubbled up immediately. I had taken nonrival goods–information, digital entertainment, ideas–and flipped them into entirely a service model. It made sense.

I began wondering about the implication of everything in the world following a service model. What if property were considered owned by everyone? Buckminster Fuller’s spaceship earth? If we’re all in this spaceship, don’t we essentially all have a stake? If we all do, then we’re all trustees of the Earth as well. We should be charging ourselves rent. We should be charging ourselves for how we use Earth. If we all have essentially the same basic needs, those who use more waste more. I realized what the biggest global issue was: inequity. This didn’t hit me like a revelation, because I, and I suspect most other people, already know it. Of course inequity is a big problem, but it seems too general to solve. It isn’t.

If we free information, we’ve partly solved knowledge inequity, but we also need physical resource equity to establish true human equity. You can only have information equity when the resources of transmission are shared, whether fiber or spectrum (e.g. broadcast and radio frequencies).

The fundamental concept of charging for use was the key that unlocked a new perspective, and a deluge of additional concepts, the most important being that the sum of use fees were paid back equally between all members. All of them. Neither were new concepts: they’d been mentioned by countless others, particularly Peter Barnes; heck, Alaska charges for its oil, and pays back its citizens. However, no one went far enough with these concepts. If I were to say that I can create a system that people choose to join, choose to develop, choose to empower, and ultimately selects for equity and ecological responsibility, who would believe me? That’s the holy grail of the millions of people Paul Hawken found pushing for change through unrest.

Could it be that easy? Yes, but in design principle only, at a very zoomed-out, and abstract level. Credits could be created and paid through voluntary agreements to bring property into a propertytrust; all property under this agreement would be co-owned equally, and subject to use fees that were then redistributed to all members. The implementation will be a significant challenge, like every other component of the system. However, as with the other trusts, fulfilling the purpose of the propertytrust wouldn’t necessitate a single method used by every trust. Each trust might have a slightly different method for establishing use fees, and some might be more accurate or easier than others. The variety of methods between the trusts would be a competition of ideas, and the best methods would likely be favored, mutate a little here and there, and continue to evolve. I realized that this scenario should not only be expected in each trust model, it should be encouraged, for the health and the progress of the networks.

A new system: simple, easy, and effective?

I think the answer is yes and no. Yes, the concepts behind it are actually pretty simple, although they are somewhat alien, because we’re used to thinking from an entirely different perspective. The system is still subject to human flaw and error, still has to be built, and still has to be maintained. It’s not a panacea on autopilot, it’s human-operated system that beats what we currently have, and can be bootstrapped into place voluntarily through the merits and benefits of individual components.

The system I’m proposing will strike different perspectives as different types of crazy:

• It is more pure free market than what we have, yet ultimately the ideas are competing, not the people. Economically speaking, I think it’s more Pareto optimal than anything previously existent.
• It is more pure communist than anything we have, yet ultimately it isn’t communist either. People are having their rightful property restored: their share of the Earth. We’re all equal stakeholders, and we should be charging for use. Those who use the most should pay everyone the most.
• It distributes wealth to all, solving half of the root cause of poverty (guaranteed income advocates should be pleased).
• It distributes knowledge to all, solving the other half of the root cause of poverty.
• It distributes power, control, and governance to all; it minimizes corruption.

As I thought more about it, I realized it would also need to be a network of networks, which solved additional problems, like the inefficiency and corruptibility of hierarchical structures. The network model is also most resilient to damage.

And so I began the Peer Trust Network Project, attempting to build upon, criticize, and revise my discovery. Shortly thereafter I found Chris Cook, JW Smith, Marcin of OSE, Muhammad Yunus, (to name just a few) and others had come to similar, yet slightly varied, conclusions. A new system concept is emerging, from old and new ideas, and old and new technology.

For some of the resulting discussion, please visit the talk page on the project.