Hi Gary, any entity in which the surplus does not go to external shareholders, but whose mission is to return the investment to the commoners and the commons, would quality. Current examples would be the OS Alliance in Austria, GCoop in Argentina, but they are still very few and far between. Amongst the people working on this are Chris Cook, Jeff Mowatt, Adam Avans, and Dmytri Kleiner.

seems you have misunderstood what I said, since my ‘third commons’ is exactly what you propose.

This is something considered in setting out the argument for the for-benefit or profit-for-purpose we describe as People-Centered Economic Development, an antecedent of social enterprise.

“By going with the normal flow of free-market enterprise and the emerging replacement of monetary capital with intellectual capital as the dominant form of basic enterprise capitalization, it becomes easier to set up new companies primarily on the basis of invested intellectual capital. (See Post-Capitalist Society, by Peter Drucker). In plain English, socially responsible and forward-thinking companies can be set up quickly and cheaply–and these companies have indefinite potential for earnings and localized, targeted economic development. The initial objective is to develop model enterprises and communities, then implement successful strategies from those models into surrounding communities regionwide or nationwide, as needed.”

The surplus value in this case is held by company which distributes no dividends. It exists as an entity whose creators have agreed that its purpose is to serve a community.

In the illustration of ourselves, revenue is derived from the conventional approach to software development and this revenue is used to design and leverage strategies for local wealth creation. Revenue from these activities may then be re-invested and so on.

http://people-centered.net/Services.aspx