[p2p-research] Abundance Destroys Profit [was: Tick, tock, tick, tock… BING]

[Ryan Lanham]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12/13/09, Andy Robinson <ldxar1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 2)  The current trend internationally is away from mega-states and
> towards
> > either nifty small states or big confederal arrangements like the EU.
>
> Or even to an ecology of cooperating and competing "civil society"
> meshworks.  This would be, to some extent, a return to the pattern of
> Europe before the rise of the modern state, when there was really no
> such thing as territorial sovereignty.  King, feudal lords, mercantile
> leagues, and church coexisted without any single authority capable of
> regulating relations between them.
>
>
I used to buy into this very academic idea...a beautiful one, really.  That
government can simply "melt away."  Trouble is, all the big civil society
actors are supported by either direct flows or tax breaks.  It might still
be the way...I used to study it by looking at community foundations...I
still see them as great ideas.  They are, like sovereign wealth funds, an
idea for good times...not bad ones.  When times get bad, the solution is
always governmental...or it is collapse.  People expect solutions from
governments, not the local charity.
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