On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 4:42 AM, Stefan Meretz <[email protected]> wrote:
"Non profit business" -- there is no such thing. Business means profit, if there is no profit, you are quickly out of business.
So: "are these people 'enemies'"? No, capitalism is not about people, it is about structures being exclusive or inclusive. Thus "enemies" are not people, but those structures which exclude people.
Generally, markets are exclusive, because you can not participate if you have nothing to sell or to buy -- be it on the world market or on Tahiti square.
Thus business can not be a commons.
There are many examples from history where groups of people created a corporation, or "business" entity *not* for the purpose of participating in markets, but rather to solve a specific problem or set of problems for a community. The corporations in some cases were specifically created to handle the pooling of resources among participants. In the early days of the United States, these types of corporations were required to be dissolved when their purpose was fulfilled. Around the time of the US Civil War, railroad companies lobbied and fought in court to change the nature of corporate law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad I can imagine that laws, cultures, and traditions around this type of organization vary around the world. -- -- Sam Rose Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation Tel:+1(517) 639-1552 Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451 skype: samuelrose email: [email protected] http://forwardfound.org http://futureforwardinstitute.org http://hollymeadcapital.com http://p2pfoundation.net http://socialmediaclassroom.com "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan