In loving, living memory, John Melançon 1928 – 2007
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Clay Shirky: provide people the legal/practical benefits of incorporation without the rigidity/overhead (a PWGD goal)
Sun, 2008/05/25 - 6:04am — Benjamin Melançon
Clay Shirky thoughtfully (and of course without knowing) defines one of the key goals/purposes of PWGD better than I have been able to explain it: provide people the legal and practical business benefits of incorporation without the rigidity or hierarchy (and ideally with lower startup and overhead costs).
http://www.sparkminute.com/?p=335
Key point in the video: collective non-institutionalized organizing to stop something has proven precedents; organizing to build something has great examples in the realm of ideas, where open source free software and creative commons has been able to use copyright as a tool, flipping it around as copyleft; but organizing to build something in real space without institutions needs a way for informal groups to be formally recognized by legal and business institutions.
If you talk to me long enough about non-profits, universities, religion, businesses, marriage, or economics, you will hear me start to question why government favors certain forms of human organization over others, the effects this has on the way we do organize, and the huge benefits to be gained by allowing and encouraging all organization on an equal basis. That's more the perspective Clay Shirky is coming at I think. For the short-term purposes of PWGD, though, the question is how to make existing law and conventions work for groups?
Note to self: definitely read Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody"— the subtitle declares itself to be about "The Power of Organizing Without Organizations."
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I'm trying to make possible a worldwide nonviolent revolution for justice, liberty, and making more good things doable.
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We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.