alt Hacker News> In many existing demand cooperatives, such as rotating savings groups, there is often a trusted central coordinator — frequently an older community member — who helps maintain accountability and keep the interests of the group aligned.
Aligned with what? Whenever a central position is formed with power over something, even if it’s only a steering power, it will be sought out by power-hungry people and manipulated.
This thin proposal would be more interesting if it could give any discussion about the difficult points and how they’d address them rather than waving it all away under the guidance of a benevolent individual at the center.
To say I’m skeptical of an organization that wants to choose how to spend my money for me is an understatement.
Replies
> how they’d address them rather than waving it all away under the guidance of a benevolent individual at the center.
Believe it or not, there’s no power structure that is immune to not having a benevolent individual at the center. That’s because most things are norms and practices developed culturally, not codified in power structures or laws.
yes, I was going to write another paper on how we can have lil trusted person who evaluates proposals. My idea would be that each coop will create a charter and mission goals. These goals can be changed through quarter voting.
But after you create this charter the person who would evaluate it would be AI steward. He can tell you why your proposal aligns with the charter, why it doesnt. How it can come in line with the charter. After that given the money you need falls under a certain amount it just gets passed. If its over a certain amount though it goes through the vote.
but no proposal goes forth without AI steward being the fair evaluator of whether your proposal aligns with your coops charter.
> Whenever a central position is formed with power over something, even if it’s only a steering power, it will be sought out by power-hungry people and manipulated
The inevitable "iron law of oligarchy".
You should look up The Tyranny of Structurelessness
> will be sought out by power-hungry people
Agreed.
> and manipulated.
That does not necessarily follow.
This sort of thing had a huge social movement in the UK in the 1800s, and parts of it still survive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Group , for example. The trick is that it doesn't "feel like" a co-op, for most customers it's just a normal shop with an unusual ownership structure.
The financial co-operatives, the building societies, fell victim to "carpetbaggers" in the 90s who encouraged members to vote for proposals to convert to traditional for-profit structures and get bought out by other banks. This was at the time a really good deal! Co-op members got big one-off payments.
It was only in the 2000s that we found out what the negative effects of bank consolidation were.