RE: Why does the state still stand:

At 10:01 PM 5/14/96 -0700, blanc wrote:
>3 problems which immediately come to mind:
>
>.  What if someone, hired on one occasion but fired at another, 
>  decides in anger to > "turn coat" and report everyone to the 
>  IRS (or other fine government agency)?

I expect that as corporations move to the net, they will not have the
highly centralized structure of existing corporations.  In any case
this structure is in large part imposed by the state in order to 
facilitate tax collection.  For example the existence of the 
"Human resources department" is largely the result of state 
coercion of corporations.  In web businesses ones primary 
relationship will be with ones immediate coworkers, rather than
the greater corporation.

They will consist rather of a network of relationships -- contracting
will move up, and the Keiretsu structure will move down.  I expect
the institutional structure will resemble that of the mafia -- a loose
confederation of networks rather than tight whole. Thus defection
by one party can only cause limited damage.

In my judgement the Keiretsu form of economic organization is growing 
in large part because of improved communications and lowered 
communication costs.

The Keiretsu form does not in itself facilitate tax evasion, but it
does mean that the state has to apply coercion more directly to
more people in order to collect taxes, and that its coercion has 
to be more visibly arbitrary and disruptive.

>.  What if a company does not pay as expected - other than adopting 
> Assassination Politics, what method could an employee use towards 
> getting their expected remuneration for work done?

In order to do business, one will need a good name (or good nym).

If one does not have a good name, one will be poor.  That is why
I said "every man his own credit bureau".

>.  Wouldn't everyone need to have two jobs (or source of regularly 
> accepted cash), in order to be able to pay for services where 
> suppliers do not accept virtual cash transactions? (TCM has 
> mentioned before about the need to pay for some things 
> in tiny quantities - like quarters for a phone call, etc.)

Existing forms of ecash are costly and inconvenient, hence unsuitable
for spending in tiny quantities.  I expect that
in the not very distant future every shop will offer its own cash,
and that some of these will be in the form of millicents -- suitable
for automatic lightly supervised transactions between computers.  

I expect the transaction cost advantage will eventually be on the side
of electronic money, rather than physical money.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
              				|  
We have the right to defend ourselves	|   http://www.jim.com/jamesd/
and our property, because of the kind	|  
of animals that we are. True law	|   James A. Donald
derives from this right, not from the	|  
arbitrary power of the state.		|   jamesd@echeque.com

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 The entity who calls itself "James A. Donald <jamesd@echeque.com>"
 is alleged to have written:
> 
> Existing forms of ecash are costly and inconvenient, hence unsuitable
> for spending in tiny quantities.


Excuse me?  Here James, have a penny.

- -----BEGIN ECASH PAYMENT-----

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- -----END ECASH PAYMENT-----


That took me all of about 5 seconds.  If you had Mark Twain
ecash it would take you less time to accept that penny that it
takes you to read "----BEGIN ECASH PAYMENT-----" with your slow
human eyes.


Regards,

Bryce

P.S.  That is my "lucky penny"!  It was given to me by Lucky 
Green when he was working for Mark Twain Bank and I was
establishing my cybershop.  We used it to test my shop.  If
nobody takes it (it is marked so that anyone can pick it up, not
just James), I'm taking it back in a day or two.




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On Wed, 15 May 1996 bryce@digicash.com wrote:

> Excuse me?  Here James, have a penny.
> 
> - -----BEGIN ECASH PAYMENT-----
> [... penny deleted ...]

That brings up an interesting question.  What is the marginal cost to
MarkTwain of such a one-cent ecash transaction?  If everyone started
sending each other these pennies, will MarkTwain go broke? 

Wei Dai

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 Wei Dai probably wrote:
>
> That brings up an interesting question.  What is the marginal cost to
> MarkTwain of such a one-cent ecash transaction?  If everyone started
> sending each other these pennies, will MarkTwain go broke? 


Good question.


Speaking unofficially and off-the-top-of-my head, I estimate the
marginal cost to be "really really small".


I mean, if you really want to know the marginal cost of
something you have to determine which costs are considered
marginal and which aren't.  Is Frank O. Trotter's salary a
marginal cost?  I mean, if everyone in the world started sending
each other Mark Twain Bank pennies, MTB might have to hire a
second or third banker-type like Frank to keep an eye on things.


But disregarding such speculation, what is the marginal cost of a
kilobyte or so on Mark Twain Bank's internet connection?  Or
(snicker) a handful of CPU cycles on bank.marktwain.com?


The biggest "marginal cost" is probably the salaries of the
employees who keep those two things running.


Regards,

Bryce




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