🚀 go-pugleaf

cbbrowne@news.hex.net (Christopher Browne) writes:

>On Tue, 10 Nov 1998 15:46:37 GMT, gordon451@my-dejanews.com
><gordon451@my-dejanews.com> wrote: 
>>the alternative -- public funding -- is still under trial in many parts
>>of the world: to date it has been a miserable failure, not merely in the
>>quality and variety of product, but in the resulting quality of life.

This is unfortunately a bit of a clichee.  There has been much discussion
already, some people have listed great achievements of various government
bodies and even dared to argue that the U.S. economy owes more to large
government projects than to private business.  Main areas of government
success (and market failure) are in the funding of basic research and
traffic networks.

>The problem with public funding is that it separates out
>"responsibility."

>When things are administered by 'faceless bureaucrats,' responsibility
>for outcomes gets quite distant from those that are paying the bills.

This is a problem.  It applies to large corporations as well, of course.

>It is facile (in both the French and English senses) for an individual
>looking at what they spend money on to miss the difference between
>public spending and an individual's private spending. 

>When you directly spend $20 on something, you see the results, and
>responsibility is quite directly assessed.  If you choose well, you are
>immediately rewarded by having something nice; if you choose poorly, you
>are immediately assessed the penalty of receiving something worthless.

Unfortunately, even in schemes like the Software Bazaar, if you choose well
you don't receive an immediate gratification of desires but only the
satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed something to the public.
The "tragedy of the commons" or "prisoner's dilemma" were discussed here.

>But as soon as it heads towards the public realm, life gets a little
>more complicated.  It is necessary for someone else to administer the
>spending.  If you know the administrator personally, you may have reason
>to know to trust their choices.  (Or perhaps to be highly suspicious!)

>As the separation increases, you start to need "administrative
>policies," (hopefully) objective rules to indicate what can and cannot
>be done with the public resources.

If you have a certain competition of organisations who strive to establish a
reputation as a trustable public agent, things can become a little better. A
group in Munich is currently founding a public-interest "Assocation for a
Free Informational Infrastructure".  The articles of association (in German)
can be found in

	http://www.lrz.de/~phm/mlugsatzde.html
	
It was quite difficult to get recognition as a tax-deductible charity.

>I think that the Internet-based development of Linux allows us an
>opportunity to elude this issue somewhat.

and also to help build trust in mediating organisations.

>Note that this does not indicate a way of directing
>contributions to a *project* as such.  Directing contributions to a
>*project* immediately introduces an indirection of responsibility, which
>this whole approach is trying to avoid.

Your Free Software Maintenance Bazaar is a good idea with merits, but it
would not fit into the model of public-benefit associations under German tax
law.  Interestingly, our Association is not allowed to donate to any private
persons.  It may only help by commissioning new or buying out existing
information works.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch
http://www.a2e.de/phm/