Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [175]
On a local level, ownership/control of the commons can be seen in municipal water districts; windfall exploitation can be seen in private water systems which serve a large community with no other source of water.
Trade is the most ancient form of freely chosen reciprocity.
If there is one single element in financial prosperity--income, wealth and capital accumulation--which is under-appreciated, I think it is trade. Long before a fossil-fuel dependent transport system or the modern State or "Capitalism" with a capital C, humans enriched themselves and their communities by trading over vast distances.
Trade between Rome and China, trade between India, the Mideast and the Mediterranean empires --these trade routes, thousands of miles long, predated the birth of Christ. Trade does not require fossil fuels, the State or even modern finance. Trade springs up on its own as a form of windfall exploitation: the scarce from afar can be sold for an immense profit (especially if competitive sources have been limited) and locally produced surplus goods can be purchased at low cost and sold where they are scarce at an immense profit.
Trade is freely chosen and mutually beneficial. It is only exploitative if Elites control the resources, labor and/or transport.
In the context of the present, then the explosion of small trading enterprises on the Internet (eBay, craigslist, etc.) is a current example of the power of trade to arise spontaneously for mutual benefit/profit.
Another structure which serves common interests is the self-organized cooperative, which can be organized by community, financial or trade/craft interests. In "old Hawaii" (and to some extent, in modern Hawaii), Japanese-American neighborhoods and communities (often small plantation villages) formed voluntary associations known as kumiai (pronounced "koo-me-eye").
The kumiai served as a way to pool scarce resources--in a poor plantation economy, money--to aid members in their hour of need. Thus the custom was for all kumiai members to offer a small amount of money whenever a member died, to help the family defray the costs of a funeral service and burial.
Accounts were kept by senior household members to ensure that reciprocity was fulfilled; any household which had given money for a funeral would receive the same sum when someone in that household passed away.
In this fashion, expenses such as funerals were shared by the community.
Another function of kumiai's was the pooling of capital. Small sums were collected annually from member households, and the accumulated capital was then "invested" in one member's enterprise. Depending on the group, this could be awarded by bidding (the pot going to the highest bidder), chance (via a drawing or lottery) or by deliberation of the group.
This concept is in essence the basis of Credit Unions.
All of these self-organizing groups/networks are examples of transparent non-privileged parallel structures: voluntary, formally organized structures which are independent of State or State-mandated institutions. Where large-scale formal structures are controlled by purposefully opaque Elites--governmental agencies, banks, global corporations, etc.--self-organized groups are transparent (otherwise, who would contribute time and money?) structures based on fulfilling the needs and interests of non-privileged, non-Elite citizens.
As these exist in parallel to formal State and corporate organizations, they are not direct sources of confrontation