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Indeed, in many cases, the State and Elites enable or at least benignly ignore such community organizations/networks (local gardening clubs, Neighborhood Watch groups, etc.).

The key point is that transparent non-privileged parallel structures exist independently of Elite-controlled formal structures of power. While all such groups are implicitly political in nature--any organization which can wield influence beyond its numbers is potentially political--they are essentially informal (voluntary) parallel structures rather than direct threats to the status quo.

Thus the kumiai operates within a State but its interests lie beyond the State's purview. To the degree the kumiai offers alternative sources of financing to small enterprise, it could be seen as a competitor to the Elite banking/finance cartel, but the cartel would not profit enough from small loans to even bother making them.

Thus transparent non-privileged parallel structures have the great advantage of being non-threatening to Power Elites even as they offer immensely practical alternatives to the dominant State/corporate structures.

To follow up on the kumiai concept of pooling local resources to fund small enterprises: a financial kumiai could become a legally formal (that is, a partnership or non-profit legal entity) but informally structured private mortgage/lending in which a handful of individual investors fund a home purchase or new enterprise completely independent of the financial Elites' banks and venture capital elites.

This concept is also the foundation of "micro-finance" loans that also flourish independent of banking Elites and their State enablers.

Though many traditional cultures around the world have similiar voluntary mutual-aid networks, I will mention another which arose in present-day Japan simply because it is known to me.

In this network, time and labor are traded much like goods. If I watch your children for two hours, I receive two hours of "credit" for that labor which I can "spend" by asking another member of the network to watch my own children for two hours at a time when I need that assistance.

The labor "credit" is entirely voluntary. Thus I might care for an elderly person for four hours and receive four hours of gardening or computer tutoring in exchange. No money is exchanged and thus no taxes are due.

Given the approaching "end of paying work" described in Chapter Fourteen, then this type of cashless, taxless, Stateless network of exchange has tremendous possibilities.

The Internet enables such cooperative, voluntary mutually beneficial networks to operate at a scale and transparency that would not have been possible in a pre-Web, pre-networked world.

The Internet and all its related technologies are thus a critical "commons" asset which must be preserved and kept transparent for the common good, as this technology enables cooperative mutually beneficial exchange of ideas, labor and goods on a nearly scale-invariant level. That is, the Web enables trade within a neighborhood, a town, a city, a State or the entire planet.

For the household, reciprocity begins with existing networks: family, friends, colleagues, churches, neighborhood groups, trade/guild/interest groups, and so on. The possibilities of extending reciprocal networks (transparent non-privileged parallel structures) to operate independent of (or even replace) failing State/Elite structures are essentially unlimited.

8. Diffusion of Power and the Means of Wealth/Income Creation

On a society-wide level, distributing/diffusing the means to create income/wealth makes for a more equitable (less inequality) and more secure economy.

In terms of households, this is just another way of reducing risk and vulnerability. What means does the household own to generate income and accumulate capital? The means might be "soft capital" such as specific skills or it might be a combination of "soft" and built capital (welding skills plus a welding rig). It might be a modest sum of savings (capital)