At 11:43 AM -0400 9/25/00, Trei, Peter wrote:

Funny how threads mutate. Back when I started the topic, it was in a thread called "And you thought Nazi agitprop was controversial". It's now mutated to "<nettime> Re: Rebirth of Guilds" and is dicussing the freedom of lesbians to kiss in ballparks.

Anyway, my main point (which was immediately lost in a discussion of certification programs for software engineers) was that whenever society permits some members of a profession to exclude other people from entering that profession, save in conformity to the prior members' "standards", you get high cost and/or low quality service. Lawyers and physicians do it through their professional organizations; and teachers through their closed shop union contracts. There are many other examples...

"Rent-seeking" is one good term for this overall behavior. People, even animals, seek competitive advantage in various ways. One way is by limiting competition and collecting "rent." Travellers passing a particular point (tolls), organized criminals charging protection money (governments, mafias), guilds limiting entry (Blacksmith's Guild, American Medical Association, etc.), immigration quotas, etc. Uusually a threat of violence is involved as an enforcement mechanism. One of the aspects of crypto anarchy is that such threats of physical violence are less useful. And so rent-seeking is thwarted. Gilding the lily...or the "Cypherpunks rose," appropriately. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.