Economic Networks

Unless network members can meet all their need in-network:
* some members, and/or the network collectively, will need to make money in the capitalist economy.
– some members could get jobs
– the network collectively could sell goods and/or services
– the network could get grants
– etc.

Capitalist ideology and relations will invade the network, for example:
* network members will compete with each other when they should cooperate [^1];
* factions will form to compete more successfully;
* all of this competition will be amplified and multiplied if the network uses the coin o' the realm internally;
* network members will call upon outside capitalist allies to compete and take over more network resources;
* in order to earn money, especially by getting grants, the network may need to compete with other cooperative networks rather than organizing a larger cooperative economy.

We have seen all of these diseases happen in cooperative economic networks.
* One member of one network organized a faction promising venture capital which split the network but the venture capital never came.
* The leaders of another network applied for venture capital but the venture capitalists told them to change the cooperative rules, which they did, whereupon the network collapsed from loss of members, and the venture capital never came.
* One network collapsed because one of the leaders favored his own business interests too much for the other members, many of whom left, and soon there were none.
* Another network failed to get started because of disputes over money.

But we also see networks that continue for years, and some of the networks that split, continued after reorganizing.

SO it's hard but not hopeless.

What is the solution to all of those problems? I think, but cannot yet prove, that building bigger networks that can provision more of their members' needs would help a lot. We'll see, some people are working on that...

[^1]: Yeah, ok, not all competition is bad. Some competition is fun. I don't know if I can strictly define the diffs...