The next breakthrough will be a 'license for collective action' analogous to the GPL: a legal vehicle (like Vermont's experimental virtual company—no paper filings, physical headquarters, or hierarchical management) that lets purely online groups be deferred to by the state to hire, fire, hold bank accounts, and create bylaws, which would explode collaborative activity beyond information production into real-world action.

forecastpending

Speaker

Clay Shirky

Evidence Quote

if we get a license for collective action that actually works I think we're going to see an explosion of this stuff spilling out of just intellectual property production into groups that are affecting things well outside the sphere of pure information

Source

Clay Shirky on Coase, Collaboration and Here Comes Everybody 10/20/2008EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:28:59 AM

My Notes

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