From: "Tom Bell" <BELL@odo.law.udayton.edu>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 00:57:00 +0800
To: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Subject: Re: Anonymity and Intellectual Capital
Message-ID: <BDA7F31725@odo.law.udayton.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> I've ranted about all this here and elsewhere, how falling semiconductor
> prices, public networks and strong cryptography beget the reemergence of
> bearer certificates, this time in digital form (of which ecash is only the
> prima facie example, the existence proof) and what I call, for lack of a
> better term, a "geodesic", instead of hierarchical, economy.

> Bob Hettinga

Agreed.  What's more, I'll make a similar claim about the legal 
system -- with the rise of alternate dispute resolution systems, it 
too appears to be moving toward a system where law issues less from 
state authorities and more from private ones.  Post's article brings 
out this point well.

As for terminology, I prefer "polycentric."  Originally coined (I 
believe) by Polyani with regard to non-hierarchical societies, it 
works quite well in economic and legal contexts.  A polycentric 
system harbors overlapping authorities in free and open competition.

Tom W. Bell
Assistant Professor 
Law and Technology Program
UD Law School
bell@odo.law.udayton.edu

PGP fingerprint:
78 06 76 AC 32 38 A6 4C  B3 81 F4 1E 2E 27 AC 71