Its the fundamental behind all that we have come to call social.

Most of us immediately think of money when we hear the word but its origins are in grunts and pointed fingers, in gifts and caresses, in clubs and spears, and in a parent teaching a child to hunt or gather edible roots.

Transaction pre-dates money by eons.

But our transaction landscape used to be level with minimal burdens on those transacting…

A hunter-gatherer may have had a very small world… a Dunbar’s Number sized world… but his or her transactions within it were unimpeded by any lack mediating technologies (since they were not much needed for its exercise).

I suggest that the burdens on transaction arising at the birth of agriculture (burdens caused by a loss of physical and social proximity and the relationship of Dunbar’s number to biological altruism and cognitive limits) has much to do with the (sad) early and continuing success of authoritarianism.

(see The Foundations of Authoritarianism )

Over centuries, as transaction technologies have improved… and especially since they’ve become more broadly available and less expensive…

There’s been a vey slow resurgence of anti-authoritarian impulses… which is now exponentially accelerating.

Just as the printing press weakened churches and monarchies in Medieval Europe… so too we see Facebook and Google challenging existing centralized power centers.

But this is critical to keep in mind…

The Internet is a Transaction Landscape if nothing else…

And how its shaped could hardly be more important.

(How much of our campaign finance problem is a result of the failure to ensure that the transaction technology of television secured a level landscape for civic engagement?)

But as the author understands… at the same time as these technologies may abet transaction in various forms they create new problematic centers of power and control… and place unnecessary and damaging burdens on needed transactions.

So now back to money… and to end this brief comment:

I’m convinced a neutral utility facilitating and unburdening these vital transactions in at least certain areas is needed.

I’m also convinced the micro-transaction and a capability for its P2P networking is vital and a key catalyst for the utility I mention above.

The Pooled-User-Determined Account* is the simple core transaction technology allowing for the viable development of this very fundamental transaction network.

*In brief, micro-transaction is accomplished by, for example, user depositing say $20 (or whatever) in their Chagora account; those transaction costs (to Visa, MC, etc) are paid by Chagora…

This deposit goes into one or more Trust Accounts along with deposits from others.

User at this point has relinquished ‘ownership’ of his deposit (he can’t withdraw those funds) but retains control over their distribution (limited to qualified recipients… political, charitable, news content, other purposes, etc)…

A designation by a user to send (e.g.) 25 cents to a recipient is combined with other designations to same recipient to a level in essence equivalent to a single payment of that same $20 (which is our hypothetical deposit) and transferred from a Chagora Trust to the recipient who reimburses Chagora for the transaction fee the recipient WOULD have paid for a single $20 payment he’d received.

This is an example to illustrate the idea… obviously its a bit more complicated… but idea is essentially simple. The core is this:

User’s deposits to the account must be in viable amounts at least (minimum $10, $20) as must payments out. And the micro-transaction must have no additional financial burden… system passes through and recoups its incurred transaction costs in a passive manner (neither gaining nor losing in the pass-through)…

This, of course means that monetization must come from elsewhere… and that’s a story I’ll save for later.

While its roots are in a simple utility for campaign finance… the body of this new genetic blueprint have much broader implications.

See Leveling the Transaction Landscape: Technology & the Campfire

Demo http://www.Chagora.com

I’ll be attending Douglas Rushkoff’s Contact Summit in October in NYC and look forward to speaking to anyone interested.

Patented

I was in an airport today, frustrated that we must enter a police state to get on an airplane. But know where to direct that frustration. I have a sense of why it’s happened and who is to blame (Congress, to start).

I’m less clear on who is responsible for this stalemate on the web. Is anyone responsible? Or is that our job now, to try to figure out a system on from scratch?