

How to create an Economic Democracy - originalgmc

This is a new website and service aimed at democratically meta-crowdfunding startups and growing businesses. The original aim was to create a community that focused on micro-economies that traditional finance operations ignored. I thought that in all fairness, the system should also accommodate those businesses and startups that would choose to pursue growth funding through this new venue.<p>The system works by creating a crowdfund in advance of a product. People join the community by becoming a &quot;micro-angel-investor,&quot; they purchase a share in the fund and may then be pitched as if they were an investor with many millions of dollars. All of the members of the fund vote on the pitch and the fund makes the investment based on a majority approval. While multiple shares may be purchased in the fund, membership only comes with 1 equal vote. The system allows for the increased valuation of shares and the eventual sale of shares as well to help add incentive to membership and profitability for all of our angels.<p>This is a social web experiment. There is a small service fee on top of fund shares to help pay for the exorbitant startup costs that will be levied if the idea proves viable. This will also pay for a market-rate salary for all the employees to help maintain it, once again, if the idea proves viable.<p>The experimental part of this is the potential for what the individual funds can become. If a fund reaches a certain level of membership and a certain level of money in the bank, it could become a major economic power. This is economic self-determination. The power that comes with being a major economic power isn&#x27;t concentrated though, its diluted. Think of a board of directors with hundreds of thousands of members voting on the tough decisions.<p>Economic Democracy can truly be a beautiful thing in the imagination. The Grey Market Collective aims to make it happen.<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;greymarketcollective.com
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anigbrowl
Looks interesting, but you need some sort of clear statement of the legal
factors, both so people know where they stands and so that the SEC doesn't eat
you for breakfast.

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originalgmc
You're right. Thank you. I will add a "legality" page to the website. The
approach is that the organization can be made completely legal by jumping
through the hoops designed by business licensing law. We're not setting up
anything new, except for the fact that we're letting it be democratically
controlled.

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anigbrowl
It's a bold concept that I'll keep an eye on, and which deserves to succeed.
Even if it turns out to have problems, this is good economics research you're
doing here.

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originalgmc
Again, thank you for the suggestion. The Terms of Service page has been
updated as well as the about page, viz. legality.

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gus_massa
> _While multiple shares may be purchased in the fund, membership only comes
> with 1 equal vote._

How are you going to prevent the abuse of sockpuppets / meatpuppets / shills?

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originalgmc
Right now we're using paypal. It takes a bit of bureaucratic finagling to get
them to connect multiple paypal accounts to a single bank account, i'm not
sure it can be done honestly. In the future if paypal is ruled out, the form
of payment will be used to help mitigate people trying to game the system.
(posting this to the FaQ section - thanks for the question!

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originalgmc
I guess I should have wrote - This only works if users fund it. So join today
by contributing to a fund!

