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This would be a great thing to combine with Citizen Deliberative Councils

single national insurance market will do exactly what state markets have done: boil down to 2-3 players.

And where did I say a single insurance market? A actually part of the bill is that market, which is not free. What I did say is that I should be able to drive across a state line and buy insurance. There are 50 states with more state lines. My state has borders with more than 2 other states.

And *then*, one day, something big hits. Bad auto accident? Cancer? MS? Doesn't matter, but it requires a lot of care. Not just in one instance, over months. Maybe years. Maybe the rest of your life. And all of the sudden, you are suddenly a very different prospect than you were to the insurance company the day before. From here on out, you're a liability that has to be managed in some way.

And we don't have that now? We most certainly do. I am one of those you describe above. More than 10 years ago I was hit while riding my bike and I survived a disability, specifically a Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI. After that I was refused insurance coverage. The only reason I have insurance now, after years of not having any, is because I am on Medicare.

maybe the insurance company isn't very cooperative: every claim gets challenged, some they may relent on, but some they find an excuse and won't budge.

Ever hear of courts and lawsuits? How about corporate charter revocation? All can be used to reign in corporations, if they are not reigned in it's only because voters let then get away with it.

In a free market, here's what you'll do: nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Oh really? What did you use to make your post? Without competition you wouldn't have such a powerful computer that you're using. Competition brought it to you. Why is it so hard to believe competition can't do the same with health care and insurance? Because it doesn't fit into the socialist ideology?

The rest continued the drivel.

Falcon

it's pretty likely what would happen before too long would be the same thing that's happened in telecom, broadcast, newspapers, and a bunch of other industries: we'll consolidate nationally to 2-3 players.

That's easy to deal with. Wasn't there talk about hearings and an investigation when Microsoft sought to buy Yahoo!? Didn't the FTC investigate Google's buyout of Doubleclick?

profitability as an insurance company depends strongly on what you can negotiate with providers,

Someone in a post above wrote about how a hospital in, AZ I think, started refusing the coverage from one insurance company because of what it wasw doing. That forced the company to change it's policy or behavior.

Also many insurance companies are corporations and the charter which grants them limited liability can be revoked. If businesses are allowed to get away with anything it's because people allow it to not because it can't be punished.

Falcon

Since corporations are inherently more powerful than individuals, and utterly amoral on top of that, they need to be kept in tight leash.

Probably the single biggest reason corporations are so powerful is because they give stockholders limited liability. However, in general, Libertarians would end that limited liability. Personally I probably wouldn't so far as to totally eliminate it, because of the limit on liability a corporation can take more risks than individuals can. This is why corporations were granted charters to begin with. The first two charters granted to corporations were given to the Honourable East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Both were shipping companies facilitating trade between Great Britain and the Netherlands and India respectively. Shipping was a financially risky business, ships could be attacked by pirates or be sunk by bad weather. If a shop was lost the ship owner was financially liable, for both the cargo and for the lives of the crew. No matter how wealthy an owner was they could lose everything, even their home. So charters were granted to corporations to limit the liability of stockholders, the most a stockholder could lose was the money they invested in the corporation. With this limit more people were willing to invest in shipping which boosted trade and benefited a lot of people.

However what is overlooked today was that a corporation had to serve the common, or public, good. If a corporation did not do so it could have it's corporate charter Revoked.

While this sound fine on the surface, it would make investing an unacceptably high risk activity for anyone who can't watch the company full-time.

Actually it shouldn't take that much tyme or effort, no more than people should take anyway. Stockholders should hold the corporation accountable. They need to read any and all proxies they get and make sure they understand them. They can support shareholder resolutions. They need to be Activist Shareholders. If that's too much work, then they can invest in Socially responsible investing, SRI, mutual funds. Anyway, those who are active in their investments and oppose something the corporation does that causes harm or supports responsible and sustainable activities shouldn't lose their limited liability. Also corporate executives should be held responsible as well. Other than the captain not one person was held responsible the Exxon Valdez nor was anyone held accountable for the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster.

The core libertarian principle of removing government control would allow powerful entities to get away with whatever they want, because with government power gone, who's going to stop them ?

Government control is not the same as the control a court can wield. I have not heard of one Libertarian who wants a weak justice system. Actually I bet many would prefer to make it easier for people to sue corporations. Then if it is found it is not serving the public good then it's charter can be revoked.

Libertarianism would lead to the return of feudalism, which was, after all, rule by those who owned the land and could thus afford to hire armies to enforce their will,

I suggest you research the economics of slavery. The economics of slavery was unsustainable. It cost more to hire and keep an army than it costs to pay freemen a living wage. It was Libertarians, then called Liberals as in

Actually corporations are a reaction to liability. The first businesses granted a Corporate Charter were the Honourable East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Both companies were in shipping which was a risky business. Ships had to deal with storms such as hurricanes and pirates. When a ship sunk or was attacked the ship owner was financially liable. The owner of the lost goods had to be paid back. The crewmen or their survivors had to be paid as well. This could bankrupt the owners, who could even loose their homes. So the British and Dutch allowed companies to be granted a corporate charter, which gave the corporation's owners limited liability. The most a stockholder could loose is the amount they invested. However back then corporations were only granted charters if the corporation served the Common Good or Public Good. Once a corporation no longer did it's corporate charter could be revoked. Today governments no longer revoke charters though. As Thomas Jefferson warned, "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country."

By the way: in my opinion, a true libertarian must be against the limitation of liability that shareholders enjoy. The libertarian ideal of "free-market capitalism" only works when our freedom is counterbalanced by we having absolute responsibility for our actions. And you only get that, at the speculative market, once purchasing shares of a company links you, your well-being, your future, your destiny, to those of that company. At the prospect of you going on jail if the company commits a crime, even if you only own a single share. Do this, and you'll notice corporations becoming very good neighbors from day to night.

What you could do is revoke the Corporate Charter of corporations.

Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental. We, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic spiraling.

Collective intelligence is not a new term and is certainly not a new concept. (see: http://www.co-intelligence.org/Collective_Intellig ence.html ) However, studying it and finding ways to actually make it work is a worthwhile challenge.

A Brazilian company that has been democratic for 20 years, and a book review (with excerpt).

Whether or not society allow corporations to take away privacy is entirely up to society.

The right to incorporate is no inherent natural right - it is a privilege granted by the people via their governments. It originated as royal orders to create a "virtual person" with rights defined in a charter. Even today most corporations are governed by a charter, but the charter granted is usually much wider.

In most states in the US laws have been or is on the book to allow the legislatures in the respective states to dictate the contents of the charter on a case by case basis, to limit the time the charter is granted for (a charter used to be time limited), and even to dissolve the corporation if it is decided that it does not serve the public.

Revoking charters used to be common if a corporation was seen as abusing the powers granted to it by the people, and restricting privacy for its employers could quite well have been considered as abusing its powers.

A corporation in the US can still in many states be argued to have no "rights" other than what is granted to it by the legislature. Some may say its unfortunate that its now uncommon for the legislatures to write, rewrite or revoke charters on case by case basis...

(Information about charter revocations in the US can be found here)

1. Open source library of knowledge for developing nations (making the world's intellectual wealth available to all)
http://www.oneworld.org/globalp roj ects/humcdrom/
http://www.oneworld.org/globalprojects/& lt;/a>
http://www.oneworld .or g/globalprojects/humcdrom/copyrigh.htm
http://payson.tulane.edu:8888/
; http://www.globalprojects.org/
; http://www.humanitylibraries.net/ http://www.villageearth.org/
http://www.villageearth.org/ATLi bra ry/cdrom.htm

2. Open source knowledge management systems
http://www.bootstrap.org/
http://bootstrap.org/colloquium/ar chi ves.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion /

3. Self-replicating space habitats (support trillions of humans in style without overrunning the earth)
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs /sp acsetl.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
http://www.ssi.org/
http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html http://www.spacedev.com/
http://www.spacehab.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

4. Pursue the "Ecocity Berkley" vision in the book by that name by Richard Register and look for related visions of sustainable development
http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob ido s/ASIN/1556430094/
http://www.co-intelligence.or g/y 2k_commtyorgs.html
http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/h ome .htm
http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/meta/sust vl. html
http://www.rmi.org/

5. Work towards ending the drug war and pardoning hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on non-violent drug charges. (I believe drug use is wrong and should be avoided, and by all means as it is now illegal, so don't do drugs! But as with alcohol and tobacco and caffeine, drug abuse should be considered a medical problem, not a legal one (except when like DUI it hurts or puts at risk others directly)).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag es/ frontline/shows/drugs/
http://www.drcnet.org/facts/

6. Teaching tolerance and compassion
http://www.splcenter.org/
http://www.splcenter.or g/t eachingtolerance/tt-index.html

7. Open source educational simulations and simulation construction toolkits (one of the most meaningful ways to use computers in the classroom).
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/ http://riceinfo.ri ce. edu/armadillo/Simulations/simserver.html
http://www.creativeteachingsite .co m/edusims.html
http://www.workingmodel.com/
http://www.idsia.ch/~andrea/simtools.h tml

8. Preserving biodiversity (when it's gone, it's gone forever)
http://www.tnc.org/
http://www.environment.about.com/newsissues/enviro nment/library/weekly/aa091700.htm

9. Develop any specific sustainable technology in energy (e.g. solar), recycling (e.g. recycle computers), materials (e.g. plastics from starch), society (e.g. participatory democracy & social justice).
http://www.google.com/sear ch? q=sustainable+technology
http://www.edf.org/issues/Recycling.htm l
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/

10. Make corporations more accountable to human needs
http://www.adbusters.org/inform ati on/foundation/
http://www.adbusters.org/c amp aigns/charter/death.html
Previous link vanished, try instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.adbuste rs.org/ campaigns/charter/death.html+corporate+death+penal ty&hl=en
http://www.cwsl.edu/news/n_corpo rat e_death.html
http://monkeyfist.com/articles/340& lt;br> http://www.chaordic.org/

11. Reform the "Intellectual property" laws and their related organizations, perhaps so that copyrights are for a couple decades and most patents are for a dozen years and only for true innovations. Ensure that any IP developed with any government money is immediately put into the public domain.
http://danny.oz.au/fre e-s oftware/advocacy/against_IP.html
(Lots of other Slashot links!)

12. If you don't want to get you hands dirty volunteering your own time, look around and find good people (not organizations, although the people may be in organizations) already doing good things. Pick people with a track record of years of fighting for the common good or who have already made a major accomplishment demonstrating commitment and just anonymously give them $100K without strings attached. Example: Marty Johnson at Isles, Inc.
http://www.isles.org/mileston.html& lt;br> Find people just starting a career of public service or a charitable venture and struggling to do good things and give them $20K and tell them you believe in their promise and cause. Expect a bunch of the money to be wasted but give it anyway and learn how to give effectively. For ideas, look at the grantees list of any foundation. Then ask those people who they know who are just starting out and trying to do a good job.
http://www.beldon.org/grants2000_07.htm l

When I was about thirteen, I got about seven books out of the library on money thinking I wanted to become a millionaire. Six told me how to get rich (start a business and run it well.) One of them asked me "why do you want to be rich?" That is the one whose name I remember and the ideas in it have changed my life. For advice on setting a direction of what to do with wealth, read the Book "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips and Sally Raspberry, especially the chapter on how foundations fail in their mission and how grants go to people who sound good but usually can't deliver (i.e. how hard it is to give money away).
http://www.seeingmoney.com/SevenLaws.ht m
http://www.hallbusi nes ses.com/biographies_primers/1420.shtml

My wife and I are working on a few of these issues ourselves (and a few example links are to our stuff). We make money contracting and spend it to "buy" our own time for making quality software the market can't or doesn't seem to want to pay for. Even without IPO riches, any competent software developer can make $75K-100K in today's market. Graduate students can live on $20K a year, and so can many software developers (kids make it harder) if they follow the path of Voluntary Simplicity. It's a question of priorities.
http://www.life.ca/subject/simplicity .ht ml
http://www.simpleliving.net/slj/ http://www.scn.org/earth/lightly/ http://www.thegarden.net/simplicity/

Voluntary simplicity leaves a lot of funds for doing good deeds - even if they are done on your own time by using your own money to take time off and develop open source software or do other worthwhile ventures. Or take a job that doesn't pay as well but involves helping an organization that you believe in.
http://www.idealist.org/

There are awesome things happening over the next twenty to forty years. According to Moore's law, desktop computers in twenty or so years will be a million times faster than today's. Already computers can drive cars somewhat well and identify vegetable better than humans.

http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/magazine/199 9/number_3/machine399.html ;

Other breakthrough innovations are happening in technological areas like energy, materials, nanotechnology, communications, agriculture, biotechnology, and robotics. Use your wealth to think deeply about what all this means and do something to ensure human survival with style.

It is saddening to see people spend so much money on less important stuff (another night club in this case). Now if it was a night club where these issues are discussed, then maybe it makes sense.

Capitalism without charity is evil, because capitalism only meets the needs of people with money.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. People are disconnected and uninterested in politics because we feel our wishes and views don't matter. Perhaps around the periphery our votes might make a difference, but to the core issues that affect our lives, our wishes simply do not matter.

There are several reasons for this. The political reality is that wealthy interest groups -- mostly corporate interests, since they have the money -- usually get what they want. The mass media distill serious issues down to 15 second sound bites, rarely explain issues well enough for the populous can understand them, and often present them in such a way as to say "this is too complicated for you to understand." The two main political parties are not very democratic themselves.

But I think the central reason for voters' lack of interest is a feeling of impotence. We do not get to express our wishes, only to pick one of two pretty similar candidates. More importantly, we don't get to participate in finding the solutions to our problems. The very best we get is a choice between two candidates' solutions to problems.

It's frustrating to think of the wisdom possessed among the 100 million or so adult Americans -- or the 2 or 3 billion adult humans -- that is being completely ignored by the political system. I'm not suggesting direct democracy, where everyone votes to choose among a few prepared solutions to a few carefully chosen problems. I'm suggesting involving ordinary people in finding the solutions to our problems. This is the idea of citizen consensus councils. Experience has shown that a group of ordinary citizens will often find novel solutions to problems.

On the question of whether technology can help, I think it can. I would offer slashdot itself as a model. The moderation by ordinary readers seems to be pretty effective at holding down the flame wars, and works pretty well to bring out consensus. I believe this sort of tool applied to politics could be very empowering. It would certainly need to be modified to:

• allow 100 million people to participate
• encourage and identify consensus, so that it could form the basis for policy decisions
• allow discussions to go on for weeks or even months, so people wouldn't need to visit every day to get a chance to participate in the discussion of a particular topic of interest to them
• avoid bias, to be inclusive (slashdot tends to reinforce bias by discouraging people with differing biases)

I believe a tool like this could eventually become a real force for inclusive democratic decision making.