Do you think this idea of a gift network in being promoted simply for the sake of keeping BTS outside of all regulatory nets, or because it is genuinely believed it is more productive than the current legal system that protects rights related to private property, freely entered contracts, mutual obligation etc?
As we see with AGS whether it be called a gift or an investment it would still have had the same effect. The only difference is that when you call something a gift you waive your SEC protection because there is no expectation of ROI. If you don't want to deal with securities, the SEC or any of that then don't accept investors into your ecosystem.
It just seems we are giving up a lot of things that have worked for centuries along with just the bad things we think these new network technologies can improve upon.
Actually the gift economy has worked for a lot longer than the securities. People were trading gifts and running gift economies before there was a such thing as corporations. Gift economies existed before there was a such thing as fiat currency.
Even if we did form a legal Cooperative as you suggest (and with good reasons I might add), would it have any teeth to meet its commitments to outside parties, from their perspective?
I'm not sure what you're asking here. If you're asking if a gift economy can work then I can show you this research paper:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2465455As you see, all file sharing is based around the gift economy. Bittorrent, Napster, all of it was based around the gift economy and it worked just fine. In order for an economy to work you just need enough of a network effect and an ability to enforce cultural norms.
You do not actually need an SEC in a gift economy. In a gift economy every accepts the rules and their honor is on the line. If honor is something everyone values then the SEC becomes irrelevant because you wont need an SEC if you've got a self enforcing mechanism for your self funding ecosystem.
I don't see why there is any reason to do things in the box when you can accomplish the same result doing it outside the box with a lot less risk. It's simply more economically efficient to not deal with investors, the SEC, securities, or any of the rules associated with it, when the only goals are fund raising and cooperative ownership. If there has to be securities then why not do that later when many people in the community are high net worth individuals?