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@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@
the cost of electronics and wireless communications are falling, the cost
of the technology itself should rapidly become a non-issue, even for the
world's poorest. Because binding contracts for ownership transfer lie
- at the heart of capital formation, What if traditional contracts were
+ at the heart of capital formation, what if traditional contracts were
supplemented and/or supplanted with <i>smart contracts</i>? Smart contracts
are contracts-as-program-code, in which the terms of the contract are
enforced by the logic of the program's execution. Smart contracts will
@@ -117,6 +117,42 @@
for legal recourse. Could such a jurisdiction-free contracting mechanism,
accessible over the net, dramatically increase capital liquidity, spawning
a flood of new wealth in the poorest areas of the world? </p>
+ <h3>Overview</h3>
+ <p><font color="#FF0000">***to be written</font></p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Networks of Trust
+ <ul>
+ <li>The Special Roles of Title and Law</li>
+ <li>The Governmental Path</li>
+ <li>The Conflict: Local Knowledge <i>vs.</i> Global Transferability</li>
+ <li>The Digital Path</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ <li>Smart Contracts
+ <ul>
+ <li>Contracts as Games</li>
+ <li>Assets + Contracts x Time + ?? = Capital</li>
+ <li>Networks of Games</li>
+ <li>Resolving the Conflict</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ <li>Backing and Legitimacy
+ <ul>
+ <li>Ratings</li>
+ <li>Video Contracts</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ <li>Why the Third World First?
+ <ul>
+ <li>Comparative Legitimacy</li>
+ <li>Homogenization Costs</li>
+ <li>Cell Phones in Eastern Europe</li>
+ <li>Saving the First World</li>
+ <li>The Rule of Law and Not of Men</li>
+ </ul>
+ </li>
+ <li>Conclusions</li>
+ </ul>
<h1><a name="nohubs"></a>Networks of Trust</h1>
<p>Why are some societies so much better able to generate wealth than others?
During the great oppressions of the twentieth century, many people, including
@@ -245,7 +281,7 @@
by the institution of title transfer.</p>
<p>While all these hubs are valuable for the formation of wealth creating
societies, not all are equally crucial. De Soto's analysis suggests that
- the institution most needed to get the ball rolling, and which are most
+ the institutions most needed to get the ball rolling, and which are most
painfully absent in the informal sectors of the third world, are credible
systems of title transfer. It is through widely trusted title registries
that banks can become confident that the collateral against which they
@@ -281,7 +317,7 @@
formal legal system -- all the obviously necessary ingredients. Why did
these previous attempts all fail? </p>
<p>Because the formals did not appreciate that the informals already had
- worked out system of law, rights, and obligations, negotiated over time
+ worked out systems of law, rights, and obligations, negotiated over time
and idiosyncratic village by village, sometimes called <i>the people's
law</i>. Instead, the formals approach to the situation was <i>We have
a legal system. You don't. Here's ours. </i>Although the title listings
@@ -326,7 +362,7 @@
incentives and new technologies <i>could</i> give rise to new wealth-creating
institutions may help us coordinate our activities to move the world in
this direction. We describe these possibilities in mostly abstract terms
- until the section <i>Video Contracts</i> below, in which we introduce
+ until the section on <i>Video Contracts</i> below, in which we introduce
another technological ingredient -- one for connecting this abstract world
to the concrete lives of the poor.</p>
<div align="center">
@@ -377,8 +413,8 @@
<p>How might such hubs deal with the idiosyncrasies of each village's <i>people's
law</i>, the idiosyncrasies that sabotage traditional governmental attempts
to capitalize village assets, without taking on the impossible burden
- of learning all this local knowledge itself, without imposing the costs
- of homogenization? By the use of smart contracts.</p>
+ of learning all this local knowledge itself, and without imposing the
+ costs of homogenization? By the use of smart contracts.</p>
<p><font color="#000000">In smart contracts, a software program is the operational
embodiment of a contract [<a href="#Szabo97">Szabo97</a>]. A drink vending
machine is a very primitive example of a smart contract, being executed
@@ -423,7 +459,7 @@
the electronic systems of title (called <i>issuers</i> below), in this
paper we assume systems that provide for instant settlement [<a href="#e-gold">e-gold</a>].
Although delayed settlement may substantially reduce capital costs [<a href="#Selgin01" target="_top">Selgin01</a>],
- they turn smart contracts into explosions of complexity.</p>
+ they would turn smart contracts into explosions of complexity.</p>
<h3><font color="#000000"><img src="images/4-exchange.gif" width="390" height="266" align="right"></font>Contracts
as Games</h3>
<p><font color="#000000">A basic metaphor for smart contracts is the board
@@ -434,16 +470,17 @@
changes the board state, changing which moves are legal during the next
turn.</font></p>
<p><font color="#000000">For example, Figure 4 shows the six possible board
- states of a simple negotiation and exchange game. Let's say Alice is playing
- the left side of the board and Bob the right. In the initial board state,
- A, neither of the pieces is on the board. The gold bar, representing money,
- is off the board on the left, which portrays its possession by Alice at
- this time. For concreteness, let's say the knight represents stock. Bob
- might offer a certain amount of stock to Alice by placing it on the right
- square of the board, taking us to board state B. Alice might not respond
- soon enough, in which case Bob may withdraw his offer by taking back the
- knight, bringing us back to state A. That's why the first transition arrow
- is shown as bi-directional.</font></p>
+ states of a simple negotiation and exchange game, derived from Dean Tribble's
+ and Randy Farmer's work for the American Information Exchange. Let's say
+ Alice is playing the left side of the board and Bob the right. In the
+ initial board state, A, neither of the pieces is on the board. The gold
+ bar, representing money, is off the board on the left, which portrays
+ its possession by Alice at this time. For concreteness, let's say the
+ knight represents stock. Bob might offer a certain amount of stock to
+ Alice by placing it on the right square of the board, taking us to board
+ state B. Alice might not respond soon enough, in which case Bob may withdraw
+ his offer by taking back the knight, bringing us back to state A. That's
+ why the first transition arrow is shown as bi-directional.</font></p>
<p><font color="#000000">Or Alice may respond to Bob's offer with a certain
amount of money, by placing it on the left square of the board, taking
us to state D. At this point, either party may still decide they're unsatisfied,
@@ -457,20 +494,20 @@
to trust whom with what? To answer these questions, we must start by explaining
what is happening on whose computer. We assume that each player trusts
their own computer (a dangerous assumption, but we cannot proceed without
- it). We also assume that player X cannot not trust player Y's computer
- any more or less than they trust player Y. Under these assumptions, we
- can treat a computer and its proprietor as a single unit for purposes
- of analysis.</p>
+ it). We also assume that player X cannot trust player Y's computer any
+ more or less than they trust player Y. Under these assumptions, we can
+ treat a computer and its proprietor as a single unit for purposes of analysis.</p>
<p><font color="#000000"><img src="images/5-duties.gif" width="297" height="299" align="right">The
execution of this game actually involves five parties, as illustrated
in Figure 5. The two players of course, Alice and Bob. The contract host
serves the same role as our vending machine -- it is the third party mutually
trusted to execute the contract/program faithfully. The contract can be
- any program Alice and Bob mutually agree on, written in a capability language
- (a secure programming language suitable for writing smart contracts),
- that functions as the <i>board manager</i> for the game they have agreed
- to play. (A <i>board manager</i> for, for example, chess, is a program
- that enables two people to play with each other, maintains the board state,
+ any program Alice and Bob mutually agree on, written to run on a <i>capability
+ system</i> -- a secure programming language or operating system suitable
+ for writing smart contracts [<a href="#Miller00">Miller00</a>]. This contract/program
+ functions as the <i>board manager</i> for the game they have agreed to
+ play. (A <i>board manager</i> for, for example, chess, is a program that
+ enables two people to play with each other, maintains the board state,
and only allows legal moves. A board manager does not itself play the
game.)</font></p>
<p><font color="#000000">Unlike the vending machine, the contract host need
@@ -500,33 +537,32 @@
still shows well the logic by which the system operates, without needing
to speculate on the possible organization of the market for smart contract
creation.)</p>
- <p>The "$-Issuer" and the "Stock-Issuer" transforms
- the movement of pieces into a transfer of <i>third-party-assayable transferable
- electronic rights</i>, or <i>erights</i>. A $-Issuer, or more conventionally
- a bank, is effectively a title company for money. For money on record
- at the bank, the rights to the money changes hands by the transfer of
- quantity between accounts -- shown above as <i>purses</i> within the issuers.
- When Alice places the gold bar on the board, her computer, the $-Issuer,
- and the contract host engage in a three-way cryptographic transaction
- that bring about the transfer of title, at the $-Issuer, of that much
- money from Alice to the contract host. An honest contract host would consider
- this money to be only a piece on the board, which can be picked up (transferred
- to the possession of a player) according to whatever may be the rules
- of the game. We refer to this as <i>oblivious escrow</i> -- the contract
- host, merely by running the contract, ensures that erights in escrow can
- only be released under the agreed conditions, without needing to understand
- those conditions or those erights.</p>
+ <p>The two remaining players, the "$-Issuer" and the "Stock-Issuer",
+ transform the movement of pieces into a transfer of <i>third-party-assayable
+ transferable electronic rights</i>, or <i>erights</i>. A $-Issuer, or
+ more conventionally a bank, is effectively a title company for money.
+ For money on record at the bank, the rights to the money changes hands
+ by the transfer of quantity between accounts -- shown above as <i>purses</i>
+ within the issuers. When Alice places the gold bar on the board, her computer,
+ the $-Issuer, and the contract host engage in a three-way cryptographic
+ transaction that bring about the transfer of title, at the $-Issuer, of
+ that much money from Alice to the contract host. An honest contract host
+ would consider this money to be only a piece on the board, which can be
+ picked up (transferred to the possession of a player) according to whatever
+ may be the rules of the game. We refer to this as <i>oblivious escrow</i>
+ -- the contract host, merely by running the contract, ensures that erights
+ in escrow can only be released under the agreed conditions, without needing
+ to understand those conditions or those erights.</p>
<p>A dishonest contract host could abscond with the money instead, which
- is why contract hosts needs to be widely trusted. A widely trusted contract
- host presumably has a valuable reputation at stake, and this risk helps
- secure honest behavior. (More sophisticated cryptographic protocols are
- possible which further limit a player's vulnerability to a dishonest contract
- host or issuer, but these are beyond the scope of this paper.) </p>
+ is why contract hosts need to be widely trusted. A widely trusted contract
+ host presumably has a valuable reputation at stake, which helps secure
+ its honest behavior. (More sophisticated cryptographic protocols are possible
+ which further limit a player's vulnerability to a dishonest contract host
+ or issuer, but these are beyond the scope of this paper.) </p>
<p> The money is an eright in part because it is <i>third-party assayable.
</i> Even though Bob does not currently possess this eright, Bob, through
the contract host, can determine which issuer backs this eright, and what
- the value of this eright is according to this issuer, even though the
- contract host does not understand this eright. With such assayability,
+ the value of this eright is according to this issuer. With such assayability,
the $-Issuer, the Stock-Issuer, and the contract host need not have any
prior knowledge or trust of any of the other four players. For the game
to be meaningful, Alice and Bob must have prior knowledge and trust in
@@ -536,7 +572,7 @@
can transact with each other <i>as if</i> they fully trust each other.</p>
<h3>Assets + Contracts x Time + ?? = Capital</h3>
<p><font color="#000000"><img src="images/6-option.gif" width="379" height="235" align="right">The
- Smart Contracts explained so far, the vending machine and the exchange
+ smart contracts explained so far, the vending machine and the exchange
game, cannot turn assets into capital. To do so requires contracts that
unfold over time, like a mortgage. To explain how such unfolding creates
ever more abstract forms of property, a simple clear example is the <i>covered
@@ -566,9 +602,9 @@
moves are for Alice to pick up the stock, and for Bob to pick up the money.</p>
<p>What is so different about this contract? During the interval of time
from the start of the game until the game leaves state A (whether by expiration
- or exercise) Alice a something valuable. During this interval, Alice has
- the option to buy this stock for a given price. This is a very different
- kind of value than having the stock or money themselves. The value of
+ or exercise) Alice has something valuable. During this interval, Alice
+ has the option to buy this stock for a given price. This is a very different
+ kind of value than the value of stock or money themselves. The value of
this new right <i>derives</i> from the value of the stock and the money,
but whereas they are very simple literal kinds of rights, this new right
is somehow more abstract. In Wall Street terminology, the new right is
@@ -577,7 +613,7 @@
then abstract rights derived by contracts about these instruments are
a step towards being <i>capital</i>. </p>
<p>But there's something missing from this picture. Through the system so
- far depicted, Alice can trade those rights managed by issuers -- money
+ far depicted, Alice can trade those erights managed by issuers: money
and stock. The contract host, despite its complete ignorance that it has
done so, has created a new valuable right, owned by Alice. But in the
picture so far, Alice has no ability to trade this new right. This needs
@@ -588,17 +624,18 @@
-- the creation of yet more forms of capital.</p>
<h3><img src="images/7-layering.gif" width="308" height="304" align="right">Networks
of Games</h3>
- <p>What we need, quite simply, to turn this new electronic right Alice holds
- -- the right to sit in the left chair, i.e., the right to play the left
- side of this ongoing game -- into an eright, a third-party-assayable transferable
- electronic right. To do so requires an issuer for this new right. Since
- the contract host is already managing access to this chair, we may as
- well have it double as the issuer for the eright to sit in this chair.
- Just as Alice could tell the $-Issuer to transfer some of her money from
- her purse to some else's, we can enable Alice to tell the contract host
- to transfer her eright to sit in this chair to someone else. The contract
- host would then revoke Alice's access to the chair, and issue fresh access
- to the new player, much as the $-Issuer would with Alice's money.</p>
+ <p>What we need, quite simply, is to turn this new electronic right Alice
+ holds -- the right to sit in the left chair, i.e., the right to play the
+ left side of this ongoing game -- into an eright, a third-party-assayable
+ transferable electronic right. To do so requires an issuer for this new
+ right. Since the contract host is already managing access to this chair,
+ we may as well have it double as the issuer for the eright to sit in this
+ chair. Just as Alice could tell the $-Issuer to transfer some of her money
+ from her purse to some else's, we can enable Alice to tell the contract
+ host to transfer her eright to sit in this chair to someone else. The
+ contract host would then revoke Alice's access to the chair, and issue
+ fresh access to the new player, much as the $-Issuer would with Alice's
+ money.</p>
<p>With this ability to compose networks of games, it seems we have the
ability to express the full range of contract layering used in modern
finance. Not that modern finance is directly relevant to the needs of
@@ -617,7 +654,7 @@
situation -- while the options game is in state A -- she encounters Fred,
who would also find this situation valuable. Fred, were he convinced that
Alice's chair sitting rights mean what Alice says they mean, would be
- willing to play a different game on contract host #3, perhaps our original
+ willing to play a different game on contract host #2, perhaps our original
negotiation game, in which this right, issued by contract host #1, would
appear as a movable piece. Unfortunately, having just met, Fred and Alice
don't trust each any more than Alice and Bob do. Fortunately, Fred does
@@ -680,60 +717,59 @@
<p>The actual control of the physical assets in question is determined,
not by their title listing, but by consensus of the governing community
in question. Why wouldn't the digital path fail in the same way the pre-de
- Soto governmental attempts fail? Why would these communities consider
+ Soto governmental attempts failed? Why would these communities consider
these title transfers legitimate and honor them?</p>
<p>The governmental path has an advantage here. Governments employ a vast
- apparatus of coercive enforcement to enforce the outcomes they cliam are
- legitimate, such eviction following a title transfer. Still, even with
- this advantage, in the previous failed attempts these title transfers
- were not seen as legitimate and not honored. Under these circumstances,
- even governments mostly understood that coercive enforcement would have
- had too terrible a cost. De Soto documents well the repeated victories
- of squatters over governmental law.</p>
+ coercive apparatus to enforce the outcomes they claim are legitimate,
+ such as eviction following a title transfer. Still, even with this advantage,
+ the previous attempts failed when title listings not locally seen as legitimate
+ were not honored. Under these circumstances, even governments mostly understood
+ that coercive enforcement would have had too terrible a cost. De Soto
+ documents well the repeated victories of squatters over governmental law.</p>
<p>The missing ingredient was the need to accomodate pre-existing local
arrangements. These are the source of the legitimacy governing current
control of the property, and any new system can only be seen as legitimate
if it incorporates and build on the old. On this issue, the digital path
- has a huge advantage over the governmental one. But what of the disadvantage?
- The Net is a purely non-coercive medium, it transmits only information
- -- effectively speech -- but cannot transmit force. Smart contracts can
- change their electronic representations about the world -- such as title
- -- but they cannot force the world to come along. Unlike government-based
- title transfer, these changes of title are not <i>backed</i> by a coercive
- enforcement apparatus. How may we compensate for this lack? For concretenness,
- in order to establish possibility, we propose here two complementary techniques,
- but we do not presume to forsee what the actual outcome of the market
- discovery process will be. This should be an area ripe for entrepreneurial
- invention. </p>
+ has the huge advantage over the governmental one explained above. But
+ what of the disadvantage? The Net is a purely non-coercive medium, it
+ transmits only information -- effectively speech -- but cannot transmit
+ force. Smart contracts can change their electronic representations about
+ the world -- such as title -- but they cannot force the world to come
+ along. Unlike government-based title transfer, these changes of title
+ are not <i>backed</i> by a coercive enforcement apparatus. How may we
+ compensate for this lack? For concretenness, in order to establish possibility,
+ we propose here two complementary techniques, but we do not presume to
+ forsee what the actual outcome of the market discovery process will be.
+ This should be an area ripe for entrepreneurial invention. </p>
<h3><a name="ratings"></a>Ratings</h3>
- <p>The issue of credibility does not require all title listings to have
- high credibility. Rather, it is adequate for distant traders, that have
- no knowledge of a particular governing village, to nevertheless have some
- reliable basis for judging the credibility of particular title listings.
- An obvious answer is to introduce another trusted intermediary institution
- into this market -- title insurance. Once the digital matures, this solution
- may be ideal, but as a way to get started it has a fatal problem -- it
- requires a crippling up front capital investment, in order to cover the
- massive potential liabilities. Rather, another familiar form of intermediary
- may be adapted to this situation.</p>
- <p>Bond rating agencies provide the market with an estimate of how likely
- it is that a business or government will actually meet the obligations
- represented by its outstanding bonds. The rating agency does not attempt
- to estimate what the price of the bond should be -- that is left to the
- market, which takes these likelihoods into account. A bond rating agency
- does not put its money where its mouth is -- it does not issue bond insurance
- to back its likelihood estimates. Rather, it backs its estimates with
- its reputation, which can become quite valueable, but is still cheaper
- than issuing insurance.</p>
- <p>Similarly, in our situation, we can imagine of third party raters that
- post judgements of the likelihood that transfer of a given title will
- actually be honored [<a href="#Stanley01">Stanley01</a>]. Simply recording
- each village's track record of honoring past title transfers, and assuming
- the future will be like the recent past, is a low overhead procedure that's
- plausibly adequate. And it places each villiage in an iterated game with
- the system as a whole, providing it an incentive to treat these titles
- as legitimate claims. We can think of this as a credit report, not for
- an individual, but for a village and its system of local law.</p>
+ <p>The issue of credibility does not require <i>all</i> title listings to
+ have high credibility. Rather, it is adequate for distant traders, that
+ have no knowledge of a particular governing village, to nevertheless have
+ some reliable basis for judging the credibility of <i>particular</i> title
+ listings. An obvious answer is to introduce another trusted intermediary
+ institution into this market -- title insurance. Once the digital path
+ matures, this solution may be ideal, but as a way to get started it has
+ a fatal problem -- it requires a crippling up front capital investment,
+ in order to cover the massive potential liabilities. Rather, another familiar
+ form of intermediary may be adapted to this situation.</p>
+ <p>Bond rating agencies provide the market with an estimate of the likelihood
+ that a business or government will actually meet the obligations represented
+ by its outstanding bonds. The rating agency does not attempt to estimate
+ what the price of the bond should be -- that is left to the market, which
+ takes these likelihoods into account. A bond rating agency does not put
+ its money where its mouth is -- it does not issue bond insurance to back
+ its likelihood estimates. Rather, it backs its estimates with its reputation,
+ which can become quite valueable, but is still cheaper than issuing insurance.</p>
+ <p>Similarly, in our situation, we can imagine a market of third party raters
+ that post judgements of the likelihood that transfer of a given title
+ will actually be honored [<a href="#Stanley01">Stanley01</a>]. Simply
+ recording each village's track record of honoring past title transfers,
+ and assuming the future will be like the recent past, is a low overhead
+ procedure that's plausibly adequate. And it places each villiage in an
+ iterated game with the system as a whole, providing it an incentive to
+ treat these titles as legitimate claims. We can think of this as a credit
+ report, not for an individual, but for a village and its system of local
+ law.</p>
<h3><a name="video"></a>Video Contracts</h3>
<p>But legitimacy is more than just preserving local arrangements, and it
is more than just incentives or force. It is knowing in your bones what
@@ -808,18 +844,18 @@
of local arrangements that need to be expressed. The people's law of each
individual village, being largely unwritten, must be extremely simple
compared to formal law. Also, the very informality of these systems allows
- it to compromise. As long as an adequate spirit of the arrangements is
- uploaded, imperfect expressions can often be judged to be <i>good enough</i>.
- This lets the transition get started incrementally, village by village,
- and imperfectly.</p>
+ it to compromise. As long as an adequate spirit of the law is uploaded,
+ imperfect expressions can often be judged to be <i>good enough</i>. This
+ lets the transition get started incrementally, village by village, and
+ imperfectly.</p>
<p>By contrast, although there are far fewer separate systems of formal
- law, each is a vast cancerous growth of complexity that no one even pretends
- to understand; the U.S. tax code alone probably exceeds the aggregate
- complexity of all informal law taken together. However, because of the
- formality with which this law is administered, and the absence of competitive
- pressures, this system brooks no compromise except through politically-driven
- change. This is a high enough bar that a smart contract system, legitimate
- by this standard, might emerge so slowly as to be a non-issue.</p>
+ law, each is a vast growth of complexity that no one even pretends to
+ understand; the U.S. tax code alone plausibly exceeds the aggregate complexity
+ of all informal law taken together. However, because of the formality
+ with which this law is administered, and the absence of competitive pressures,
+ this system brooks no compromise except through politically-driven change.
+ This is a high enough bar that a smart contract system, legitimate by
+ this standard, might emerge so slowly as to be a non-issue.</p>
<h3>Homogenization Costs</h3>
<p>The costs of rule homogenization discussed above, to be paid on the governmental
path, is a cost that has already been paid and largely forgotten in the
@@ -852,16 +888,16 @@
legal-legitimate. This is an unpeasant choice both for them and their
governments. The pressures will be great to legalize trade with these
jurisdiction-free networks of commerce. Once such unregulatable trade
- is made legitimate, the damn will have burst. What will be the character
+ is made legitimate, the dam will have burst. What will be the character
of the resulting world?</p>
- <h1>The Rule of Law and Not of Men</h1>
+ <h3>The Rule of Law and Not of Men</h3>
<p>Surprisingly perhaps, the character of the digital path may best be described
as a pure form of the classical liberal ideal -- <i>the rule of law and
- not of men</i>. Indeed, the digital path could more literally realizes
+ not of men</i>. Indeed, the digital path could more literally realize
the meaning of those words than anything the original classical liberals
could possibly have conceived. </p>
- <p>However, this is not just a cheap play on words. The ideal they were
- describing was of a neutral simple framework of rules, enforced <i>impartially</i>
+ <p>This is not just a cheap play on words. The ideal they were describing
+ was of a neutral simple framework of rules, enforced <i>impartially</i>
and <i>justly</i>, providing for cooperation without vulnerability --
protecting individuals from each other while enabling them to cooperate
with each other. A key means of enabling cooperation was the original
@@ -879,16 +915,19 @@
pressure on these hosts is reputation for acting in a mechanically and
auditably honest manner, providing a vastly stronger and fully decentralized
system of checks and balances. </p>
+ <h1>Conclusion</h1>
+ <p><font color="#FF0000">*** to be written</font></p>
<h3><a name="acks"></a>Acknowledgments</h3>
<p>These ideas have formed over much time and many valuable conversations,
- for which we thank K. Eric Drexler, Charles Evans, Ian Grigg, Robin Hanson,
- Doug Jackson, Don Lavoie, Zooko (Bryce Wilcox-O'Hearn), Gayle Pergamit,
- Chris Peterson, Jonathan Shapiro, Terry Stanley, Nick Szabo, E-Dean Tribble,
- Bill Tulloh, Ka-Ping Yee, and the members of the e-lang mailing list.</p>
+ for which we thank Darius Bacon, Greg Burch, K. Eric Drexler, Charles
+ Evans, Ian Grigg, Robin Hanson, Doug Jackson, Don Lavoie, Ted Nelson,
+ Zooko (Bryce Wilcox-O'Hearn), Gayle Pergamit, Chris Peterson, Jonathan
+ Shapiro, Terry Stanley, Nick Szabo, E-Dean Tribble, Bill Tulloh, Ka-Ping
+ Yee, and the members of the e-lang mailing list.</p>
<h3><a name="refs"></a>References</h3>
<p><a name="Bartley62"></a>[Bartley62] William W. Bartley, III, <i><b>The
Retreat to Commitment</b> </i>Open Court Publishing, 1962.</p>
- <p><a name="Birch97"></a>[Birch97] Greg Birch, personal communication.</p>
+ <p><a name="Birch97"></a>[Burch97] Greg Burch, personal communication.</p>
<p><a name="deSoto89"></a>[deSoto89] Hernando de Soto, "<b>The Other
Path</b>", Harper & Row, 1989.</p>
<p><a name="deSoto00"></a>[deSoto00] Hernando de Soto, "<b>The Mystery