Toby Bartels wrote:
Well, it is now (or will be soon, I forget where we
are technically
in the legal process of changing things over) a nonprofit organisation;
eventually it will have members and be a "corporation" in a generic sense.
This is perfect from an American perspective, but other countries can
have a different approach to organizations and democracy.
I know how hard it has been to make the Swedish chapter of ISOC
(the Internet Society) appear as a legimitate membership organization.
When Swedes first heard about it, many thought it sounded like a very
undemocratic way of organizing things, compared to what they were used
to, and this made it really hard to attract new members. Of course,
this came as a surprise to ISOC's American / international
organization, since their ambition has been to be very open and
democratic. But that's just how cultural clashes work.
In Sweden, corporation and organization law allows for these kinds of
formalized organizations:
- public share holder corporation (AB publ)
- private share holder corporation (AB priv)
- private company with multiple owners (HB, KB)
- private business with single owner (EF)
- foundation (stiftelse)
- cooperative, for-profit membership association (ekonomisk förening)
- non-profit membership association (ideell förening)
Foundations are regarded as highly undemocratic, because they govern
themselves and have no influence from members. The current board of
trustees appoints the next board of trustees. Foundations are mostly
used for maintaining huge amounts of money, such as the Nobel
foundation that owns the money from Alfred Nobel's last will, and
awards the Nobel Prize.
Various coops own most of Sweden's farm produce industry, many
apartment buildings, a large chain of grocery stores, etc.
The generated profit is reinvested or distributed among the members,
pretty much like a share holder corporation, but membership comes at a
fixed price, every member has one vote and profit is distributed in
proportion to each member's economic activity (e.g. size of their
apartment, if the coop owns the building). If a wiki website had
a huge revenue from banner ads, a coop could be a useful form of
organization.
All political parties, trade unions, churches, and any normal
association, such as computer clubs, are of the non-profit kind.
Legislation is very liberal, but this is balanced by a strong
tradition of good practice for writing bylaws, electing a board of
trustees, accounting, audit, membership meetings, etc.
Democracy is the readiness of the ruler to give up his power. That is
what Swedish non-profit membership associations are about. If the
founder maintains "a firm grip" on power or makes the organization
depend on him, it is a foundation, a "cult", or some kind of business,
and not democratic. To be able to oust the leader, a membership
association must depend on its members, not on the leader. This is
achieved by paying a membership fee that can pay for all costs that
the association has. The fees are maintained by an elected board of
trustees, audited by two elected accountants, who report to the annual
general assembly of members.
Both the Free Software Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation are
foundations, rather than democratic membership associations. This
might seem odd to Swedes who are involved in the life of associations.
My own Swedish wiki website (susning.nu) is not democratic at all. I
run it as part of my private single owner business (aronsson.se).
Changing it to a foundation wouldn't buy me any extra credibility at
all. I could form a democratic membership association, but I'm not
ready to give up power, at least not for now. There is no tax
exemption for donations to organizations of any kind in Sweden.
The only reason to form a foundation is if I would receive a huge
donation (this would save me from income tax on the received amount),
but no such donations are on the horizon.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik -
http://aronsson.se/