He considers this for a while. "I think the hardest thing to solve is that shareholders will be entangled."

"I wonder how far you can get on the idea of corporations. Those are legal fictions that under some legal structures can act as people, and don't necessarily have to have more than one person operating it."

"You can incur debt to a court but this functions identically to incurring debt to its head."

"Probably doesn't help then. Damn."

Sigh. 

"Do courts always have exactly one head?"

" - that's a good question and I have no idea why I've never - many courts present themselves as having two but I don't know how the debt accumulates."

"We can ask at a court that presents as having two if we're visiting any?"

"Yes, we definitely should. I think some of them are." He squints at this list. "This one, at minimum."

Cam makes a squiggle next to that court on the list.

"If that part works I think I see a sketch of how the rest might. A endeavor would be a bet between a person and the enterprise that the enterprise can take the person's money and get returns in excess of it. The person takes the positive side of the bet, they're betting that the endeavor will succeed; the endeavor has to bet against itself, so if it's 'right' it claims the money invested in it and if it's 'wrong' it has to pay out its profits."

"That's a little psychologically wacky but I don't think that sinks it."

"Not everyone can finagle the right state of mind probably but I think anyone who'd do a good job running a business is capable of arriving with an investor at a shared estimate of its odds of success and then taking the other side of the bet that sets up."

"Yeah, it makes more sense phrased that way."

"Just gotta figure out the entanglement."

"How does borrowing stuff work in general?"

"If you have an explicit agreement to return it that's entanglement. More often there's an expression of intent to return it, which means you get all the debt for taking-with-permission but not entanglement from agreeing to return it, and then the debt goes away once you do return it."

"Do people or courts ever have things that are just freely borrowable under some condition - I don't think this relates to the project, just curious if you can have a communal saw or whatever - what counts as a thing, surely there's any maintenance required on walking paths and ceilings and such that undergo some wear and tear..."

"Courts have communal tools which you don't incur any debt by picking up to use for chores around the court, but you'd get debt if you took them outside the court. People are indebted to a court for the hospitality if they stay in it and that adds up to more than the cost of the food and room and probably incorporates costs like that. Walking paths don't count."

"Are people liable for accidents? Trip and break a dish?"

"Yes, you have to pay for that."

"I suppose there are any advantages to it working that way."

"It mostly seems reasonable to me, does your society mostly not make people pay for things they break?"

"If the thing matters much the owner has insurance!"

"That sounds like it'd create some incentive problems."