ACCOUNTING IN A CHAORDIC WORLD - Dee W Hock

The issue of duality was the greatest example. On no issue were we more right. On none did we fail more ignominiously. [...] complete freedom of banks to become owner/members of both the MasterCharge and BankAmericard systems would foreclose the emergence of new systems, and severely limit consumer choice.

I could think of no way to fully realize the concept by including merchants and cardholders as owner/members. The slightest hint in that direction raised a storm of opposition. We should have included them. Perhaps, with more time, tenacity, and ingenuity, we could have.

the first and primary function of the card was to identify buyer to seller and seller to buyer. [...] The seller would receive good funds in local currency and the buyer would be billed later in the currency of their country. Thus, the second primary function was as guarantor of the value data. Clearly, it warranted to both buyer and sell

Efforts to make information conform to archaic notions of scarcity, ownership, and finite physical quantity--concepts that grew out of the agricultural and industrial age--merely lock us into old mental boxes of constraint and exploitation.