[SequoiaHope]

> How would you prevent one of these collectives from, say, inventing an iPhone and monetizing it?

You don't.

> aren't you back to square one again?

No, why would that be? We live in a world with a million top down owned capitalist corporations. If by some mass movement we get a few thousand collectives to band together, there will always be churn. Groups that dissolve, or change their aims, or seek profit over the cohesiveness of the group. You would do the same thing with them as would have been done at the beginning. Do you best not to trade with them. If you actually need what they have on offer, clone it. But the whole point of this system is to create some semblance of independence. Either people value that enough to stick with it, or they don't. IMO it's worth trying even if it might fail.

[thegrimmest]

But isn't it the profit-seeking capitalists who actually bring innovations to market, to the benefit of everyone? Why would you deprive yourself of the benefit of trading with these groups? "Independence" isn't really a thing in a world with a global supply chain. It's simply not realistic to produce everything that we consume locally for anything approaching a reasonable cost. Economies of scale are extremely powerful.