Providing public goods by profit seeking entrepreneurs.

Who needs the government since we have mathematics?

Also discussed on a canonical mailing list here http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2005-June/000783.html

"In the form he described in his paper, a dominant assurance contract is a contract offered by an escrow agent to members of the public; it is of the form, "In exchange for my payment of $S, if K or more people donate $S to this same cause, the escrow agent will create public good X (at cost $C), and keep all the donated money. If fewer than K people donate $S, the escrow agent will return $S + $F to each of the donors and will not create the public good."