South America that is, but continuing the tradition of developing countries having a parasitical relationship with developed countries, giving charters to privateers to literally steal from others but since they are chartered it is not considered a crime. This continue until the country is developed enough to be victimized by others, at which point they become born again, law abiding citizens.

This Wired article, another Julian Dibbell fantasy in the "Zippy" mold but with south of the border spices and vices, illuminates the twisty little confusions that come from trying to describe and explain systems while ignoring the bulk of their attributes.

The preservation and expansion of the information commons has long been a cause of hackers, academics, and the odd technoliterate librarian, but in the world's fifth-largest country it is fast becoming national doctrine. And the implications hardly end with free samba: Brazil, in its approach to drug patents, in its support for the free software movement, and in its resistance to Big Content's attempts to shape global information policy, is transforming itself into an open source nation - a proving ground for the proposition that the future of ideas doesn't have to be the program of tightly controlled digital rights now headed our way via Redmond, Hollywood, and Washington, DC.

No surprise there either, actually. In a world divided into the content-rich and the content-poor, it's increasingly clear to those on the losing side of the divide that the traditional means of addressing the imbalance - piracy - is a stopgap solution at best. Sooner or later some country was bound to square off with the IP empire and be the first to insist, as a matter of state policy and national identity, on an alternative.

As have all other developing countries in history. Ad Hoc piracy, once developed enough to attract the attention of the big dogs in government, is embraced and chartered to become official piracy.

But Brazil has been here before, and may be here again in future, because it has never managed to govern itself well enough to develop beyond the early stages. It obdurately refuses to think ahead and put the foundations of durable government in place, and so cycles endlessly between giddy fantasies of improbable futures and socio-economic collapse.

It's a variant of the "Red Monday" syndrome that felled socialism. Nobody thinks deeply about how to actually run the system after the old order is swept away in revolution. The result is a society of paupers ruled by increasingly repressive bosses, the destruction of culture and in the end a criminal society, a "Lord of the Flies" society where bullies and gangs prey on the prostrate population... like in Russia.

The point they evade is that the only way open source software and cheap generic medicines can exist is if a large and profitable industry exists to develop the ideas and implementations for pirates to steal. Piracy only works if it is the exception rather than the rule. Open source developers earn a living doing similar work in industry, or did so until they were independently wealthy, a pool of talent that would not otherwise exist and that will disappear if the industry fails.

The drug business has a similar dynamic and structure. Manufacturing drugs, once invented, is relatively trivial and cheap, like making copies of pirated software. It's the knowledge that has value not the material, a fact that also relates to the "Red Monday" syndrome, the mistaken reliance on the labor theory of value which failed to account for the knowledge content of products. Knowing what to make and how to make it is the most important component of products, far more valuable than the material and labor used in manufacture.

It's irritating to children to be told by parents and teachers that their youthful obsessions are nice but they really need to give some thought to what they will do when they grow up, what they will do to earn a living and contribute to society. And some few never have to grow up since they become stars - athletes, pop musicians, actors etc. - though the vast majority fail and have to get a day job.

This is Brasil's perennial problem, the repeated failure to become a contributor to the world rather than just a consumer. It has natural wealth that can be extracted, another form of piracy in a way, such as timber and top soil. It has been exporting its natural wealth for decades and has accelerated the rate of extraction and destruction in recent years. Brasil is always looking for a gimmick, a political sleight-of-hand way to evade growing up and becoming a net contributor to the world. The consequence has always been and likely always will be that the majority of Brazilians live in abject poverty with no access to education, healthcare or even hope. They are continually betrayed by their politicians who live in luxury.

In the past Brasil's failures were mainly Brasil's problem. Their failure to join the world community as producers, strengthening the world system, was unfortunate but not crippling. And they did still have resources to export which allowed other societies with more sensible governments to thrive. But it's different this time since the destruction of the rain forests and grasslands of S. America to pay for one last big party may have dire consequences for the whole world if the predictions of some ecological thinkers and modelers are to be believed.

More optimistic thinkers hold out the hope that technological development will be fast enough to cope with Brasil's vandalism, that the damage to the climate system will be manageable, and that the only consequence will be that Brasil, once again, takes the wastrel road and arrives late, broke and confused to the next stage of world development, the perennial charming loser whose smiles conceal the pain and misery just outside the rich district. You can even visit and vacation there so long as you are careful not to go into the real city where the starvelings will kill for your shoes.

P.S. It is no surprise that the poseurs at World Changing think that Brasil is the future.