  Motivated by the difficulty of effecting fundamental change in the
architecture of the Internet, in this paper, we study from a theoretical
perspective the question of how individuals can join forces toward collective
ventures. To that end, we draw on an elementary concept in Internet systems
engineering, namely, that of incremental deployability, which we study
mathematically and computationally. For example, we show that incremental
deployability is at least as general a concept as the Nash equilibrium (in that
the latter can be derived from the former). We then draw on this foundation to
design and analyze institutional mechanisms that are not only promising to
bootstrap emerging Internet architectures but they also have broader
applications in social organization beyond its predominant market (and
finance)-based character.
