The scientific community is a special organization for several reasons:

1. It’s an international organization, which moves beyond territorial, cultural, religious boundaries. Scientists are among the most nomadic people of today’s world.

2. It’s been thriving for almost three centuries, going from a secluded group of eccentric peers (working outside and sometimes against the universities) to a community touching on all aspects of human life (and which is now part of the universities)

3. It is completely decentralized; the decision centres are the scientific magazines whose reputation needs constant renewal (famous magazines of decades ago have perished), it has a fluid decision system which is in continuous renewal

4. It does not have a uniform production system (research is made in universities, as opposed to research centres or the industry)

5. It is based on a system opposed to that of intellectual property (scientists need to publish all, including partial results, due to the ‘publish or perish’ policy)

6. It has a final goal to which all its actions concur: understanding the way all things work.

In short, the scientific community has many similarities with a democracy, common ground with corporations, with the economy; even though the resemblance is not perfect. This community interacts with the states and the industry, which affects (positively and negatively) the way it carries on its activities.

The question is what can we learn from the scientific community:

• Can we get ideas about to improve existent democracies? (Politically speaking, can the scientific community be considered as an example of functional anarchy?)

• Can we get ideas about how to improve corporate culture? (Managerially speaking, can the scientific community be considered a sort of multinational corporation with an extremely flexible hierarchic organization?)

• Can we get ideas about the law in economy? To what extent does the scientific community offer clues about how the industrial sector would look in the absence of patents and copyrights?

How and why the scientific community works?