Capitalism's Fatal Flaw, and the Way Forward: New ‘‘‘Equitism’’’ Series -- Overview with ‘FAQs’.

New ‘‘‘Equitism’’’ Series -- Overview & ‘FAQs’.

Dear Reader,

The forthcoming series introduced here presents a detailed proposal for the constitutional and legislative infrastructure needed for a more just successor system to the present capitalist system. The successor system that we propose is neither one of a “state-less”, anarchist-localist model, nor any variant of the presently-prevalent “Big Government” state-capitalist model. The central focus of this series is the achievement of greater social justice.

What we will propose, in this series, is a system based upon grass-roots ‘political-ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY’, extending the rule of law tradition. Its implementation is to be sought, in a scaling-up fashion, starting on the municipal scale, and extending, ultimately and sequentially, to the county, state, regional, and national scales, and, eventually, to the international scale.

All of these scales of implementation are to be achieved by entirely lawful, legislative reform and constitutional amendment means, not by any hyper-costly and failure-prone path of bloody, law-less, violent revolution, which would also potentiate the new dictatorships to which that path tends to lead: “Meet the new boss; same as the old boss”.

We do not claim, in any way, that what we propose, once implemented, would produce a “perfection”, or a “heaven on Earth”. Reality is imperfection. But we do hold that the successor system we propose would produce a majority life far better than what the majority suffers today. It represents, we hold, the next step in the evolution of democracy, in the evolution of human wealth, and in the evolution of collective human happiness.

We are consciously seeking, in designing the legal infrastructure for this successor system, to resuscitate the “checks and balances” and “countervailing powers” founded in the Constitution of the United States. This design is, in particular, targeted to resuscitate the subverted political checks-and-balances of the U.S. Constitution -- subverted by a hyper-concentration of wealth that, arguably, can buy out, and has bought out, all three branches of political government, and yoked them all to a singular, dictatorial directorate.

The way to the resuscitation of these political checks and balances, we hold, is by adding new, grassroots-democratic, ‘economic checks and balances’.

We are also, thereby, consciously aiming to achieve a synthesis of the, “divided and conquered”, “left versus right” conflict that has lately engulfed, and incapacitated, the people and the politics of the United States, of Western Europe, and beyond.

Our aim is to present a constitutional and social design for a successor system that will appeal to the majorities of these electorates, “right”-leaning and “left”-leaning alike, and that will ultimately prove far more satisfying to their instincts, and to their social desires, than the traditional models that presently paralyze both leanings.

This successor system is designed to be more democratic, more respectful of individual liberty, more in accord with the rule of law, more observant of property rights, and more observant of human rights, than capitalism today is, than it ever was, and than it ever even could be.

For the sake of clarity, we call this successor system-design by the names ‘Generalized Equity’, and ‘Political-Economic Democracy’. We call the social, political, economic, and legal process that implements this successor system by the name ‘The Equitarian Reform-Revolution’.

This “Reform” is a “revolution”, not in the sense of violence in the streets, but in the sense that, if implemented, by the legally-expressed will of the majority, it would change the fundamental socio-economic relationship of the majority of individuals in our society, to their sources of livelihood.

It would change their primary social relation from that of “capital-only equity”. That exclusive form of equity means, for a minority, the ownership, for example, of financial shares in the assets, hence profits, of capitalist enterprises. For the majority, it means a primary social relation of wage-labor, or of salaried labor, in enforced service to that capital-equity, and to its profitability.

It would change that primary social relation to that of ‘generalized equity’. That means a system of all-citizens, universal, inclusive equity properties and rights, by way of instituting three new, additional forms of all-citizens equity.

It also means not outlawing, but including -- and also containing the downsides of -- the old kind of equity, capital equity; equity for capital-owners only.

The social impetus that has led us to this design is part of a growing recognition of the increasing failures of “actually-existing capitalism”. We will, in the course of this series, delve deeply into the many dimensions of those growing failures of “actually existing capitalism”.

These failures include the imposition of ever more severe global recessions and depressions, and the promulgation, by the capitalist ruling class, of a “people are pollution” ideology that puts the majority of humanity in their cross-hairs.

We will also introduce you, perhaps for your first time, to the dynamical “law of motion” of this capitalism, the dynamic that unifies these many problematic dimensions as their singular -- albeit difficult to discern -- root cause. We name this law ‘the law of the tendency of the rate of reproduction of capital’. By capital reproduction, we mean the continual production of, and investment of past profits in, new, for example, fixed capital plant and equipment, to replace the old fixed capital, that has been consumed in the process of production, or that has become competitively, technologically obsolete. By the rate of that reproduction, we mean the periodic ratio of that new capital value to the old capital value, already accumulated and demanding its equitable share of profits.

This series will also introduce you to the concept of an ‘ascendence phase’ of the capitalist system, followed by its ‘descendence phase’. The former, ‘ascendence phase’, is already behind us in history past. The latter, ‘descendence phase’ is the phase that surrounds and permeates and dominates our lives today. During the ‘ascendence phase’, now passed, the tendency of that rate of reproduction of capital is to rise. From the beginning of the ‘descendence phase’, which now engulfs us, the tendency of that rate of capital reproduction is to fall.

In response, the owners of concentrated capital, threatened, due to that waning rate of reproduction of their capital, with the non-reproduction of their power, and, due to that loss of power, threatened also with the loss of all of the “perks” of their rule, thereby, of course, institute -- largely in a stealth mode -- extreme measures, in an attempt to reverse that fall, unfortunately in ways which threaten the livelihoods, and the very lives, of the majority class.

A key aspect of this ‘descendence phase’, and of its specific “law of motion”, is the growing tendency of ‘descendence phase’ capitalism to drive toward state-capitalist, police-state, state-terrorist and totalitarian, permanent-war, “national security” dictatorship.

George Orwell perceived this tendency with unsurpassed clarity. He warned us about it in his famous novel, 1984. President Eisenhower, himself a former General of the U.S. Army, also perceived this threat. He warned the people of the U.S., in his Presidential Farewell Address, of the danger to democracy inherent in the emerging “military-industrial complex”, his name for it.

Some symptoms of this tendency to totalitarianism include a declining investment in public education, and a “dumbing down” of what education remains, an increase in punitive social control, such as escalating rates of incarceration, and in police militarization and armed forces imperial militarism, an increase in internet censorship of all forms of free expression, an increase in the seemingly permanent military invasion of other nations, and an increase in the electronic surveillance of all citizens’ communications and financial transactions, without even the slightest hint of a probable cause justification.

In the transition from feudalism and monarchy to capitalism, in the fight against the feudal “ancien régime”, and in the early history of capitalism -- during capitalism’s ‘ascendence phase’ -- many capitalists fought heroically for greater individual liberty.

They fought for the expansion of suffrage, and, ultimately, for universal adult suffrage, for freedom of speech, for freedom of the press, for the right of the people to bear arms as a potential check against abuses of power by their government, for freedom of religion and prohibition of the establishment of any religion by the state, for the rule of law, as opposed to arbitrary rule by “aristocratic” kings and cults of personality, for human rights such as that of the assembly of citizens to petition their government for redress of grievances, for trial by juries of peers, for the right to privacy, and for the right to the protection of liberty and property by due process of law.

But with the turn into the ‘descendence phase’, the most powerful faction of the ultra-wealthy capitalist ruling class seems to have turned against all of this, and appears to be driving toward dictatorship. We will, in this series, trace back to the root cause of this turn, finding it in the “law of motion” already mentioned.

This tendency to totalitarianism is rooted partly in a corollary of that “law of motion” -- in its subsumed law of capitalist competition. Competition leads, not primarily to the reproduction of competition, but to the negation of competition -- to oligopoly and monopoly. Extreme capital wealth ownership concentrates increasingly, and into ever fewer hands.

And those ever fewer hands may act to undermine the political checks and balances, that, alone, when they function as intended, help mightily to protect democracy from degenerating into tyranny.

But with sufficient concentration of gargantuan capital monetary wealth, the ever fewer owners of that wealth can “buy out” all three political branches of government, in a “hostile takeover”, overriding the intended ‘inter-mutually’ restraining and “countervailing” powers of those three political branches of political government.

The houses of legislature become houses for the rubber-stamp approval of the agendas of the owners of that hyper-concentrated capital wealth.

The also-compromised executive branch becomes an agency promoting the interests of those ever fewer, and ever more dominant, capital owners, against the interests of the majority.

The judiciary branch becomes an enforcer of the interests of that same capital-controlling hyper-minority.

The “free” press, the media in general, also owned and controlled mainly by that oligarchy, become agents of the propaganda, and of the “divide-and-conquer” ideologies, engineered by that plutocratic “1%-of-the-1%”. These ideologies are designed to psychologically impair and to disempower the majority class. Race, religion, and any other discernible differences within the majority population become means for these media to “balkanize” the population into ever smaller divisions, with mutual hatreds cultivated among them all.

This hyper-concentration of capital equity wealth ownership, and this growth of oligopoly and monopoly, contains the potential for the subversion of the political checks and balances that preserve liberty.

However, they do not fully explain, in our view, why the strongest faction of the ultra-wealthy seems to have opted to use that potential to actualize dictatorship.

While it is true, in our view, that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, we think that this concentrated power of the uppermost capitalists is not sufficient to explain what has happened, and what is happening now. We detect something more desperate in the über-ruling-class reaction to their potential for near-absolute power. We will address, in this series, the root cause of that desperate anti-democratic agenda as well. To do so, we will have to unearth much of the hidden history of the late 19th century, and of the 20th century.

The three “Pillars” of the successor system that this series will present -- each of which is to be both a newly-recognized, fundamental, constitutional, human right, and also a new kind of, constitutionally-protected, universal, all-citizens property right, are named by us (1) ‘Citizens Externality Equity’, (2) ‘Citizens Birthright Equity’, and (3) ‘Citizens Stewardship Equity’.

These new constitutional rights, and their enabling institutions, are designed to advance both the liberty and the prosperity of the vast majority of the population, and to provide risk management to the individuals and families making up that majority, against the “market failures” and the other mortal hazards to which contemporary capitalism exposes us, but against which it offers us no effective remedies.

1. ‘Citizens Externality Equity’. In brief, ‘Citizens Externality Equity’ provides a constitutional rights-based, voting-rights-based defense against the “market failures” that capitalist economists call “external costs”, or “externalities”. The new defenses we propose start in the locale of residence of each citizen, via a kind of grassroots-democratic, ‘economic suffrage’. Such “external costs” include pollution as well as property value depreciation, rent unaffordability, traffic and parking congestion, etc., caused for residents by the activities of capital equity corporations.

The ‘Citizens Externality Equity’ human right constitutes also a new, constitutional property right, a collective property right, exercised via voting. It is a right to a preventative remedy, in return for having suffered the “external costs” imposed upon citizens by enterprises in relation to which these citizens may be neither stockholders nor customers. By having so suffered, in accord with the principles of equitable jurisprudence, said citizens have “purchased”, in kind, and in effect, this new kind of equity stake in those polluting enterprises. We are not aware of any existing examples that approximate this first “Pillar” of ‘Generalized Equity’.

Otherwise, as neither stockholders nor customers of those enterprises, such citizens are unprotected by standard “market forces”. They have no effective voice to redress their suffering of the, often deadly, coercive visitations upon them of these “external cost” damages, by those enterprises.

A way to get at what the term “externality” means is to ask just exactly what “externalities” are “external” to.

“Externalities” are external to the market relationship between the owners of enterprises that produce goods and services, namely, to the relation between the owners of “capital equity stock” in those enterprises, as the “first parties” in this market relationship, and the customers of these enterprises, who buy and consume those goods and services, as the “second parties” in this market relationship.

The “second parties” are at least somewhat protected, in such market relationships, from abuse by the “first parties”, by the ‘economic check and balance’ of market competition. If the “first parties” abuse the “second parties”, by foisting upon them low-quality customer service, poor quality goods and services, and/or prices that constitute profiteering, the “second parties” may have recourse to competitors of those abusive “first parties”. Those competitors may, to win out in market competition against the abusive “first parties”, offer better prices, better quality, and/or better customer service.

But the sufferers of “externality” damages, such as pollution, etc., are “third parties” to this market relationship. They are “external” to the market relationship between the first parties and the second parties.

These “third party” citizens are unprotected, by any market competition kind of ‘economic checks and balances’, against damages such as pollution, etc., imposed upon them, coercively, by the “first parties”.

The function of the new ‘Citizens Externality Equity’ constitutional right is to provide a new kind of ‘economic checks and balances’. This new kind of “checks and balances” is designed to systematically redress the failure of the market-based, competition-based kind of ‘economic checks and balances’ to protect citizens from these, often life-threatening, costs to those citizens as “third parties”.

The ‘Citizens Externality Equity’ human right and property right is designed to expand the self-protection of each citizen, and their protection of their families, starting from where they live, against pollution, for example, by factories and other physical plants that threaten their families’ health and, potentially, their very lives.

But it is designed to provide this protection in a very direct and local way, and in a way that makes ruling-class bribery, to thwart that protection, exhorbitant, unaffordable -- even to the bribery budgets of the richest of the rich.

This way is one which also skirts the failed capitalist method of relying upon external regulatory bureaucracies, that are regularly “captured” -- co-opted -- by the very industries that they were created to regulate and restrain. Consider, for example, the cases of the FCC, the SEC, etc.

This way also skirts the increasingly failed approach of suing the polluting enterprises in civil court, and fighting a usually losing court battle against deep-pocketed mega-corporations, and against an increasingly compromised judiciary, appointed by an executive branch increasingly “owned”, under the present system of “legalized bribery”, by the lobbyists of those same corporations, with the “advice and consent” of a Senate increasingly beholden to same.

For example, such polluters are typically able to ward off litigation through various legal maneuvers, and settle out of court, thereby never admitting to any wrong-doing, and never incurring judicial precedents that might inhibit similar destructive, even deadly, externalities-generating behaviors in the future.

2. ‘Citizens Birthright Equity’. The ‘Citizens Birthright Equity’ “Pillar”, financed, primarily, from the proceeds of the other two ‘Pillars of Generalized Equity’, would make every child born, every new citizen, a de facto “Trust Fund Baby”, equipped with an absolutely portable, personal “social safety net”, regardless of which “side of the tracks” that baby was born into, or which employer that adult citizen later works for. A good example of a proposal that approximates this “Pillar” of ‘Generalized Equity’ is the recent “Baby Bonds” proposal.

The ‘Citizens Birthright Equity’ human right constitutes also a new, constitutional property right -- a right of personal property. It is also surrounded by built-in “moral hazards” mitigations. This is because that personal property is sourced in and converted from social property.

By “moral hazards”, we mean perverse incentives that might unintentionally reward personally and socially destructive behaviors -- such as spending the social funds provided on illegal drugs.

In general, “moral hazard” is lack of incentive to guard against risks, and against the costs of those risks, because one is shielded from those costs by others, or by society as a whole.

Via ‘Birthright Equity’, society would thereby ‘self-invest’ in every new citizen born, enough to give each new child the wherewithal for a socially supported decent start in life, regardless of the resources of that child’s birth family.

Likewise, each new citizen would be more likely to feel valued by their society. They would likely so feel because each would experience, by society’s grant to them of their ‘Birthright Equity Social Trust Fund’, material proof of their valuing by society, even if not by their birth family. No child would be abandoned by their society, to fend for themselves, if they lacked parental support. No child would be treated, as so often today, in a desperation-inducing and crime-breeding manner, as if the police, and as if society at large, would rather that they died young -- very young -- or that they were already dead, or that they had never even been born!

And, each new citizen would thereby also have “skin in the game”; would have something to lose should they nevertheless turn to an anti-social life of crime. That is, if convicted of a crime, by a jury of their peers, such a citizen’s ‘Birthright Equity’ trust fund would be liable for the cost of jury-determined reparations to their victims. If that ‘Birthright Equity’ trust fund were to be exhausted by such reparations, for example, due to very serious and/or repeated victimizations of others, then such a citizen would have to fall back upon their own earnings and, in the last analysis, upon much more meager general social welfare provisions.

3. ‘Citizens Stewardship Equity’. This “Pillar” calls for a kind of ‘Public Venture Capital’. It would enable capital-lacking workers to self-organize as ‘Citizens Stewardship Collectives’. A good example of an existing institution that approximates this “Pillar” of ‘Generalized Equity’ is the Mondragon cooperative -- a worker-owned, international, highly-diversified producers’ cooperative.

Such a ‘Citizens Collective’ would, if underwritten by a ‘Social Bank’, receive the funds required to procure the means of production, etc., called for in their Business Plan, and would thereby become a ‘Citizens Stewardship Equity Producer’s Cooperative’.

Each such ‘Social Bank’ would itself also be a kind of, democratically self-managed, ‘Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative’, chartered by the Office of the popularly elected National Custodian of Social Property.

Such a bank would fund that Citizen Collective’s Business Plan if that bank so decided, by majority vote of its own member-owners. The ‘Social Bank’ member-owners would so vote if they found that the Collective’s Business Plan and By-Laws met constitutional and statutory requirements. These would include requirements for internal democracy, such as ‘recallability’ of elected managers. The ‘Social Bank’ member-owners majority would vote to fund that Citizen Collective’s Business Plan if they also found that this Business Plan, and the resumes of its would-be ‘Citizen Stewards’ -- the member-owners of that Collective -- convinced them to risk their Social Bank’s own solvency by underwriting that Business Plan. Thus underwritten, the ‘Stewardship Collective’ would become a ‘Stewardship Cooperative’. Each Steward member of that Cooperative would enjoy two streams of monthly income -- an equal share in the net operating surplus of their Cooperative, and compensation for their time worked therein, in proportion to the value of their skills. That value would be determined by the competition for citizens bearing such skills. That competition would ensue among ‘Stewardship Cooperatives’, among remaining capitalist enterprises, and between ‘Stewardship Cooperatives’ versus remaining capitalist enterprises. This competition would help to place a floor beneath the capitalist “race to the bottom” in terms of the treatment and compensation of majority-class wage and salaried workers. It might even promote a kind of “race to the top”.

That Cooperative would compete with remaining capitalist firms, and with other ‘Stewardship Cooperatives’, in its chosen product and/or service market or markets.

Those remaining capitalist firms, however, would have to compete for workers with ‘Citizen Cooperatives’ in which the workers themselves democratically decide how they are to be treated.

If the Stewards in a given Cooperative were too easy on themselves, and/or not good enough to their customers, their Cooperative would likely fail, become insolvent, and be dissolved.

Each ‘Citizens Stewardship Equity Producers’ Cooperative’ would hold its means of production, not in local ownership, but in Stewardship, as an in-kind loan to them from and by their society.

Each ‘Stewardship Cooperative’ would therefore pay a monthly ‘Social Rent’ on those means of production. This would encourage economy in the use of means of production. It would also help to finance the ‘Citizens Birthright Equity’ trust funds. A fixed share of that ‘Social Rent’ would also form part of the income of the underwriting ‘Social Bank’.

The human right of ‘Citizens Stewardship Equity’ also constitutes a new constitutional property right. It is a right of each citizen to “individual property” in the form of that citizen’s ownership of that citizen’s membership in the ‘Citizens Stewardship Collective’ which that citizen co-founded, or into the membership of which that citizen was later inducted, by vote of the then-existing members.

When that ‘Citizens Stewardship Collective’ becomes a ‘Citizens Stewardship Cooperative’, that citizen’s right of membership entails the right to an equal share in the monthly net operating surplus of that Cooperative, and the right to work in and for that Cooperative, with fair compensation for that work. This “individual property” in such membership would not be revocable, except by constitutionally-stipulated due process of law, including trial by jury.

Each ‘Citizen Stewardship Cooperative’, if found to produce externalities beyond the statutory limit would also -- no less and no more than remaining capitalist enterprises found to produce externalities beyond that limit -- be required to determine its ‘annual externalities budget’ in negotiations with its internalized ‘Citizens Externality Equity Public Board of Directors’. That Board would be elected by the public residing in the area of impact of the externalities produced by that Cooperative.

As with remaining capitalist firms, if those negotiations deadlocked, they would escalate for adjudication to the “nearest” ‘Tribunal for Externality Equity’ with jurisdiction for that area of impact. That Tribunal would consist of elected, term-limited, and recallable justices, chosen by the electorate of their geographical area of jurisdiction. The losing party would pay the costs of the litigation, to discourage frivolous litigation.

Detailed exposition of these proposed new constitutional human rights, new property rights, and new enabling social institutions, designed to support these “Three Pillars”, is the purpose of this series. Future installments will be devoted, in turn, to each of these “Pillars”, as well as to their interactions and to their unity as a new socio-political-economic system.

SOME EXPECTED QUESTIONS, AND OUR RESPONSES.

We have stated, and responded to, key ‘FAQs’ we anticipate listeners and viewers will want answered. We encourage you to send your actual questions, not covered by the FAQs below, incivilities excluded.

Question: How would this new system impact individuals?

Response: An individual citizen of the majority class would no longer be just “capital-fodder”, valued only for work that makes profit for capitalists, and otherwise discarded. Each individual would be a valued part of the community, with material proof of that valuing in the form of a ‘Citizen Birthright Equity Social Trust Fund’, plus a right to pursue a ‘Stewardship Equity’ alternative to a wage or salary relationship to that citizen’s livelihood, and a voting right to limit the imposition of externalities upon that citizen by capitalist or Stewardship enterprises.

Question: How would this new system impact business?

Response: Citizens would have an option to pursue ‘collective self-employment’, and ‘collective entrepreneurship’, via ‘Stewardship Equity’, as well as traditional capitalist wage work and salaried work relationships with remaining capitalist firms. The economic “checks and balances” of market competition would be conserved and, in fact, expanded. Competition among capitalist firms would be supplemented by competition among ‘Stewardship Cooperatives’, as well as by competition between ‘Stewardship Cooperatives’ versus remaining capitalist firms.

Question: What would be the status of private property within this successor system?

Response: Private property rights would be retained, not outlawed. They would also be supplemented, by new kinds of property rights. These would include ‘collective property rights’, such as ‘Externality Equity’ voting rights. These would also include new ‘personal property rights’, such as the right to a ‘Birthright Equity Social Trust Fund’. These would include ‘social property rights’, such as the right to the stewardship and usufruct of the means of production of a Socialized Producers’ Cooperative per the ‘Stewardship Equity’ property right, as well as the ‘individual property right’ of a Steward of a ‘Stewardship Cooperative’ to that Steward’s membership in its undergirding ‘Stewardship Collective’.

Question: What is the extent of government reform that would have to occur to institute this new system?

Response: For the United States, the reforms would extend to several constitutional amendments, plus the institution of an “intermediate” level of law in the form of an enabling law ‘constitutional annex’. The latter would be less difficult to amend than the constitution, but more difficult to amend than a Congressional statute. We will make our drafts of these proposed enactments available to our readers and viewers in the course of this series.

Question: What level of consensus would people have to achieve to make this new system happen?

Response: For the United States, the majority class would have to be convinced -- despite all of the plutocracy’s media opposition, and their engineering of “divide-and-conquer” ideologies -- that “actually existing capitalism” is failing, and that what we call ‘revolutionary reform’ is necessary, in the form of the constitutional amendments and enabling legislations that constitute ‘The Equitarian Reform’.

Question: What organizations stand in the way of implementing this new system?

Response: The organizations that are the organs of the increasingly democracy- subverting, plutocratic rule of the minority class of dominant capitalists. These include some organizations that are secret, and some that are public, including the major mass media organizations, the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the Ford Foundation, the “Democrat” Party, the “Republican” Party, etc. They also include large swaths of the “standing bureaucracy”, that survives any national election, in the Federal Executive branch, and that typically represent the growing proto-police-state infrastructure of “our” government -- the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, various “Black Ops” organizations, and the industries and lobbies which prosper off of the burgeoning “National Security State” and “Military-Industrial Complex”, as well as Pentagon-equipped, hyper-militarized local police forces.

Question: With regard to ‘Citizens Externality Equity’: how would its ‘Public Boards’ be ‘unbribable’, or “unaffordable to bribe even for the bribery budgets of the richest of the rich”?

Response: For example, every enterprise that pollutes beyond the constitutional and statutory threshold would internalize a ‘Public Board of Directors’, consisting of 5 ‘Public Directors’, each a mandated, recallable, term-limited, elected representative of the residents impacted by that pollution. For the United States, there would be tens of thousands of such ‘Public Boards’ nationwide. There would simply be too many ‘Public Directors’ to afford to bribe, and too much turnover, due to term limits and/or to recalls of corrupted ‘Public Directors’, costing ‘re-bribery’ for every replacement ‘Public Director’ sworn-in, if that ‘Public Director’ were even willing to be bribed. The “externalities” that the ‘Public Directors’ aim to reduce, are pollution, etc., externalities, in the very places were those grass roots ‘Public Directors’, and their families, live and work. No “absentee” ‘Public Directors’ would be eligible for election.

Question: How would ‘Citizens Externality Equity’ give citizens grass roots level control over pollution, etc., in their localities?

Response: Residents of each locality impacted by the above-threshold pollution, etc., externalities of a given enterprise, capitalist or ‘Stewardship’, would elect 5 ‘Public Directors’, forming a Public Board, to negotiate the annual ‘Externalities Budget’ of that enterprise, per the wishes of their constituents. These elected ‘Public Directors’ would all be mandated, term-limited, and recallable. If negotiations between the ‘Public Board’ and the ‘Private Board’, or the local “Management Committee”, of that enterprise were to deadlock, then the negotiation would be remanded to the “nearest” ‘Tribunal for Externality Equity’ having jurisdiction over the impacted locale. The Justices of that Tribunal would be popularly elected by the residents of their jurisdiction, and would also be mandated, term-limited, and recallable by their electorate. The losing party in the adjudication of the deadlock would pay the court costs of that adjudication, to ‘dis-incent’ merit-less deadlocks, and merit-less litigation.

The ‘mandation’ of elected officials means that each candidate official, upon registering to stand for election for a give office, would be required to file a statement of intent regarding the conduct of the office if elected, and the approach of that candidate to the public issues addressed by that office. This statement of intent, or mandate, would be published to the electorate before the election. These mandates of the various competing candidates are what the electorate should be voting on, voting to select. Once in office, if the elected candidate abrogated their mandate, that would be OK if OK with the majority of their electorate. If not, that abrogation would constitute grounds, perhaps together with other grounds, for a petition campaign aiming to qualify for an election to recall that officer, and to elect a candidate to replace that officer.

Question: With regard to ‘Citizens Birthright Equity’: how would it ensure that the ‘Social Trust Fund’ monies are not spent on frivolous or damaging forms of consumption?

Response: Desired expenditures from a citizen’s personal ‘Social Trust Fund’ would be applied-for by that citizen to the ‘Commission for Birthright Equity’, which, per its constitutional amendment and statutory guidance, could approve or disapprove that application. That citizen would have standing to appeal an unfavorable decision by the Commission to the “nearest” ‘Tribunal for Citizen Birthright Equity’ that has jurisdiction for that citizen’s locale of residence. The Justices of that Tribunal would be popularly elected by the Citizens of their jurisdiction, and would also be mandated, term-limited, and recallable by their electorate. The losing party in such an appeal would pay the court costs of that appeal, to ‘dis-incent’ frivolous applications and resulting frivolous litigation.

Question: With regard to ‘Citizen Stewardship Equity’: suppose a member of a ‘Stewardship Cooperative’ became totally uncooperative and/or disruptive within that Cooperative -- how would that problem be addressed?

Response: The right of each Steward of a ‘Stewardship Cooperative’ to membership in the undergirding ‘Stewardship Collective’ would be an ‘Individual Property’ right, that would not be revocable except by due process of law. If a majority of the members of a given ‘Stewardship Collective’ voted to revoke a given membership, then that member’s ‘Individual Property’ in that membership would be revoked, but subject to appeal by the revoked member. That revoked member could opt to appeal revocation to the ‘Tribunal for Stewardship Equity’ with jurisdiction for the principal locale of operation of that Cooperative. The Justices of that Tribunal would be popularly elected by the Citizens of their jurisdiction, and would also be mandated, term-limited, and recallable by their electorate. The losing party in the appeal would pay the court costs of that appeal. If the revoked member disagreed with the Tribunal’s decision, appeal for a trial by jury would be an option. The Tribunal would not be limited to a “yes-or-no” decision on the revocation of membership. If the majority of the Justices held that both the revoked member and the rest of the membership were both partly at fault for the conflict(s) that led to the revocation, then the Tribunal could order the ‘Stewardship Collective’ to pay a fraction of that revoked member’s former share in the monthly net operating surplus of that ‘Stewardship Cooperative’ to that revoked member, while that Cooperative continued in operation, to the extent of that ex-member’s longevity.

The fraction ordered would reflect the Tribunal’s view of the proportion of culpability of the former member versus the rest of the members for the conflict(s) that led to the membership revocation.

Question: How might we implement some of these reforms on a smaller geographical scale, say a single city, county, or state, so that they can be tested and perhaps thereby improved in detail for a scaling up to the national scale?

Response: ‘Stewardship Equity’ might be scaled down as a ‘Public Venture Capital’ fund, administered by municipal officials popularly elected for that task. If this implementation developed a city-level critical mass of cooperative enterprises, then a similarly scaled-down version of ‘Citizens Externality Equity’ might also be implemented, with cooperative enterprises filling-in the gaps left by the expected flight of private and corporate capital in response to that implementation. Such implementations would likely come under attack by State Supreme Courts, and, ultimately, by SCOTUS.

Question: What are some local examples that could evolve into ‘Citizens Birthright Equity’-like programs?

Response: Examples include municipal, county, or State level “Baby Bonds” programs, and a city-level Guaranteed Monthly Minimum Income.

Question: How might we successfully scale down from the concept of a national scale ‘Citizen Birthright Equity’ human right and property right, to, say, one at a municipal scale? How might we fund such a scaled-down version of ‘Birthright Equity’, at that level of a single city, as distinct from how it would be funded if instituted on a national scale, together with the other two “Pillars”? How might we preclude, with a municipal-level, scaled-down version of ‘Citizen Birthright Equity’, a “gold rush” of people crowding into a municipality that was testing that ‘Citizen Equity’ benefit, from other cities not offering any such ‘Citizen Equity’ benefits?

Response: This is a difficult problem, in relation to existing constitutional and statute law, because it might involve breaches to the principle of the “equality before the law” of every citizen. With a national ‘Citizen Birthright Equity’ system, no citizen would be excluded from ‘Citizen Birthright Equity Social Trust Fund’ coverage. But, on any smaller scale, the right of citizens to free movement, and to take up residence in new localities of their choice, involves exclusion of “outsiders” and “interlopers” from coverage, to avoid unjust exploitation of this ‘Citizen Equity’ benefit by them. If the ‘Social Trust Funds’ were supplied via municipal-level taxes, at least each tax-paying resident of the municipality should have to be eligible, or at least each of their newborn children should be eligible, for a ‘Social Trust Fund’. But if such ‘Social Trust Fund’ eligibility would accrue immediately to anyone who newly established residence in that municipality, a “gold rush” could be expected, in which non-residents would, perhaps only briefly, become residents, obtain their ‘Social Trust Fund’ monies, and then perhaps quickly move out of that city -- move on, or move back to the city from which they came. This would lead to the quick exhaustion of the ‘Social Trust Funds’ monetary wherewithal, and to its accrual mostly to citizens who were never real, contributing residents of that municipality at all. But restricting access based upon, for example, cumulative taxes paid to, or duration of residence in, that municipality, might run afoul of the principle of the “equality before the law” of all citizens.

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For partially pictographical, ‘poster-ized’ visualizations of many of these Seldonian insights -- specimens of ‘dialectical art’ -- see:

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