See also: short general overview of
infoliberalism in its different components
Below is the more detailed description of the political part of the
project
- the trust declarations system and its self-regulation algorithmThen concretely, what can the powers be ? As we say, they consist of information. As any information, they have a meaning and a user interface.
- the social contract
- the power transmission (systematic treatment method).
The basic axiom, only condition necessary to its development, is the freedom of communication. The development of the theory is made of concepts of new types of information to be shared, which, provided with adequate data processing methods, will give to the use of this freedom a maximum efficiency, so that the exchange of these types of informations and their proper use by many people will finally be natural and irrepressible (in terms of their competitiveness on the "market" of information, but not a "market" refering to the meaning of purchase, but the meaning of freedom of thought and expression) after a period of installation. And the theory explains how these most competitive information and their use will naturally form a reconstruction of an honest and politically autonomous social order, a form of perfect liberalism whose traditional economic liberalism is the approximation to the case of the situations not involving the political dimensions (this is why we will develop here more precisely the political aspects, which are new). The impact of these political aspects will be the fruit of a natural balance (consensus) between the opinions of all.
The material conditions for communication freedom are gradually emerging by the development of information technologies. These technologies may be not yet developed enough for a complete implementation of the system, but as anyway this implementation will be progressive (in number of members and the range of activities: a time of evolution of the social structures is necessary, as some "powers" not in conflict with governments can be set up before the others), we need not wait. The implementation would take the form of a new software.
No consideration of territory or nationality could anyhow "legally"
limit the freedom of extension of the new system.
Some of its aspects will be written under the assumption
that a majority of people in a given territory already joined it, but
most features
would also work between members even if they are only a minority.
There will be roughly 3 kinds of declarations:
1) Trust and complaints declarations
2) Transmission of power
3) Social contract, positions taken, and eventually an activity report.
The logic is this:
- If x is honest and x says that y is honest then y should be honest
- If x is honest and x says that y is dishonest then y should be
dishonest
Discredit differs from financial ruin in that ruin is quantitative (it means that the individual is not useful to society, which owes him nothing) while discredit is qualitative (it means the person is mistrusted, known as not declaring correctly (or not known as declaring correctly) how one behaves towards (or how much one deserves from) the society, after the possible gifts received of course. These two things are not systematically related, but are very similar and of comparable importance, the one possibly implying the other, and vice versa, depending on the circumstances.
Like financial ruin, discredit is a factor in social exclusion, from the fact that is deduced by computer from a set of statements, and that this information will follow an individual, being made automatically available to all those who may consider dealings with him and who choose to check it, in the same way as the absence of money to your account follows you into whatever stores you enter.
This is not necessarily irreversible: a discredited individual may appeal and may introduce himself to a known (and not discredited) person and lay out his case. For difficult cases, one could consider a plan to provide for social reintegration, with the final decision-makers specialising in discussions with discredited individuals, in the hope of finding conditions and procedures to reintegrate these people into society.
In a conflict, other people who trusted the 2 involved, the one directly and the other indirectly, will be invited to join the discussion, in order to decide who they agree with (indeed, it is similar to the previous case: a trust declaration that contradicts some trusted other person's complaint declaration).
If someone feels incompetent to judge who to agree with, he can can charge some expert he trust and granted this power (see the below power
system) to take a decision in his place.
2 people cannot at the same time disagree and trust each other; otherwise, the one who both trust someone and disagrees with him will have to discuss and consider which to keep: trust or disagreement.
The continuation of this scenario is a logical continuation of the same mechanism: either the conflict is resolved by breaking the trust to one of the parts involved, or it spreads further, step by step: from A to A's trusters to A's trusters'trusters and so on. This happens until one's defenders lose the trust from the rest of the world, so that they lost: it finally forms a stable situation. Then those who lost may have to do some things required by others in order to resolve the conflict (financial payment, release of official notice to be seen by the public...) and eventually be trusted again, or not...
Another way to end conflict is if the causes of the conflict were misunderstandings: the debate can provide clarification, so that at the end, misunderstandings may be solved and each person will be able to update his statements, which will finally form a stable situation.
See other details there, and another way of telling it related to google wave.It is only required from everyone, to transmit his powers only to people he declares honest. Indeed, a transmission of power is a special trust (that each person can address to one or several people).
To give a more precise idea, the power will be structured (rather
often,
naturally but not however by any strict general rule) as follows:
The sources and intermediate agents at the beginning of chains of
powers
transmit all their power (with possible exceptions) to one (or two...)
people who thus gather these powers from a number of sources,
as the small brooks make the large rivers, according to a kind of
reversed
pyramidal organization; the next ones in the chains distribute the
various
categories of power with which they are charged of, on various people,
each of whom may receive his category of power from several
intermediaries
receiving this from a greater number of sources. These ones, in the
same
way, divide this category into subcategories and distributes them to
various
people; and so on until eventually dividing the final specialized
actions
into particular tasks according to a small traditional pyramidal
organization.
To arrange all this, meetings can be organized between intermediate
agents
of the same level or of close level. (For example, the intermediate
agents
in charge each one of the power of a few hundreds of sources will meet
between them at the local level to make friends, form working groups on
certain problems and to redistribute their powers between them by
categories
or to other people, that will periodically join (each week, month,
year...)
the meetings of the following levels of powers of their category).
Of course, this diagram is not an absolute law but a possibility
which
is likely to be often used; sometimes, some particular goals can
be managed locally, by only a small number of people (or even that the
source himself chooses the goal). It may be possible that a person
transmits the same type of power to several people, who share the
responsibility
in question then.
Ideological/legislative power . This power has as a
source
any citizen having particular convictions. The final agents
are the spokesmen of these convictions, better able to argue in words
and to make concrete studies and investigations. The goal is to define the general criteria of what it means to respect the general interest, such as to assess the damage of some actions on the environment and to define their price (rates of taxes to apply to them); what sort of business practices are fair ; to ask
for something from some people, or to define
details
or promote a modification of the social contract.
Example of nowadays: petitions are an expression of this power; some
associations also represent this power.
(maybe: General surveillance. The source is every citizen, and this power is the right to access one's data in order to check everyone respects their contracts and the general interest on a large scale (possibly world), to complain against those who do not respect this interest (such a task will take the form of a declaration as described above, provoking debates according to the same mechanisms). A part of this task may consist of comparing the declarations of all people to find eventual traps or contradiction, sometimes asking more questions to the people or visiting them.)
Power of public interest expenses. The source is the taxpayer, and it goal is spending money to do useful things for the society as a whole (or a large number of people), or for charity. If taxes were an obligation, the intermediate agents of this power will be the object of a particular surveillance by other people, to check that one does not give money to oneself. But let's hope that voluntary taxes can be enough.
Media power . The source is the televiewer or the reader, and the goal is the production or selection of interesting programs or articles. Each person in this power chain, as a power delegation, selects between the possible next ones (sources of information) like televiewers select channels, on behalf of the previous ones. (Or course, this method will more especially be interesting for the time when one will have the choice between thousands of programs; it hould help build a credible media world, resisting against misinformation and the mediocrity currently imposed from the top).
Power of judgement. The source is every citizen, and the goal is to judge in conflicts between other people, or between oneself and other people. This can put into question the properties rights for those who acquired goods dishonestly; and the balance of their monetary account. (this would be closely related to a new monetary system based credit between people, the first principles of which you can read here). To give an idea of it, an aspect of the role of this power is now currently played by the notaries. This power could be most effective only if most of the world adopted the system of powers described here, carried by well developed information technologies. Then, here is its mode of action in the simplest case: To fight against operations considered by people as an abuse, a swindle, a corruption or something like that, it is not always necessary to run after the people who committed it (unless they broke all relations with this network, whis would be difficult if most of the world adopted it; this is what makes it useful to be a majority; otherwise anyway, those who invited or granted credit to those run away people are held responsible, so the problem is still manageable). It is enough for the investigators representing the largest part of the people to enter the virtual world and to examine the monetary operations which are recorded there, in the search of those involved in the operation. The identity of those involved once thus found, it is enough to cancel the recognition of their monetary account, and to put discredit on them. This way, they will not have gained anything, and will not be able anymore to buy something then with their electronic money account in a store than if they presented a bill of Monopoly: its nullity is immediately identifiable, the merchant knowing that if he accepted it in spite of that it would not be recognised as money by the population who charged the investigator for this task; and ifever the remaining minority would insist to recognise the value of this money, it is this minority who would be paying the difference. For the applications of this idea the difficulty is in identifying these unjust acts. (For example one could very easily and quickly fight against the bad profits like those of abuse of dominant position by quickly ruining and discrediting the culprits, thanks to a procedure of recursive and automatic charge of individuals and of all its defenders, announcing all the reasons to all...)
Thus, corruptions can escape this investigation and justice only if the value is paid in nature, which is already definitely less practical. Or, the Maffia can develop a criminal monetary system (also virtual) in parallel with the honest system, allowing for operations among its members whereas payments in nature from the outside can happen separately : there will be practically inconvertibility between criminal currency and honest currency, any operation with the criminal currency being prohibited by the authorities of the honest world (transfers of honest currency being observable and having to have a reason).
Maybe, there would also be trouble for criminal currency to run in itself, on the one hand because currency is based on trust and dishonest people may have more trouble establishing trust relations together than honest people; on the other hand, for the case of a majority system, it would be possible to resist also against criminal currency by taking the whole communications system in the only hands of honest people, not letting maffias use it. However, this would be a dangerous tool that could be used in the opposite way...
One can notice that this power is close to the power of public interest
expenses, except that this one acts negatively while the power of
public
interest expenses acts positively.
Diploming power. The sources are the potential employers, and the goal is operated by the jury which grants a diploma to the candidate. (Indeed, the meaning of a diploma relies on the fact it is trusted by the potential employers; if an employer decides not to consider your diploma, he is free to do it and your diploma will be as if there did not exist).
Financial power. The source is the saver, the goal is the investment. Today, it is what is called the financial market. But one notices that each chain link of loans from the savers towards the investors supposes an act of trust of the lender to the borrower, which is the reason why this act is usually named "credit". But we can distinguish between simply granting a credit to someone (taking the loss if he does not give back) which is a simple relation between 2 people, and granting another person the power to grant credit to other people in one's name. See the monetary theory for more information.
Such a change of mode of treatment of the financial market is
justified
as follows: the current banks are great institutions forming a big
group (a sort of monopoly, even though they are several) setthing up an abusive tariffing of their services, and
this change
will mean the rupture of this monopoly into a freer and wider competition.
The predominance of these institutions resulted from the need for a
wide-area
network to treat certain operations. But the functions of this system
are
basically of two kinds. On the one hand there are completely
automatizable
and impersonal operations (not implying taking human responsibility),
they
will be treated by a system of protocols and public software integrated
into the Internet, thus not requiring any particular institution. On
the other hand,
the particular acts of credit requiring an appreciation and human
responsibility, will often be handled on a more or less individual
level. The need of scaling to share the risk between many businesses
can also be satisfied by an individual delegating the financial power
he received into a number of other people who grant a number of
different credits each. These individuals may in general not be pure
bankers but have competences in connection with the
activities of the businesses which are investing by these credits.
It may be that the financial power sometines more or less follows the
diploming power.
Advantages:
As regards borrowers, one notes the present difficulty in lending to
the poor
who do not present the sufficient guarantees. This comes from the
distant
institutional character which is that of the banks, which do not have
sufficient
close information on the situation and the honesty of the potential
borrowers. Instead, with this new system the financial operations would be
rooted in the direct human relations beyond any
question of belonging to a large firm. This would open new
possibilities
of economic development.
For the savers: since there are more opportunities for borrowers, the
real interest rate may be even better for savers; also , it could
prevent risks like bankruptcy of banks
as it still occurs in some countries, as to create recourse possible
in the event of monetary devaluation which meant the ruin of the savers
refunded in devaluated currency.
For the society as a whole: this new financial system based on credit
without use of force for being paid back, could help making a more
honest
business system, since lending money to dishonest people would bear the
risk that this money is not paid back, so people would prefer to lend
it only to honest people; savers could also choose forms of "moral"
placement , favorable
to ecology and to the economic insertion of the poorest...
Then, one can ask for a consultation with this person. For this, one
first sends a massage with information of what the problem is about.
The
person in charge with power who receives this request can accept the
work
or transmit it to another more appropriate authority, according to its
contents.
One opens a recorded dialogue, engaging the parts.
According to the cases, it may be a written conversation, or a lively
exchange using webcams.
Honesty is not an option. It is an obligation of every moment. If at
one moment you get the desire of being dishonest and that
somebody observes it, that will not go through. You will pay it, in
proportion
with the chances that you had to profit from it without being noticed,
and
depending on the unwillingness that you expressed to elucidate the
problem and to
repair the tort. When you have paid you are allowed to continue your
business,
but that remains in the files. No, no the world does not stop turning
round then.
Thus this system will have educational value to oblige people to be
always honest, so that precisely it is no more a transitory quality. To
be against that, would mean to make it possible for people to make
dishonesties.
It is not acceptable. A very acceptable thing on the other hand is for
example to behave not very well but to declare it frankly and pay
for all the damage which one causes. By not doing well one's work for
example, being lazy, and agreeing to receive only a small pay for that
not so good work.
That is honest, and there could be many people who will choose it. It
is
not a hard problem, considering the productivity of our economy one can
live
very well "modestly" and without seeking to have the same income as
more productive people, can't we ? Something as to have a half of the
minimum western salary working
at distance for Western customers while living in a poor country where
all is 5 times cheaper.
On another hand, one can dispute the rules of honesty agreed by the
others if one does not agree to respect such or such principles. Each
one
chooses his social contract and his ideological representatives. The
condition
is whether that forms a justifiable or acceptable thesis by those which
will have interactions with you (including all the world if you want to
pollute the atmosphere...), they will be free to choose it after
reading your
declaration. In this case, you will be able to make deals with people
who
chose to admit your values, styles of negotiations or principles of
work,
without disturbing those who do not agree.
Answer:
What I propose is very simple: Work in the respect of the general
interest,
knowing that the gap in the law does not save to you the responsibility
for your misdeeds nor of your imprudences. If you neglect to take
precautions
of protection of the general interest, developing technologies or new
methods
likely to be dangerous (for the environment, public health...) or to
get
unfair profit by ruse (for example exploiting the credulity of a public
of naive consumers), you should expect to get back the responsabilities
of your actions and lose all your profits. No need for a detailed
legislation
in all domains to envisage every possible problem, the simple principle
of obligation to honesty should be enough to prevent them all. If thus
one discovers perverse effects of your activity, effects of a kind
nobody
ever foresaw, you will will be held responsible and will have to pay
the
damage because you did not worry about the general interest nor took
the
necessary consultation measures in case of doubt. If you are
responsible
for a company but feel unable to measure the risk to come from a new
project,
there can be two cases:
- If the danger is unforeseeable, subscribe an insurance.
- If you do not have sufficient competence to assess the repercussions
of a method, a decision, you must call upon specialists in charge of
the
adequate power to make the necessary study. When their investigation
about
your project is made, they pose their signature above and you will then
be protected by their signature from eventual consequencies if you
respect
the methods that you presented to them: you transmitted the
corresponding
responsibility to them, and then they would be the responsible people
to
pay the damage, to assume the consequences in case of any problem.
(and then consequently also those who gave them this power, and so
on so that the responsibility finally extends to the whole society,
because
the report being public, those who dispute it can complain against
these
experts, organize a new reports etc).
Then, if you change your methods you must ask for a new report.
Accusing of dishonesty certain methods, whether or not the responsibility was transmitted to the representatives of the community by such a contract, can be done only by means of solid arguments: a law cannot be a purely arbitrary convention but it owes to root in the truth by means of the dynamics of the debates and coallitions between the agents of power. Such a rooting in the truth can then justify the retroactivity of certain laws. According to the case: either the society recognizes you did right and you are allowed to continue your project or one pays you the adaptaton to new collective decisions; or one must highlight your lack of respect of the general interest in what you undertook, so that you take the responsibility of it and that the cost of your adaptation to the new rules holds on you.
If there are things like legislative instabilities, it is that there are people who made bad legislative decisions which must be corrected by others, or that some legislator changed his mind. Those who did this bad work are thus responsible of it and must pay for it, because the question of which are the good laws is an objective question which refers to the ideal of justice. Being responsible for opinion that one gives, one engages to affirm that what one says is right, and if it then proves not bo be, that means that he was betrayed his engagement and he must pay it back to the community. Or in the case of agreements particular to the practices of a certain company, one commits oneself accepting that the range of this opinion perdure in a certain time (up to paying for the consequences of them), or one does not do it but then this opinion will be of little value and influence because the agreement given is a contract between the legislator and the people concerned with the application of the legislation.
In the same way, any signed declaration implies a certain engagement, so that the one who changes it must financially compensate for the consequences (including the possible disorganization caused by this change) that a possible error could have, according to his responsibility. This according to the methods stated in the social contract voluntarily agreed by all.