notes-politics-egalitarianLeague

Preamble

Purposes

The primary purpose of the League is to promote the liberty of all people through egalitarianism. We define liberty as power over one's fate, and egalitarianism as an effort to attenuate the largest power differentials between people.

The secondary purpose of the League is to advance the interests of its members. Membership in the League is open to all persons who agree to adhere to the conditions of membership.

Foundations

The League's primary purpose is altruistic; we seek to promote egalitarianism among all people, not just League members.

The League's secondary purpose serves as an incentive to encourage membership, strengthening the League so that it may better accomplish its primary purpose.

Wellbeing is connected to egalitarianism in that a person who is in need is at a bargaining disadvantage and hence has less power than a person who is not. Therefore, the pursuit of egalitarianism for all people is also the pursuit of the satisfaction of all people's needs.

The League and its members abhor and renounce violence except in self-defense.

Other than the prevention of violence, the League will never restrict the abilities of individual people. However, such things as ownership of property, which are not an individual ability but a social construct, may at times be regulated. Whenever possible, we prefer to achieve egalitarianism by enhancing the power of the less powerful, rather than by regulating the powerful.

The League is a civic organization, not a sovereign entity or government; we do not claim supreme authority over anything. Membership in the League is compatible with membership in any other organization.

Membership is open to all people and corporate entities regardless of their beliefs. Membership is open to all regardless of membership in any other organizations, except for organizations which we believe have adopted a goal of the subversion of the League, or as prohibited by law. Members may voluntarily resign at any time, or may be expelled for violating the conditions of membership.

There are three kinds of members in the League: citizens, annuitants, and ordinary members. Citizenship and annuitantship is not as open as membership. Citizenship is by invitation only.

Citizens may vote. Annuitants receive a regular stream of money from the League, intended to enhance egalitarianism by freeing annuitants from financial need. These payments to annuitants may not in any way be funded from dues or fines assessed on non-annuitant members, or from the proceeds of business activies funded by these dues or fines. These are the only privilages of citizens and annuitants above and beyond ordinary members. All citizens are annuitants, and all annuitants are ordinary members. The secondary purpose of the League is the advancement of the interests of all members, not just its citizens or annuitants.

Although annuitancy may be sold, the League in addition undertakes to grant some annuitancies at no cost to the extent that it can afford to after spending and saving for its other goals. It will be a great day when every person in the world is offered an annuitancy by this or another such organization.

Dues may be proportional to income or wealth or may vary on some other basis.

The League takes no position on whether liberty or egalitarianism have intrinsic value; we merely believe that, given the presence of disagreement on what the highest good is, these form a practical foundation for interpersonal relations.

Membership details

Citizenship details

Only persons may be citizens or annuitants. Both persons and corporations may be non-citizen members.

Only citizens may cast binding votes on the governance of the League, although non-citizen members may sometimes participate in non-binding polls.

Citizens may have unequal numbers of votes.

Members may become citizens at the invitation of the legistative bodies of the League.

Annuitant details

In order to free as many people as possible from financial worry we have a system in which people are given regular payments, called 'annuity'.

Because our resources are limited, and because we want membership to be open, and because it is possible for the population (and hence our membership) to grow faster than our resources, the annuitancy is paid out to a limited subset of members. Recipients of annuity are called "annuitants". Annuitancy is quantified by units. The amount of annuity corresponding to one annuitant unit is intended to be no more than is needed to subsist in a simple, austere life; it is not intended to be enough to live a luxurious life.

Annuitant units may be attached to a particular person or unattached. With the exception of passing on units to children, once attached to a person, annuitant units are non-transferrable and are irrevocably attached to that person.

Units may be active or inactive. A unit must be attached in order to be active. Only active units pay annuitancy.

Annuitants may augment their annuity with other income without detriment to their annuity. The amount of annuity per annuitant unit is not guaranteed and may decrease or increase depending on the League's finances-- it may not always be enough to live even an austere life, that is only the goal.

People may have unequal quantities of annuitant units (this is a necessary consequence of distributing a parent's units to their children without automatically creating new units). No annuitant may have more than one annuitant unit attached to them. If only a fraction of an annuitant unit is attached to a person, they are only entited to fractional annuity payments in proportion to their fractional annuitant units.

New annuitant units may be created and given out by a legislative action of the League. All citizens have at least as many annuitancy units as they have votes (but not all annuitants are citizens).

If a citizen receives more annuitant units than is needed to bring them up to 1.0, the remainder is received as inactive regardless of the giver's intent to attach and activate them.

The annuitant units of an annuitant who parents or adopts offspring are evenly distributed between themselves and all of their offspring (as more offspring are born or adopted, these inherited units are redistributed, diluting the share of the existing offspring as well as the parents). This distribution occurs at birth or adoption and is compulsory; the parent cannot choose to prevent it. For example, if two parents started with 1 annuitancy unit each and then had two children, each parent and each child would then have 0.5 annuitancy units. Upon a person's death, their remaining annuitant units become inactive and unattached and may be distributed according to their will (they may even choose to give them back to the League) (except in cases where the parent dies before or during the birth of a child; in this case the units are distributed among the children as usual, and only the remaining units after this are distributed according to the parent's will).

Annuitant units may be given in a will to a corporate entity, but these units are inactive when held by a corporate entity. Like corporate entities, individuals may also purchase, be given, hold, give, and sell, inactive annuitancy units. A person's will may specify whether their annuitancy units are inactive when distributed, or whether they are immediately attached to the recipient person and activated. Any annuitancy unit may, at the will of its owner, be attached to any member of the League in good standing and activated, unless the target member already has 1.0 active annuitant units.

Aside from parentage, adoption, and transferral upon death, active annuitancy units are non-transferrable and may not be inactivated by their holders.

If the League has accepted and recorded the attachment of an annuitancy unit to a person, and that person cannot be found to accept their annuity payments, but the League does not think they are dead, then the League shall keep their annuity payments in trust for that person. However, if the League has reason to believe that the person is dead or if more than 50 years have elapsed since the person was contacted, then the money passes to the League.

Disputes as to the ownership and attachment of annuitancy units are resolved according to the sole discretion of the League. In no case will the League be liable, upon reassignment and reattachment of annuitancy units due to dispute or mistake, for backpayment of annuity which was already paid out to a person, even if the League had been advised of a mistake and was negligent, unless the League or its officers took the annuity money themselves.

Additional dues over what is assessed on ordinary members may be assessed on annuitants. This is necessary in order to fund the annuity, but these dues may also be used for other purposes. Dues may not be assessed which would force an annuitant to experience a lower standard of living than they would if there were no dues and their only source of income or wealth was their annuity.

Unless we are compelled otherwise by law, an attached annuitancy may be suspended, even for the rest of the holder's life, but not revoked, and only as punishment for failure to follow membership rules, or for non-payment of annuitant dues, or if we are compelled to do so by law. Their annuitancy is attached but inactive and does not accumulate payments in trust the way that an active annuity attached to a missing person does.

Expulsion or suspension or resignation from membership implies suspension of annuitancy, but the annuitancy is still attached and is still non-transferrable.

Annuity payments attached minors may be made to their guardians.

Upon reaching the age of majority, a minor with an annuitancy must voluntarily apply to and be accepted as a member of the League if the annuitancy is to remain active. If they do not choose to become a member, the annuitancy is inactivated but still attached, as if they were a member but resigned. If they later become a member, the annuitancy becomes active at that time.

The League may use whatever selection criteria it chooses in order to determine which of its members are offered annuitancies at no charge.

The League is not required or expected to make annuitancy payments when doing so would be contrary to a law governing the League.

Ordinary membership details

Membership is not closed to anyone by virtue of things they have no control over, for example race or gender.

Although membership is not discrimatory by belief, by membership in other organizations, by speech or writing, or by involuntary attributes, it may be denied or suspended based on actions including past actions.

The content of speech and personal, relatively cheap transmission may not be censored, however, the mass publication of that speech may be; the League may not control what you place on your non-advertised blog, but it may have rules about campaign finance or about what you can say on the TV station you own, for example.

Definitions

Franchise: voting membership in the league

Person: a conscious and sentient entity. Corporations are not persons

FAQ

Q: Doesn't the creation of the class of 'citizens', privileged over non-citizens, contradict the strategy of egalitarianism? A: Citizens do not have any privilages over members aside from the right to vote (which is still power and hence a concern, but less of a concern than direct power over other people). We feel that allowing every person, by default, the right to vote in our organization would make it hard for us to pursue unconventional strategies.

Q: Doesn't the idea that citizens may have unequal numbers of votes contradict the strategy of egalitarianism? A: If not further restrained, it could. However, we hope to construct a governance system with checks and balances. Our strategy is to attenuate the largest power differentials, not to avoid power differentials completely (under many definitions of "power", complete equality of power may be impossible). We feel that systems with unequal numbers of votes might generate better decisions.

Q: Doesn't the creation of a class of 'annuitants' contradict the strategy of egalitarianism? A: We wish that we could give a stipend to every person, however our organization does not have enough money to do this. We feel that some annuitants are better than none. We see the existence of annuitants as good because such people can afford the bare essentials of life no matter what, and hence do not have to accept the whims of an employer upon pain of death -- this reduces the power differential between employer and (potential) employee, and gives the employee (e.g. the annuitant) more power to determine their fate.

Q: How do you differ from the U.S. Republican party? A: We are not a political party. In our political beliefs:

Q: How do you differ from the U.S. Democratic party? A: We are not a political party. In our political beliefs:

Q: How do you differ from the U.S. Libertarian party? A: We are not a political party. In our political beliefs:


random thoughts/maybes:


random motivations for egalitarianism:

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perhaps members agree to bindingly arbitrate all disputes with each other using the League

perhaps it would be more fruitful to envision a number of 'Leagues' with various degrees of coordination and cooperation.

some other goals: to end war and to end poverty

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probably not but: perhaps some sort of fraternal duty upon members w/r/t other members (but explicitly say that this duty need not be prioritized over any other duties that the member feels to family, friends, groups to which they are a member)

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