The Liberal theory of power

The world is changing, but we can choose the way

Abstract : We describe how we could build a new, ideal, nonterritorial kind of political order without government, made of freedom, human relations and a clever use of information technologies with new software.
It would naturally develop from communication freedom as an image and a new fundation of free market, completing it with a full concern for justice and public goods.

Note: This theory still remains incomplete, the details of the monetary system remaining to be mathematically formalized.

Introduction: context and objectives.
Then starts the core idea of the method: The Declaration, made of :

Assessment of others and its self-regulation algorithm
the Social Contract
The Power transmission (systematic treatment method).

Then concretely, what can the powers be ? As we say, they consist of information. As any information, they have a meaning and a user interaction interface.
For the meanings, we give a possible List of main categories of power.
Then we describe examples of user interfaces.
Follow some answers to questions, including the problem of Legislative instability and retroaction.
Then, more comments and complements are added in seperate files:
- A secure information network infrastructure : how all this can be quite well protected from hackers.
- Building freedom : What is a free world order ? What "killer application" can help spreading freedom ?
- Some other ideas
- More comments have not yet been translated from the Original version in French
- Links page

If you are interested to participate in the discussion, please join the discussion list. Thank you.

Introduction

A possible system for the future...

The news is not only that one better political system is conceivable (it is well-known for example that the Swiss system of direct democracy functions and is better than the other current democratic systems but that was not enough to spread it because the politicians did not want to propose it not to saw the branch on which they sat) but especially that by its nature it can be achieved both in spite of the unwillingness of the governments, and in a progressive way in appearent legality, hidden under privacy.

The basic axiom, only condition necessary to its development, is the freedom of communication. What generates the theory is developing solutions to the problem of defining types of information to be shared, which, provided with adequate data processing methods, will give to the use of this freedom a maximum of efficiency, so that the exchange of these types of informations by many people will finally be natural and irrepressible (from 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 without any matter of price) after a period of installation; and the explanation that in this solution, such an information 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 problems whose political dimensions approaches zero (this is why we will develop here more precisely the political dimensions, which are new). The impact of these political dimensions will be the fruit of a natural balance (or consensus) between the opinions of all.

This freedom of communication emerges gradually by the development of information technologies. These technologies may be not yet developed enough for a complete realization of the system, but as anyway the realization is progressive (in the number of members and the range of activities: a time of evolution of the social structures is necessary, certain "powers" non-conflictual with the governments being set up before the others), there is no time to waste. (the complete realization will require the passage to a purely virtual monetary system). The vector of the new order, once the details defined, would be the release of a software named something like "FreePolitics 1.0" in two parts: server and client.

... of associative inspiration...

There are three economic sectors today: the private sector, the public sector and the associative sector. As a way of formulating things, say that the functionalities of the associative sector would be extended until it competes with then replaces the public sector. There would be thus at the end only two sectors, representing two complementary forms of liberal logic: while the private sector is that of economic freedoms with free market, the politico-associative sector is characterized by the principle of free adhesion. Let us insist on the fact that it is not about privatising systematically all that belongs to the State (which obviously would often be an aberration - nor about letting everything be purchasable) but to make it pass under control of the free powers (associations) as we will describe them.

... basically dispersed and competing but globally serving the general interest !

Moreover, these powers would not have everywhere the form of well identified and separated associations, but also, according to the cases, that of a vast network with a fractal stucture, both globally structured and formed of a large variety of small independent entities, like the Internet, offering to free adhesion a virtually unlimited choice.
Far from trying to divide a mythical preexistent global unity of Power given from Upwards, it is about building it by the regrouping of its elements basically dispersed and defined by the inalienable freedom of communication given to all. Almost always, the nature of these powers would be only purely informative (bringing more information and not censoring any) but nevertheless effective. Therefore, the development of this system with its powers once started could not be stopped without a physical regulation or interruption of the communication means. Paradoxically, we will see how, if the informational means are sufficiently good, this principle of free adhesion in such a galaxy of little powers can naturally form on a large scale not a law of the jungle but indeed a coherent society, just and organized, in which the collective interest receives the consideration that it deserves and where what one usually regards as the intrinsic diseases of liberalism requiring the intervention of the superstructures of the public power, will be solved.

No consideration of territory or of nationality could anyhow "legally" limit the freedom of extension of the ramifications of the system which we will describe.
Certain points of what follows will be written under the assumption that a majority of people belong to this new system, but most features also function in the case of a minority system.

The Declaration

The fundamental element of the new structure will be the declaration which, at any time he wants, each member can freely write/update, sign and send to one or more computers dedicated to that, which record all the declarations received in a vast data base, with the electronic signatures of their authors to authentify them. Each one will be held responsible for what he declares. This declaration can be modified at any time, but the files of former declarations are kept in archives for the case when the responsibility for them would be involved because of the consequences which they would have had.

This declaration is in 3 parts:
1) Social contract and activity report
2) Assessments of others
3) Transfer of power

Assessments of others

(here (x) is a variable, as in mathematics)
Each member of the network can make statements about people he (or she) knows (and should at least make one such positive statement, in order to allow transmission of his capabilities, as will become clear) - he may choose the members of this list freely. About each member "x" on the list, he will indicate whether he considers (x) honest or not and whether he trusts (x) or not, not only personally, but most of all in terms of (x)'s respect for others and the commonwealth; and whether he considers (x) reliable and responsible in (x)'s activities. He will also indicate if he trusts (x)'s assessments of others (positively, negatively, or neutrally - neutrally signifying an absence of opinion in order to avoid conflict). Everyone is responsible for his own statements, and if he doesn't have a clear and certain opinion about someone of interest to the community (of use to the commonwealth), he should abstain from any assessment rather than risking a mistake.
Consequently, the list given by a member can usually be reduced to two or three people of whom he has a definite opinion. This opinion can comprise standard options (multiple nuances and possible additional information within a list), processable by computer, but also containing comments intended for specialists (or maybe lay people) who will undertake the human aspects of data processing.

The logic is this:
- If x is honest and x says that y is honest then probably y is honest
- If x is honest and x says that y is dishonest then probably y is dishonest

Discrediting

One can expect that any two honest individuals in such a world will be connected to each other by chains of trust, i.e. that one declares one's trust in A, who declares his trust in B, who declares his trust in C, who (...) who declares his trust in the other. It will be said that an individual is discredited if no chain of trust reaches from honest people to him, and if at least one honest person has declared
him dishonest. All this is relative: nobody has the power to decide who is honest a priori, but everyone, considering himself honest, may use the computers to inform himself of the consequences of this assumption (to know who is rated honest in relation to himself, where chains of trust lead from himself).

Discredit differs from financial ruin in that ruin is quantitative (it signifies that the individual is not useful to society, which owes him nothing) while discredit is qualitative (it signifies that he is mistrusted, he is known as tending to be secretly parasitical of society, by trickery or by lack of consideration towards the commonwealth, even if he does not succeed). 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 envisage dealings with him and who choose to consult it, in the same way as poor credit follows you into whatever stores you enter.

This is not necessarily final: a discredited individual may appeal and may introduce himself to a known (and not discredited) person and lay out his case. It is possible to envisage 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: just as there are appeal courts, social welfare and the possibility of requesting to be "declared bankrupt" in a situation of financial ruin.

A regulatory mechanism

Each time that two individuals put forward contradictory statements about a third, the computer which contains all the data will detect this fact. Except in the case where one of these two is himself discredited, this situation will declared unstable, and the computer will contact these two individuals (by phone or other means) to discuss this dissension, in the hopes of resolving it. If needs be, they can call upon a specialist to help clear up the problem.

The continuation of this scenario is a logical continuation of the same mechanism: if the dissension persists, the interlocutors can make statements regarding each other, one (A) declaring the other (B) to be dishonest, or incompetent in his judgements. A will then enter into conflict with those who trusted B. If he is able to convince them that B is dishonest, B will therefore be discredited. But if, for example, they decide that A has willfully made an incorrect judgement, they will therefore enter into conflict with those who trusted A and will explain the situation to them. If they (B's trusters) are able to convince A's trusters that A was dishonest in his judgements, it will be A who is discredited. If the sources of these dissensions were misunderstandings, at the end of these debates they will probably be solved and each will be able to update his statements, which will finally form a stable situation.

The Social Contract

It is the statement of the general principles of honesty which one claims to accept (as regards socio-economic behavior and declarations on others, rules of good behaviour and respect of the general interest, having vocation to be interpreted humanly and not too formally). Models of social contracts will be diffused to guide people. This contract, understandable by all, simpler and less formal than a legislation, will be used as guide for the life of each one. Each one can sign the commonly accepted social contract, or sign a modified contract, with the risk to be discredited for this fact. (One can thus be judged and discredited, either for non-observance of the signed social contract, or for signing of a non-acceptable social contract).
Some people (Especially the public-sector workers for example) will have to attatch to this an activity report (one or more time per year) presenting in short one's results and vocational guidances (or else: studies...). The biased beautifyings, if discovered, would quasi-automatically be sanctioned with discredit (and the same for the biased beautifying of advertisement practised by the commercial companies !). This declaration can be possibly assisted by a superviser corresponding to the domain of activity, charged with power by others. This specialist can block in no way the freedom of the person to declare what he wants, but he can add to this his motivated approval or disapproval.

Others

Any act, any economic exchange, any monetary operation (the currency being virtual), any judgement including what is carried out in the name of the general interest, is marked in an indelible way, even a long time after the facts, with the name of its actors who will always keep their responsibility. Thus, a customer discovering the bad quality of a product after having bought it can successfully complain against the salesman and obtain a compensation (after debates...) if his complaint is legitimate; the court expenses are quasi-null thanks to the great flexibility, simplicity, reactivity and with the good common sense of this social order. This information will be at least accessible to the people charged of power (as described below); The question of knowing up to what point the various kinds of information will be accessible to the public, can be subjected to debates.

Powers

Division and structure of powers

The powers divide according to their source on the one hand, their goal or speciality on the other hand. Each power extends as a chain of individuals which goes from its source towards its goal. The source of the power, first individual of the chain, is the citizen in the name of whom this power exists. The last individual is the specialized agent who achieves the required acts or judgements (possibly about other individuals). Any citizen is a priori the source of all kinds of powers (in a natural way, as an inevitable consequence of his freedoms to think, communicate and make economic exchanges), except of course those he chooses not to use.
In each chain of power, let us call the individuals except the source and the goal "intermediate agents"; through them pass generally a greater quantity of powers, so they carry more important responsibilities. Each individual has the control and the responsibility for the choice of the following agent in that chain of power.

It is only required from each one, to be coherent, to transmit his powers only to people whom he declares honest. Indeed, a transmission of power is a special trust (that each person can address to one or several people). The powers transmitted by an individual are those of which he is the source plus those possible that he received (of which he is intermediate agent) minus, of course, those of which he achieves the goal.

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 to one (or two...) people (except maybe for certain powers) who thus gather these powers from a certain 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 usually employed; sometimes, certain particular goals can be managed locally, by only a small number of people (including that the source himself chooses the goal). It may be possible that a person entrusts the same type of power to several individuals, who share the responsibility in question then.

Example of List of principal categories of powers

Description below is not a final classification; it is likely to be reconsidered, as certain described categories may in fact represent more or less the same questions, and other categories could be added. Precisely, each one is free to define as he wants the division of his powers.

Ideological/legislative power . This power has as a source any citizen having particular convictions. The intermediate and final agents are of the spokesmen of these convictions, better able to argue in words and to make concrete studies and investigations. The goal is to define details ot promote a modification of the social contract.
Example of nowadays: petitions are an expression of this power; certains associations also incarn such power.

General surveillance. The source is every citizen, and it goal is the surveillance of the respect of the general interest on a large scale (possibly world), to accuse those who do not respect this interest (such a charge takes the current form of declaration described above, provoking debates according to the same mechanisms). A large part of this consists 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 the expenditure of public utility. The intermediate agents of this power will be the object of a particular surveillance.

Media power . The source is the televiewer or the reader, and the goal is the production or selection of interesting programs or articles. Each intermediate agent selects between the possible following ones like televiewers select channels, on behalf of the precedents (the interest of all that is of course for the time when one will have the choice between thousands of programs). The interest to put the televiewer at the source of this power is of course to build a credible media world, resistant to the misinformation and the mediocrity currently imposed from the top.

Legitimation of the possessions. The source is every citizen, and the goal is every owner. The relation is stated "(the source) recognizes that (the goal) legitimately has this and that (such amont of money)". To give an idea of it, the role of the last intermediate agent is now currently played by the notaries. This power could be truly 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 the drug traffic, it is not always necessary to run after the dealers. 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 of payment of drug. The identity of the dealers once thus found, it is enough to cancel the recognition of the monetary account of each dealer, and to put on him discredit. Then, this dealer will not have gained anything of its sales, and will not be able anymore to buy something then with his electronic money account in a store than if he 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 the same recursively for the minority who did not charge him.

Thus, one dealer of drug can escape this investigation and this repression only if he makes pay its sales 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 to separate the acts of payment in nature from reception of drug but then 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). This example of the traffic of drug is generalizable with any corruption and any form of unjust enrichment, the difficulty being of identifying these unjust acts. (For example one could very easily and quickly to fight against the bad profits like those of abuse of dominant position by ruining and discrediting quasi-immediately the culprits using a software of recursive and automatic charge of individuals and of all its defenders, announcing all the reasons to all...)
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 goal is the attribution of a diploma. The last element of this chain of power before the graduate is the jury which allots the diploma, and the source is the future employer of this graduate, who will recognize the value of the diploma. (One notices the fact impossible to circumvent indeed that if an employer decides not to consider your diploma, you cannot do anything to it and your diploma will be as if there did not exist. The value of the diplomas is thus in any case subjective). An advantage is that one can address a complaint to the preceding link of the chain in case of attempt at corruption for attribution of diplomas (which currently occurs in some countries).

Banking power. The source is the saver, the goal is the investment. Today, it is what is called the money 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 for what this act is usually named "credit". This is why, having naturally the form of a power such as we described it, it will be managed by the same network, like a category of powers among the others. To grant a credit is in fact nothing else than letting the other spend money beyond what he has, passing to a negative monetary account in agreed larger limits of quantity and of duration, before his payments being blocked, and to carry the loss of it if the slope proves to be impossible to go up. The things being thus defined, if the account becomes again positive at time agreed upon, the act of refunding is completely automatic and is carried out without whoever raising the small finger. If not, the loss falls to the creditor, but the borrower can be discredited according to the terms of the credit which was agreed, the people having declared him their trust having been aware of the agreement since the beginning.

Such a change of mode of treatment of the banking market is justified as follows: the current banks are great institutions forming a kind of trust imposing an abusive tariffing of their services, and this change will mean the rupture of this trust by the passage to the free 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. In addition, the particular acts of credit requiring an appreciation and human responsibility, could often be carried out on quasi-artisanal scales as links of the wide-area network of trust which we described, by individuals who in general will not be pure bankers but will have competences in connection with the activity of which it is about supporting the investment.
It may be thus that the financial power is sometines more or less redundant with the diploming power.

Advantages:
For the savers: to be able to prevent risks like bankruptcy of banks as it still occurs in certain countries, as to create recourse possible in the event of monetary devaluation which meant the ruin of the savers refunded in devaluated currency, more generally to found a more honest financial system; to be able to choose forms of "morals" placement , favorable to ecology and to the economic insertion of the poorest...
As regards borrower, one notes the 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; rooting the banking operations in the direct human relations beyond any question of belonging to a large firm makes it possible to open new possibilities of economic development.

Practical form of powers

We will consider here the practical aspect of the powers, especially in the view of a beginning of realization, namely when there is still only one server centralizing all the data (to simplify the problem).

Identity of the members

Each member may have only one account, but with his account he can add several professionnal pseudos for technical reasons.
The machine knows the relation between these pseudos and maybe the real identity of the memeber. (a charge against one pseudo affects the member in all his functions, except maybe if some activity does not need honesty...).
The member possesses a different personal PGP key for each of his pseudos.
This key is produced by the individual by a standard PGP software independent of the software of the
organization, so that the organization does not have the corresponding private keys.
- > Problem: the fist requirement to implement this is to have an operating system (independent of the organization) which integrates secure PGP functions.
In a first step (= when the organization is still a minority), we can suppose a central server to which the members connects. Members will pay a subscription for the cost of server installation. But there will be no obligation to pay something like income taxes, so that the system will be of simple use and new members can fell free to join.
Different power categories can be implemented based on various interface models. For each one,
the revealed information about the real identity of the people is reduced to the minimum compatible with the full efficiency of the operations, everyone always being responsible for his actions.
Each category of power can be implemented in the form of one or several of the following interface models automatically related by the computer, whose roles are then complementary. This list of models does not pretend to be complete; it is here just to illustrate the possibilities.

First interface model

The aim is to let each member as a source or intermediate of powers, get information from and control these powers.
The tree of these powers is accessible as hypertexte which can be authenticated to him, in the following way: Each link comprises, with its address (or to play the role of an address) a public key of electronic signature, and the page obtained is authenticated by this signature (or, would the Web with its links, user accounts and web hosting, be already in itself a secure system of authentification of Web pages ?).
This document can comprise links to other pages by the next agents of the chains of power, with comments.
If an agent is object of a charge, that could be indicated in a frame or separate window, with the text
of the charge and a pseudo (one of) its author, so that one can reply to him or send an accusation of lie back to him.
One enters this this tree by one's own page (which is part of the Declaration).
It can be that only members who have no charge on them can access the content of certain pages.

One can add to this the functions of automatic research in the tree by key words, or of downloading the whole tree.
On each link one can intervene by blocking the transmission of power coming from oneself
or on the contrary by reinforcing it, in a quantitative way for example (while bringing an additional
financial assistance) or by reinforcing one's agreement with it that constitutes the legitimacy of this power (the legitimity of this power will be quantified by the numbers of sources supporting it for each degree (strength) of support.

2nd interface model

One makes an anonymous portal of the powers, by categories, subcategories and specialties, whose
access is reserved to the members.
This portal is structured in a logical way independent of the humane structure of powers. The final elements of this portal can be Web sites of documents, with the pseudos of their authors (the final agents of power which one can contact). Each final element comprises indices measuring the base of its legitimacy (quantitatively or identified with associations labels, with links to their sites).

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 session, engaging the parts, whose conclusions will be signed and recorded in the computer.
According to the cases, it may be for example that the person requesting shoud have a
webcam which films him, but that the authority is only required to answer (to give his verdict) by written message or electronic declaration.

3rd interface model: how to authenticate "the honesty of the machine" to the individual.

The machine will select one or several optimal chain of trust and will send it to the individual, in the form of a succession of declarations of trust signed, each one declaring trust with following
specifying the public key of its signature, this series beginning with one made by the recipient himself of the certificate, and ending in a declaration attesting the honesty of the control of the machine.

4th interface model: right of access to the data.

Each individual can choose somebody whom he will authorize to access his own data, who can transmit this right to someone else. The concentration of this power makes it possible to one authority to access and compare much data at the same time.

Answers to questions

What about the currency?

I did not develop the description of the virtual currency, but it will exist.
Indeed, there will be payments with virtual currency (precisely, not an anonymous currency but rather a virtual equivalent of the cheques, style blue cards but NOT RESTING on the current methods of security of blue cards which are certainly lamentable) playing the same role as the current currency, except for some corrections. An objective is in particular to make stealing money impossible (someone being rich consisting of an information that all the rest of the society has about him: that they beleive he deserves services, stealing this information would be rather hard).
. In fact, I did not insist above especially because there will be in practice more resemblances of principle of behavior than of differences to the current currency; I specified some modifications (like the power of recognition of the inheritance for example, which includes the monetary possessions; there are other differences more technically economic, that I did not develop yet). For example the concept of discredit will be added to the concept of ruin but will not drive out it. They are two different dimensions, for more complete information.

Discriminations

Yes, there will be discriminations because information being better, nobody will be constrained by ignorance to deal with people recognized as dishonest persons by others if they do not wish to. Neither more nor less. If you are against that, that means that you refuse the right of people to know with whom they deal and oblige them to take the risk to be abused because it is necessary that there are people to be abused to make it possible to the robbers to live. Then? In the case of a minority new society, the solution is thus the avoidance. If the new order dominates, other solutions should be sought. By then, there will be thus time and many people to think of it.

Instability of honesty

"What means honesty ? It is a transitory quality, today I am it but tomorrow? "

honesty is not an option. It is an obligation of every moment. If at one moment it takes the desire to you for being dishonest person and that somebody realizes it, that will not go through. You will pay it, in proportion of the chances that you had to profit from it without being noticed, and of 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.
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, it is to make it possible to 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 by declaring it frankly and while paying for all the damage which one causes. By not doing well its work for example while being lazy, and while agreeing to receive only one weak pay for that. That is honest, and there could be many people who will choose it. It is not a hard deal, considering the productivity of our economy one can live very well modestly and without seeking to have the same living standard as the others, not? Kind 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 chaeper.
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 whereas 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...), thay will be free to choose it after read 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.

Legislative instability and retroaction

Question: Is it not necesssary for a system to be rather simple by having stable rules with predictable ways and times of possible change ?

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 foreseen, 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.

Links related to this theory:
http://www.p2ptrust.org/ : little portal presenting the present realisations and researches about systems of trust and reputation.
Future Imperfect , by David D. Friedman.

Other links page - To know more about me and my official reseach in pure mathematics

If you are interested in this project, you have questions, you want to be involved or to have more information about its development, please join the discussion list, or contact me (e-mail address : take the domain of this site and replace the . by @ :
spoirier(at)lautre.net).
Thank you.
I also started a project of a free network of love meeting web sites inspired by these ideas, but still only in French. A few weeks later, I wrote here in English a draft of an improved and more detailed version of the project from the technological viewpoint (whereas the site in French contains other comments outside the technological apects).