Democracy as a Moral Reality

[Andrew Jones]

Democracy As A Moral Reality




A fundamental shift in moral priorities has subtly as well as violently and steadily changed how a growing portion of the planet sees the world. It has come with philosophical, political and technological change. A deep psychological trauma to pre-existing cultural standards has occurred because of the philosophies and ethics which shape our culture and our lives; in particular the underlying philosophies of the intimately related enterprises of modern liberal democracy and science.

Science and Democracy: An Intimate Relationship
The hundred year period between the publication of the Principia in 1687 to the French Revolution of 1789 is generally considered to be the era of the Enlightenment. Before Isaac Newton wrote the Principia in 1687 there was no such thing as science. Newton was working in the field of natural philosophy. Whereas natural philosophers relied heavily upon reason alone, Newton brought together mathematics, experimentation and observation into the realm of rational thought to establish what would become modern scientific methodology. The discovery of laws of nature (regarding the motions of the planets in particular) led to the idea that human nature must also be governed by a set of natural laws. If this was so, then the old hierarchical worldview promoted by the church and state, in which the king ruled by divine decree, was not only faulty but immoral! Revolution became part of the European (and international) landscape as the moral character of monarchs and the use of their power came into question. Out of this assumption that there must be laws that govern human nature, philosophies of democratic societies emerged. No Enlightenment philosopher was immune to the philosophical implications of scientific discovery. Consider that many of the founders of the United States were amateur scientists. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were both notorious amateur scientists.

Science and democracy historically arose in parallel within many societies across the globe. The reason science and democracy arose in parallel within societies is because their processes both thrive in the same philosophical environment; an open, free environment described by Enlightenment philosophies (freedom of inquiry, travel, questioning of authority, etc?). Along with scientific understanding came technological wealth, especially within societies containing democratic and scientific traditions. These changes have caused a cataclysm of epic proportions. The world looks vastly different since the advent of modern technology. That is only half of it though. Consider that nearly half of today?s governments can be said to be a democracy of some form or another, however imperfect they may be. This was not so at the close of the 17th century. At this time the world was dominated by despotism, including and especially in the style of monarchy (a belief in an autocrats divine right to rule). [1]

Science and democracy grew out of the same Enlightenment roots and were prominent features of the same era. The philosophies that preceded, coincided with and ultimately defined the era of the Enlightenment shaped the nature and character of modern democratic expressions and scientific literature as well. Philosophical thought is the foundation for every grand endeavor the human race has ever engaged in. There is no such thing as science or democracy without the ideas which constitute their respective principles, ethics, methods, etc?

Consider that many of the principles that are necessary for a functioning liberal democracy are necessary for a functioning scientific endeavor: freedom of association, ideas, inquiry, speech, travel, questioning of authority and the need for good data to make informed choices and adjustments are all essential parts of both enterprises. Science is a quasi-democratic institution with a peer to peer system of review. You might even say that science works best in a pure form of democracy ? peer to peer. It seems that science and modern liberal democracies are joined at the philosophical hip. They are certainly intimately related from a philosophical and historical perspective.

A Universal Paradigm
A universal moral paradigm needs to be recognized. It is a paradigm which comes out of the biological definition of humanity. We are all homo-sapiens which means we are the same species. This reliance upon a scientific definition of humanity is noteworthy because scientific discovery and the definition itself (homo-sapiens) are integrally tied into the philosophies of a post-enlightenment democratic system. Being the same species means that we all have needs in common. Even though homo-sapiens can inhabit literally every environment on the planet and therefore do not have a ?niche? per se, our species is still driven by the same essential needs that are common to animals, as well as needs that are particular to being human. Our common needs includes our plethora of social and cognitive needs and is what binds us in an existential equality. This kind of equality is not of an equivalent nature but of a essential nature. Describing humanity with the scientific term homo-sapiens makes it clear that we are equal on the basis of our being the same species. Being the same species means we have needs in common. Any viable argument then becomes about what needs we have, not about whether or not we are equals.







Egalitarian Ethics vs. Exclusionary Democracy
Systems of democracy pre-enlightenment have glaring attributes which distinguish them from modern liberal egalitarian ethics. What the Iroquois, Vikings, Romans and Greeks all had in common were exclusionary forms of democracy as an institutional feature of their societies in some form or another, which included slavery, murder of non-citizens and the subjugation of women in most cases. Not all homo-sapiens were considered equal. Nor were they even considered people in some societies.

In the United States, we come out of these same roots of having practiced a brutal form of exclusionary democracy. The butchering of and subsequent destruction of the rights of Native Americans, the enslavement of and subsequent systemic racism against African-Americans, the subjegation of women, the oppression of LGBTQ people, the inhumane treatment of immigrants and peoples overseas are all conditions which we, here in the United States, allowed, or still allow, that fly in the face of fully realized egalitarian ethics. Furthermore, the disregard for the environment in the face of the global climate catastrophe, allowing gross income inequality when millions live paycheck to paycheck, the corruption of media and journalistic standards by corporate interests, the corruption of the political process by large corporate donor money, lack of recognition of healthcare as a human right, all can be regarded as components of an unequal system that lacks in its ability to fully realize the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

What makes modern democracy different from these sometimes tribalistic, exclusionary democratic expressions throughout the ages are the underlying assumptions which arise out of the foundation of liberal societies ? the ideal that all homo sapiens are equal. Human equality, however poorly realized, is now a part of our institutions in principle and practice through our philosophies and their attendant government bodies, laws, law enforcement and justice systems. The fact that certain homo-sapiens were or are not recognized as being equals, or certain issues have not been considered to be in the purview of a discussion of what is considered an integral part of a healthy democratic union is a fault of certain philosophies and the faulty execution of others in the face of human failings; failings of perception. The axis of the problem is perception itself: perception based upon deeply ingrained worldviews which perhaps had a use in helping us to survive for thousands of years but now has become a set of toxic paradigms. In order to explore and appreciate this we must consider and define what society, culture and morality are.



Social Power Theory


Cooperation: The Foundation of Society
The foundation of society, the ability for different individuals of the same species to cohabitate together in order to accomplish tasks, has to be the result of cooperation. Without cooperation there is ultimately no meaning to society. Even crocodiles (an animal not typically known for being social) congregating together with their maws open might be termed a psuedo-society. They are interacting and communicating with each other on some level by congregating peaceably together. They can be said to cooperate on some level by not biting one another long enough to allow for such a congregation to exist. Therefore cooperation is a key element to admitting that some sort of crude society exists. Cooperation involves certain elements in order for it to be enacted; the individuals must interact and they must communicate. This must be an ongoing interaction in order for there to be communication. We could term this a ?set? of interactions. We cannot adequately answer questions regarding when society begins and ends exactly, just that it needs certain elements that ?set? defines: a group of the same things that belong together. This then describes more than one interaction, and similarity, or persistence of interaction.

Society Defined
This leads to a very general definition of society:
Society is a set of interactions that two or more individuals engage in. This definition includes the crocodiles in the example above as a sort of society. They interact, communicate in some manner and cooperate in some manner. These crude elements are what make up the foundations of what we consider a society to be. It is merely a matter of expansion of this reality of social existence into a set of more sophisticated social interactions (and thus rules) due to more sophisticated nuerology that leads us to our social reality.

Culture Defined
Usually when we talk about culture we are talking about social norms, customary beliefs and social behaviors found in human societies. I define culture as any expression of a society. Thus crocodiles working together to capture prey is culture. If such expression is done either passively (i.e.- psychologically) or actively, then it is a cultural expression. In this view merely thinking is a cultural expression. Human thought is a cultural expression for the following reason; we are psychologically dependent upon others for a sense of self. This flies in the face of what we are usually taught about ourselves. We are taught that we are psychologically independent and therefore our psychological health is dependent upon only ourselves. This is pure fantasy. Consider that there are no ideas without symbols and no such thing as a ?self? without ideas. We use the symbology of language itself to create meaning. There is no self without another to teach us language. Therefore, there is no way to create a human self without another human self being involved. This is an inescapable conclusion. This indicates that relationship and society is of critical importance to our self identity and therefore our mental health. This is a new area of psychology being explored by psychotherapuetic relational theories. Dan Siegel is at the forefront of this new approach to defining the self as a social creature by nature. [2]

Even though thinking itself is an expression of culture, because of our ?socialized? psychological foundation (we have a sort of ?virtual relationship? to some ?other? as a part of our personality that taught us what we are as our selves), it does not necessarily create culture. This is a virtual distinction regarding our self as a social entity. If our personality was not a virtual social entity then thinking couldn?t be cultural expression; it would be considered uniquely individual. Since thinking is an expression of culture, then any private thought is also cultural creation as long as it is expressed to another. Culture must be created between two or more people. You can?t create or have a society by yourself. Culture happens when society happens, that is why the two seem synonomous. Culture is the expression of society.

Culture ? A Discreet Process
Some people may not feel satisfied with this general definition of culture since I consider merely conversing to be culture. They may feel that there are certain things which we call culture and certain others which we don?t. Consider that everytime you speak to someone it is significant to that relationship. Every piece of information that is shared, whether that be verbal, emotional or physical is important to the relationship. Whether or not you or I or a million other people remember something or not is not a matter of whether it is culture or not; it is a matter of whether or not that particular bit of culture is significant enough to survive and how important it becomes to society over time. Then when it becomes significant enough we colloquially call it culture. What we usually consider to be ?culture? is really just an evolutionary process of how society and our social expressions develop over time. That is why contemporary definitions of culture seem so arbitrary. Consider that nearly anything can become significant over time with repetition. A noise, a saying can become significant. Who can say when a social expression becomes culture? What kind of expression? When does this happen? What size group does it require? For how long does the tradition need to exist for? How important to the society does it have to be? You can see that there is no way to answer these questions. I agree with the conventional description of culture when we apply it to large groups (and their institutions) that have existed over a long enough period of time to create culture. But I believe culture happens discreetly in pairs as well.








Power Shapes Culture
Power is what mainly shapes culture over time. Power in relationships, the lack of power, the power of an experience (including personal cognitively powerful experiences) are what determine whether or not we consider it to be culture. Usefulness, significance and meaning are all expressions of power. Consider that things have meaning when they have utility associated with them more than when they do not. For example, my broom in the closet becomes more significant if I actually use it a lot. If I never use it or need it then it becomes insignificant. When we need and engage with things they become significant to us. Usefulness or significance could be termed value and/or meaningfulness. Meaningfulness is of particular interest in defining power because we don?t typically think of meaning as being a form of power. Meaning has power to a mind. It has the power to make us feel, believe, think, interpret and dictates a person?s intent and responses. Usefulness reflects a more pragmatic approach compared to significance and/or meaningfulness which both imply states of mind. All involve an assessment of difference in states. We assess when we find something (anything ? an idea, thought, feeling, experience) more significant than another thing (anything that can be imagined and or experienced). Thus power is critical to assessment. Meaning is critical to assessment and is power to the mind. Therefore power, in the form of meaning, is what creates culture.

Institutions Defined
Culture is by its nature a social phenomenon. This means that even in our most intimate relationships we create culture. If we share any of this information with the world (like say, an online post) and a group is interested (like viewers of a channel on TV) and this group therefore consumes this information, then we say that it has become a part of that group?s culture (the group that viewed it on TV, those talking about it because of someone?s viewing, etc?). If your family is interested then it has just become part of your family culture. The power of the experience will decide whether or not you will all recall it, consider it significant and therefore call it culture in the traditional sense. Once these powerful experiences have become an established part of our culture and we create practices and sometimes artifacts around such events, we call them institutions. I define an institution as being any social practice that is established and considered significant to a community.

Now that we have explored and defined what society, culture and institutions are we can move on to defining morality itself. Since morality is a product of culture it is good to keep in mind the processes which create culture since they are also involved in the creation of morality.

A Theory Of Morality



The Neurological Nature of Morality
The reason for morality as social necessity is clear: in order to counteract the intense survival needs and/or instincts of an individual creature an evolutionary mechanism must be enacted (e.g.-a moral conscience) in order to gain social benefits. There has to be some sort of evolutionary mechanism involved that gets individuals to cooperate. Evolutionary social survival strategy necessarily must enact rules and enforce them and does so through evolutionary equipping and/or limitations and through conscious enforcement. For example, many limbic brained social animals exhibit a sense of fairness and outrage at injustice as well as compassion for the suffering of others. This is the product of having a brain which enables a new, more sophisticated set of emotional responses. The only way for two individuals to cooperate is to be able to interact, communicate and to follow rules. Morality is not something that exists as ontological reality other than as an evolutionary device that enables cooperation amongst individuals.

Good and Evil?
Violations of fairness cause us to exhibit outrage and/or disgust. When ourselves or others are wronged we feel sadness. These are some very basic moral responses that we have as humans. Cats and dogs have these responses as well. Does this mean there are evil cats and dogs? I believe that is the wrong question to ask. Now, if you asked if a dog or cat were as culpable or responsible as a human being the answer would be no. Their morality is much simpler because their brains are much simpler than ours. Like a child they need to be treated differently than an adult human who possesses theory of mind amongst other cognitive abilities that most animals do not apparently possess (it is hard to prove theory of mind in an animal - we can?t talk to them about their inner states, but dogs and cats are not in the running; dolphins, pigs, ravens, grey parrots are the more likely candidates). Evil and good are relative, human-invented terminology and paradigms.

Theory of mind is the ability to comprehend mental agency in another being. It affects a persons moral choices and seems to be located in the Right Temporo-parietal Junction (RTPJ). The medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulated, angular gyrus on the left and right sides and the ventral prefrontal cortex are also involved in making moral decisions. All have different neurological and cognitive functions. You can see that the whole issue of morality is actually quite complex from a neurological perspective. The brain is a modular instrument and therefore the way morality actually functions is going to be broken down to modular brain functions, not spectrum generalizations. And yet this is what we do when we moralize. We think in dualisms and ask if it is right or wrong and how much so. More sophisticated questions we might ask are how and why it is so. Not all animals or even children have the capability to make the same moral judgments as adult humans due to neurological differences. We may even come to find that some species of animals may need to be regarded as morally more sophisticated than others. I believe that ultimately neuroscience will have a primary role in defining human and animal morality and in shaping our philosophies around morality as we discover more about how the brain functions.

A Grand Duality?
Our most basic neurological functions are binary in nature. A neuron either fires or it doesn?t. Just like in a computer, things are either a 0 (good/beneficial/on) or a 1 (evil/harmful/off). Our basic fear reaction is fight or flight. A binary reaction is the best one suited for survival because it?s the most efficient solution. Is this because that is the way reality is or because our brains are created this way? Is this why many of us see things in terms of a duality such as good and evil! If reality does not come in some grand duality then what does this say about how limited we may be as far as our ability to perceive reality is concerned? Does the type of brain you get determine what type of reality you are able to witness? The scary answer is yes. We may never know if the universe really exists as a duality or not. The actual universe might be very different and may come in all sorts of possibilities beyond a mere duality. We may be ?constructing? a binary universe because, 1) it is possible to do so and 2) it is all we can comprehend.


Morality: A Dilemma
We use a hueristic symbology we call words and attempt to describe our mental states with it. Unless you are a neuroscientist (and even they don?t know much about the brain) you have no other means to really approach mental states than to talk about them. The problem with this whole arraignment is that our descriptions are confusing because they probably don?t accurately describe the reality of what is neurologically happening. This is why we cannot adequately describe morality using words that attempt to describe mental states. And yet this is exactly what we must do because we have no other choice. As discussed, we can?t make spectrum generalizations when it comes to the actual mechanics of morality because we don?t really know what they are yet. Nuerology decides what the mechanics of morality are. Still, our brains seem, at root, to be designed to react to the world in a dualistic manner and we can?t help but speak of things in general terms of good and bad. And so many of us continue to make spectrum generalizations when we moralize. I feel that it is useful to see that this process; the generation and sustenance of a moral framework, involves a somewhat arbitrary process of collective trust.



Morality as Currency
Contemporary definitions of morality make a clear distinction between ethics and morality in the following way: ethics are considered to be values, ideas and principles which a person should adhere themselves to; morality is when these values, ideas and principles become personalized. If ethics are personalized into ideas about what is right and wrong we say that this has become part of a person?s morality. An individual?s morality can conflict with ethical standards that are situational or provided by an external source. For example, a lawyer might defend a person they know is guilty in order to adhere to legal ethical codes of providing their client with a good legal defense. If morality is a function of society and yet morality is an individualized set of ideas, values and principles then we have a problem; especially when we consider that one can?t be moral as an individual, it must be done collectively. Yet, morality only exists as individual belief integrated and personalized into an emotional reflex.

So what is going on here? Currency is happening. Look at the dollar in your pocket. It is useless ink and paper. If we try living without money we will find out how useful it actually is in a bad and/or inconvenient way. So it is useful in what sense? Currency is a virtual construct so it is not real, but it holds real power ? because we say that it does! If we all stopped ?believing? in the dollar it would become what it really is ? paper and ink. So its real value is paper and ink, but its actual value is what it says on the front: a promise, a belief, a trust. Things like currency have actual value and hold real power. Gold is the same, with a bit more real value than paper and ink. It is still just currency. Oil on the other hand has just about the greatest real value there is as a substance in today?s world: 90% of 1rst world products depend on petroleum, including food production. If the oil runs out, we starve; or learn to farm locally and organically as one option. Food and water on the other hand hold absolute real value for homo-sapiens. You can live without oil but not without food or water. Thoughts that come to naught or are pure fantasy have only virtual value. They only have value in as much as they mean something to us.

Moral System Defined
This leads me to a very general definition of a moral system:

Any system of rules dictated by emotional responses to beneficial and/or harmful outcomes regarding the well being of the group and/or the individuals in the group can be considered a moral system.

In this view morality is the foundation of society itself. From this point of view our individuals must possess a sophisticated enough emotional apparatus to care or have some stake in the well being of the group and/or other individuals in the group. This view also supports the idea that good and evil do not actually exist as absolutes in any real sense. These are relative terms. This view also accounts for animal morality as an existential, evolutionary precursor to our own sophisticated moral capabilities.

Power and morality are always tied together in discussion when assessing the realization of a moral act. For without power how can a moral act be committed or an immoral one for that matter? Responsibility means exactly what it breaks down to sound like; the ability to respond. Respond-ability. If you can't respond you're not responsible. Morality without actions, without participation on the part of the other(s) being acted upon is not considered here. Personal thoughts and experiences that cause our nature to be what it is morally do exist but they become part of the palette of moral influences. The vast majority of our moral concerns are involved in relationship, either actual or virtual. These concerns are why morality has such power; it is a form of currency.

Morality acts just like money for us. We exchange it as a medium for beliefs and profound meaning with those in our social network. Without moral currency there is no society. This is because morality itself is the system of rules which makes society function. Just as money and the flow of money are like life blood to the ?economic body? in question, so morality and its common usage are like life blood to a ?cultural body?. We only trade in U.S. dollars in common usage. We do the same for morality. We trade in the common morality of our society. Defining common morality is a matter of regional as well as national consideration for a society as large and as plural as the United States is. Fundamentally, morality is at its root the core set of rules that society depends upon to decide whether or not we will form a society together or not. Morality also defines a person?s worldview. Worldview is a profound psychic expression of moral power in a very direct, unrestricted manner.

Worldview and Moral Reflexes
Our value judgements determine our outlook. In life hueristic thinking regarding value judgements is often a necessity. Your worldview will determine how well you fit into particular group(s). Whether or not you were in a group historically meant you survived or didn?t. This makes morality a survival issue for us. Thus we are deeply social creatures that need one another. An immoral or otherwise unwanted person would have been cast out of the group in our early human history. Being cast out of the group historically had grave consequences. This is why it can be such an intense emotional and psychological trauma to be left alone or shamed. Life can happen quickly, unexpectedly and with grave consequences, including socially. This is why I believe we have our morals as a reactive force. This is what it means to have a moral reflex. Our moral reflexes reflect our worldview. I believe this is so true that the two are indistinguishable.

Institutional Morality
DNA holds records of our genetic data, banks hold financial data and culture holds social data in individuals and their creations. Information which becomes currency of any sort must create constructs to hold itself in place ?its institutions make the currency resilient. And so it is for morality. Morality creates institutions as well. For religions it is holy literature, places of worship, clergy, etc? In a democracy we call some of these moral institutions legislative bodies, court systems and police forces. Notice that this is also where we have placed much of our power. These moral ideals which have actual value now have realized real power through our institutions. This is a characteristic of morality because it is a form of currency ? morality acts as a medium that carries real power. These are the institutional expressions of a society?s ethics, values, principles and ideas. These institutions reinforce society?s beliefs in real, consequential ways and therefore shape the society?s moral outlooks. The principles these institutions claim to adhere to (the underlying philosophies) and the faithful execution of such will be witnessed by those that trade in such moral currency. This then becomes personalized over generations and woven into the fabric of the society. Ideas, principles, values, ethics are all things that we call morality when they become personalized.



Additional
Social Power Dynamics


The Four Powers of Society

Economist Ravi Batra theorized that there are four ages of human development (warriors, intellectuals, acquisitors and laborers) based upon the teachings of his mentor P.R. Sarkar in which he utilizes social cycle theory. [3] This theory is based on an analysis of four classes of society that claims that people are historically motivated differently. Batra believes that these are due to different types of people and that these patterns show up as historical cycles. Batra?s theory is similar to the Strauss?Howe generational theory, which also describes history recurring in a generational cycle. [4] William Strauss and Neil Howe see four archetypes of people (Prophet, Nomad, Hero and Artist) that repeat sequentially throughout history. There is a striking similarity between this and Ravi Batra?s theory. I believe that both theories are correct in describing rotating cycles of history based upon human motivations. These four cycles of human motivation are merely the dynamic expression of four realms of social power rather than kinds of people, classes or motivations. Each realm of power creates a class of people associated with its power so it naturally seems like classes or types of people.

Unique Powers per Realm
Each realm of power has unique characteristics associated with it, that it affects all other realms with:
1) The military trumps all other powers. Killing destroys all other social powers by killing off the (members of) society. This is the power embued in the state.
2) Economics sustains everything else. All of life, including thinking depends upon economics (you have to eat and expend calories to think which means that thinking is economically dependent). Nothing in society goes without the sustaining influence of economics.
3) Knowledge changes and adjusts all of society. New knowledge can be so powerful that it can and has changed the social order of humanity. It is common for new knowledge to create adjustments in society. Knowledge is how we know what is true. Truth is a form of pure cognitive power. Truth represents authority to the mind.
4) Culture is the expression of society itself. It is a subtle, irresistible force. Culture forms beliefs which allows us to know who we are as individuals and as a group. New ideas, spontaneous inspiration, robust institutions all come out of a vibrant culture.

Morals are the rules or systems of society itself. Morals determine the social order and expression of all four realms of power. The power of morality expressed is the worldview of its consumers. Worldview determines everything about a person and a society psychologically, culturally and morally.



Relationship Dynamics

Being that society is two or more individuals in a relationship, relationships are of the utmost importance to the nature of culture and thus morality itself. Since culture is shaped by power, morality is necessarily shaped by power and its expressions as well. Being that relationships, power and its expressions are so important to the nature of morality, this suggests that the dynamics of a relationship may be fundamental to a moral system. The term ?relationship dynamics? implies a concern with the difference in power between parties. This becomes profound when we consider that there are only two fundamental types of relationship paradigms: either you are equals (peers) or you are unequal (hierarchical). There is no third option. This means that relationship dynamics consist of a party being either a peer, a dominant or a submissive in relation to another or others.

This clearly indicates that there are two distinct ways of expressing power in relationship. One is in a peer system the other is in a dominant/submissive system. These are the two different types of relationship paradigms; equality/ peer to peer paradigm and the dominance/submission paradigm. These relationship paradigms determine the nature of how two people will relate to one another and can even determine whether or not they will form a community together. These dynamics play themselves out in the arena of our lives through four main avenues of social power; military, economics, ideas/knowledge and society itself or culture.



In Search of a Core Moral System

Usually when people think of moral systems religion comes to mind or a grand philosophical tradition. When we consider the vast differences in moral systems across the planet and the ability for people to adopt several norms as their own, especially as the world has gotten smaller and people come into close association with other cultures, we must consider questions as to the importance of different moral systems. Moral systems often co-exist as layers superposed on top of one another (you could say they are amalgamated together). Therefore societal norms and moral traditions do not necessarily constitute a fundamental system. This Core Moral System should show up as a systemically ingrained feature of all four realms of power. It may not necessarily be a set of norms, traditions, values or assumptions although these may all be aspects of our paradigm.

In our quest to discover a Core Moral System we must consider vast periods of time. In this context we must consider that culture is shaped and created in reaction to or in consideration of environmental pressures*. It takes time for environmental pressure to have cultural effect. Culture often comes about not as a fully conscious decision. The
cultural environment we live in can affect us in deep psychological ways. Direct
personal knowledge will cause culture to change more rapidly but overcoming people?s ingrained beliefs takes time. Information sometimes only convinces people so much.
The way that we live, how we live teaches us much deeper lessons about life and how the
world is than any intellectual exercise ever can. Being that culture is shaped through power over time, a fundamental part of what determines cultural evolution must be power in relationships just as it is for morality and for the exact same reasons. This is because
morality and culture are both fundamental elements of what constitutes a society. If there
is a fundamental shift in relationship dynamics then we can expect to see a fundamental shift in cultural outlooks as well.

Evolution and Cultural Development
Physics are the laws of nature which constrain and define physiological evolutionary strategies. Many human created technologies find direct analogues in nature. Cameras are the equivalent of eyes and contain the same technological elements (a rounded lens, light sensitive material, etc?). Sonar is a technology used in submarines and is used by bats and whales. The plumbing of our circulatory system is made up of valves which only allow for the blood to flow in one direction. Boolean computers are direct analogues to Boolean brains; DNA is a 4 bit digital information system as compared to the 2 bit computer system, etc... The reason life took on the forms that it did is because that is what is possible within the laws of physics. So the question is; are there laws of physics which constrain and define cultural evolution? In other words, if evolution has


*Note: society can also create environmental pressure but environmental pressures often come from outside of social influence.

determined epochal cultural development then the development of culture over long periods of time will depend upon considerations of the survival of the species as a whole and the survival of the society in question, especially if the environment is harsh and brutal.

Ingrained Global Morality?
So what must make this cultural evolutionary system function? Rules around life (sex, food, etc?) and death (murder, killing, disease, etc?). I believe that behaviors and rules around these issues will simply have to appear because the issues of life and death are so weighty. Sex and death are what natural selection uses to determine the survival of our genes. Over large periods of time we can expect these things to show up as a deeply ingrained or even instinctual social expression that has become infused throughout our cultural expressions and institutions. When it comes to human beings we are no less susceptible socially, to these things (despite our cognitive plasticity) which rule over our genetic legacy; sex and death. All animal societies must contain basic behaviors and/or rules around sex and killing of members and non-members and how the individual will function within the society in relation to these things.

If culture is created and shaped through interactions with environmental pressures then evolutionary pressures will have a profound effect over long periods of time. The evolutionary ?natural selection? pressures of reproduction/sexuality and killing/warfare should play a primary role in the creation of ingrained epochal cultural worldviews. They are unique pressures because natural selection relies upon death and sex for the survival of our genes, even though this is cultural selection occuring. I believe that any assessment of a Core Moral System must be shaped in terms of these factors. We must not look for an institution or a set of institutions but an ingrained system that is global in its scope.

Evolutionary processes involve harsh environments in order for natural selection to operate. The system we are about to discuss, patriarchal despotic hierarchy, has fomented an institution which allows a selection process based upon killing and mating to occur. This institution is nothing other than warfare itself. In another environment, a peaceful environment, natural selection processes would not be able to operate. This is not a claim that natural selection is taking place. This is cultural selection happening.





Despotic Hierarchy


Patriarchal Roots
There is an arena of human social reality where the evolutionary pressures of death and the regulation of sexuality have an integral part in the historical development of an ingrained systemic order: all over the world men subjugate women. This is a global feature of modern humanity. I believe that patriarchy describes the evolution of the ingrained Core Moral System (despotic hierarchy) and that patriarchy is a social system designed to aid survival in brutally competitive warfare environments. Being that warfare is such a prominent feature of human history it cannot be ignored as a fundamental environmental pressure. There are few problems worse than war for a civilization. This ingrained system can be described as a despotic system where a patriarch or strong leader rules over subjects with fiat power. A strong leader must be relied upon to make quick decisions of disastrous result for someone ? either for your tribe or the enemies?. There is no time for debate in a war zone; thus the need for strong, decisive, faultless leaders.

The Foundations of Patriarchy: Agriculture
and Warfare
In a warfare environment, since culture follows paths of least resistance the bigger, stronger, faster males, who don?t have to be vulnerable during childbirth would become more important to the survival of the tribe and begin to dominate in most cultures. Agriculture is widely viewed as being the reason why populations increased and specialization of duties occurred. With these changes came greater technological development. As specialization and differentiation occurred more complex social organizations begin to emerge. Any specialization necessarily will create differentiation and therefore hierarchy. An increase in hierarchy in a despotic environment creates even greater differentiation in terms of assumed rights, liberties and overall quality of life between different strata of social power. We were not always patriarchal as a species though. All indigenous people?s we have encountered that were pre-agricultural had interesting characteristics in common.

Our Forgotten History
As evolutionary psychologist Peter Gray claims, ?During the twentieth century, anthropologists discovered and studied dozens of different hunter-gatherer societies, in various remote parts of the world, who had been nearly untouched by modern influences. Wherever they were found--in Africa, Asia, South America, or elsewhere; in deserts or in jungles--these societies had many characteristics in common. The people lived in small bands, of about 20 to 50 persons (including children) per band, who moved from camp to camp within a relatively circumscribed area to follow the available game and edible vegetation. The people had friends and relatives in neighboring bands and maintained peaceful relationships with neighboring bands. Warfare was unknown to most of these societies, and where it was known it was the result of interactions with warlike groups of people who were not hunter-gatherers. In each of these societies, the dominant cultural ethos was one that emphasized individual autonomy, non-directive childrearing methods, nonviolence, sharing, cooperation, and consensual decision-making. Their core value, which underlay all of the rest, was that of the equality of individuals." [5] *

Despotic Systems Defined
We have been living under an institution for thousands of years which features despotic systems. To elucidate what the term ?despotic? means I turn to relationship dynamics again. There are only two types of relationship dynamics, equal or not equal. This dictates that there are only two general ways in which to politically organize: as equals or not equal. There is no third option. There is only a matter of degrees of commitment to the peer to peer ideal or an abandonment of the peer to peer idea for one of a despotic framework instead or an amalgamation of the two types of organizational styles. If we look at a definition or any list of governmental styles we can see that they fall into ones that lead by fiat power over others - where there is exploitation of power over others, and another where the power is spread out over many in what approaches a peer based union. We tend to call the former autocracies, dictatorships, kingdoms, totalitarian states, etc?.we call the latter communal societies, democracies and republics. The last two being differing forms of a democratic union. The republic is a compromise between true peer based society and the need for heirarchy in the face of specialization. In a democratic republic we vote for people to represent us. If we boil this down we should be able to recognize that there are really only two types of government with many variations on a theme: either you have an egalitarian union that we realize as a democratic union or you have some iteration of an autocratic or, what was for most of human history, a despotic state or an amalgamation of the two (like a monarchy with a parliamant). Thus, no matter what kind of corporeal body we are discussing, it will come in styles of either peer-based assumptions and power structures or a fiat power driven
heirarchical despotic/autocratic style. There is no third option. Thus, the descriptors

*I don?t wish to speculate as to whether or not there was warfare before agriculture. I assume that we lived with war since history shows us to be warlike. If this turns out to be wrong then we need to solve the question as to why we became warlike after agriculture. If we were peaceful before agriculture this fact would only further support this papers claims about human nature and the effectiveness of adopting a new moral order which can lead humanity towards equinamity, peace, solidarity and a sense of deep fellowship.

If warfare did start after agriculture then perhaps the idea of property ownership became a greater issue since land should now be settled permanently in order to maintain the improvements (i.e.-agricultural)? The idea of possession of land probably came about naturally as a result of agriculture. This probably lead to the idea of personal possession as a more prominent feature of human culture. Perhaps this could have contributed to interpersonal conflict and the exploitation of labor and resources. Exploitation is the goal and cause of aggressive warfare.

?despotism? (which is utilized for historical accuracy) and ?democracy? (which is utilized as a historical precedent to a full, deep or mature democracy or what might be termed a mature egalitarian society).


POWER
Fiat Power
Despotic describes a basic social organizational style. It describes a top-down hierarchical power structure with fiat power at the top level, where a fundamental
inequality of power exists between a few with power versus those with none to little, who usually outnumber those with power. This ?fiat power? is limited to the realm of social power within which it is expressed (except for economics ? it has proxy martial power). The corporeal body and it?s members influenced by this power is without the agency to question authority within the realm of power in question.

Despotic systems are exploitative by definition: fiat power means the other party does not have any rights. All despotic hierarchies are designed to exploit. Exploitation is not necessarily a moral judgement. Such judgements depend upon ethical violations caused by such exploitation. Fiat power does not provide objective grounds for its legitimacy, oftentimes its power is its legitimacy. The person with political fiat power literally gets to decide if the other person lives or dies. That is political fiat power. In an economic fiat power situation the fiat power is limited to the laws of the land in question and therefore, usually limited to economic power, but not always. Consider that economics is a physical reality. If you don?t eat you die. So in a real sense, without laws to protect the worker an economic lord has potential political (martial) fiat power over employees as well. A person with fiat knowledge power means they have unquestionable authority when it comes to knowledge about a subject, idea or belief system not due to objective measures of truth but due to proclamation. They can also gain fiat power over another persons? agency and personal sovereignty. This is argueably the most potent form of fiat power that there is; the control of another?s worldview. At the most discrete cultural block of society, the family unit, we see fiat power was traditionally held by the man of the household, and still is in some societies. The reigns of life and death of the entire family are legally in the hands of the man of the household in this arraignment.

In this Despotic Hierarchy you can find patriarchs and fiat authority/power structures in all four realms of human social power: political, economic, ideological/knowledge and the cultural building block unit of society itself ? the family. Kings, despots, dictators, autocrats and in an economic sense, workplace bosses, managers, executives and a company?s primary shareholders are all part of a heirarchichal, despotic power framework. In the realm of knowledge religious patriarchal clergy have dolled out fiat inspiration, wisdom and ignorance down through the ages. Traditional patriarchal hierarchy in religions across the planet historically contained little to no transparency and therefore limited intellectual agency on the part of its followers. The clergy had all authority and power when it came to knowledge. Traditional religion is a prime example of the patriarchal fiat system in the realm of knowledge. On a root societal level the family patriarch should be familiar to everyone. Men literally used to own women in most countries and still do in some. Parents used to ?own? their children. Now children have inalienable rights in many liberal societies. Notice that nearly all of our corporate institutions including the corporate bodies which make up our democratic government are ?despotic? (autocratic to be more correct) in organizational structure. Notice that none of these institutions are traditionally organized as democratic systems, but they all could be.


TRUTH
Authoritarian Truth
Historically, power and truth was the domain of the despotic leader; the despot produced both in the eyes of their subjects. Power and truth were wielded as one entity, especially because of how ?truth? was produced and regulated in a despotic social structure. In a despotic environment the despot answers the question of the masses ?Who are we?? with ?I am.? (e.g.- the royal ?we?). This has been the domain of the monarch and became the domain of the state, to provide for truth, which supplied us with a sense of identity (who and what we are), standards of truth (including those who dispense the truth) and the authority of truth (power to enforce the truth). In a despotic culture the truth is not a verifiable quantity necessarily. It is a story of produced truth embodied in the state paradigm and realized by its institutions. In an autocratic system there is the need to use real force or the constant, passionate threat of such upon the population in order to keep the national story intact. This is due to an incompatibility with reality. We are all peers. We all have selfish individual needs and outlooks by nature because we are individuals. We are also creative by nature. This has been a problem for state autocrats and those who exploit in any context.

This is why in any social context there is resistance to power wherever exploitative power is found. This is especially true when overt oppression is observed. History is my witness. Such resistance may only manifest itself as a psychological resistance in the most extreme of oppressive situations but it represents the free creative impulses of a society. Such creative impulses will manifest in a portion of the population as some sort of disposition that must be characterized as a loss of agency and therefore creativity. These are the suppressed and normalized citizenry. Despotic hierarchies are not systems designed to explore and examine. This is a system designed to secure and replicate itself. Thus, only through normalization of real or abstract violence and injustices of power can a despotic system continue to rule over the naturally curious, unruly and the minority elements of society. This normalization can be such a potent psychic phenomenon that force is not required. The most effective means of control do not need to use the threat of force. Remember that the most powerful force we can encounter is what we believe. Normalization, threats of violence, either real or abstract and a constant stream of produced ?truth? keep the state narrative intact. This state narrative we can term the narrative of virtuous power. This virtuous power, wherein power has virtue by reason of it being powerful, is the truth in an authoritarian context. Thus truth equates to raw power. Power itself is evidence of truth to an authoritarian mind.


JUSTICE
Authoritarian Justice
Thus in an authoritarian reality the submissive power expressions are confined to a respect for ?law and order? where rules and authority are of utmost importance to the submissive moral mindset (to be clear - anyone who loves democracy loves law, which means they love order as well. It is the degree to which rights and liberties are subsumed in regard to authority which is at issue here). In the despotic system the submissive power is subsumed as a matter of justice. This eliminates the submissive?s sovereignty and reduces the submissive?s agency. Keeping one?s ?head down? and one?s ?nose clean? is good manners for a submissive in this environment. In the Despotic Hierarchical environment submissives are often assumed to be in need of discipline by dominant powers as a matter of course. This is due to the fact that virtue is monopolized by the dominant moral agent and lack of power or weakness is seen as moral ineptitude at best and criminality at worst. This ethic naturally leads to assumptions as to the infirmity of character of the submissive(s). In such an environment, self-agrandizing dominant power expressions lead to exploitation in some form which often lead to abuses of authority.

Dominant power holds authority as a matter of self-evident righteousness in the despotic moral system. This is the evidence of power itself. Power is its own virtue within this system of justice. This is where the reflexive ?truth? exists within this system of proofs. Power is proof of virtue for an authoritarian. This virtue is often seen as evidence of an absolute truth. This absolute truth holds absolute authority as a necessary quality. An absolute authority has the charge of being infallible. If kings actually were infallible then authoritarian justice would have an absolute quality to it. Being that it is impossible for a human being to be all-knowing, arbitrary justice is the rule of law in the authoritarian context. History has borne this out to be true. Thus Despotic Heirarchy features an absolute authority that metes out arbitrary justice.


Authoritarian Leadership:
Wielding Power, Power Accumulation
When we bring into question assumptions about power and the use of power it forces us to look at the fact that justice takes on a differing quality for different people in the world. Why is this so? A look at the different paradigms and their use of power brings us to our answer (we will be examining the other paradigm in the next chapter). One system runs on fiat power the other system runs on negotiation and compromise. This creates unique ways of expressing power. The way that one wields power says everything about them. Accumulation of power is the reverse expression of wielding power, from the first person point of view, and has everything to do with how one wields power as well. Thus accumulation of power and how one wields power has everything to do with leadership styles in an applied manner.

If we examine the fiat power system of expression it lends itself to a psychology that respects power as a way of life. If fiat power is a way of life, then raw power is the way you earn your living, which means you depend upon naked, raw, brutal power and its consequences for sustenance. This means that a culture of fiat power must be the dominant meme in a despotic paradigm. In an innovative psychological approach to understanding democracy Fathali M. Moghaddam created a diagram of democratic leadership style that indicates what a healthy democratic psychological framework looks like. In this diagram we can interpolate that the opposite attitudes and values are the values of the opposing, or old paradigm. This is the paradigm of despotic hierarchy. These two paradigms are in a dualistic relationship because of relationship dynamics. This is because there are only two relationship paradigms ? equal or not equal. If I take the opposite of his nine psychological outlooks (we shall explore his nine paradigms in their positive affirmations later on) I can assume that the culture of fiat power in a dominant/submissive system creates a general ?despotic? outlook which would look something like the following:

1) Leaders are unresponsive to the wishes of citizens.
2) There is no rule of law. It is arbitrary rule.
3) Leaders are not removable. They are a permanent fixture.
4) There is no freedom of thought, or freedom to express that thought, often under martial threat.
5) Minorities are powerless, and therefore are often disregarded and abused.
6) Judgments depend upon political considerations as a rule.
7) There is no consideration of consent in this society, and thus no concept of suffrage.
8) This society does not necessarily reward based upon merit.
9) Justice is seen as a relative quantity.

These are some core assumptions regarding leadership that permeates despotic psychological ethics. In the despotic paradigm justice is seen as some sort of relative quantity (different people deserve different justice systems) that often descends from a divine source. This makes justice a different value quality altogether for each paradigm (democracy is built on the idea of equal justice under the law ? this suggests a fair justice in an ?absolute? sense). This is why my definition of morality is designed the way it is ? it is flexible enough to admit that even the bloodthirsty Vikings engaged in their own version of a moral code. Mogaddam points out in detail this despotic psychological worldview, although euphemistically, utilizing a poem by Shakespeare which he published in his book, ?The Psychology of Democracy?. I would like to repeat that quote here:
The quality of mercy is not strain?d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest ?
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
?Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power.
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God?s
When mercy seasons justice.
(William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, IV.i.189-202; see Evans, 1997)

As Shakespeare?s psychology reveals, his love for the monarch is filled with respect for the monarch?s power. His emotions are hallmarked by awe, fear and dread as he is hopeful of the mercy of the king who carries attributes of God himself and in whom earthly power is revealed as the likeness of God?s merciful justice. Are these the attributes of a justice that is equal under the law? How can this be so if there is no admittance of existential mortality? How can this be without the humility that leads to acknowledgement of the necessity for peer-review in our search for truth and therefore justice? Democratic society?s intuitive acknowledgement that martial power in the hands of one who claims absolute truth (and thus authority) necessarily leads to abject oppression goes against everything that a monarch claims as a divine, infallible representative on earth. Why does one cry out for mercy and not justice? Only the oppressed or the criminal need cry out for mercy from authority. Thus the despotic hierarchical paradigm possesses very different qualities concerning how power is used, the nature of truth and what is considered just as compared to the democratic paradigm.

Moghaddam describes leadership styles with his nine point diagram and ties it to the failure of a democratic system. This is where the most toxic despotic expressions, in overall historic, contemporary and systemic terms, are expressed throughout a society ? they find themselves infused into cultural values regarding leadership and how the submissives in a society view leadership. Mogaddam?s ongoing critique of the failure of democratic systems worldwide throughout his work provides an incisive analysis of the temperment of the despotic mind and how it views power and its place in society. For example, Mogaddam examines psychological qualities such as viewing cultural differences as a threat rather than something to be celebrated (a respect for minority rights). I believe that this is the authoritarian view that sees assimilation as a sort of warfare of culture (competition of powers) rather than seeing differences as a source of strength (combining of powers), as an egalitarian mind would. If we are all equals, and we are in a union together, then your cultural power is no threat to mine. In fact it enhances my culture, like with multicultural cuisine.

Another example of what I would call a ?despotic? psychology which Mogaddam recognizes as an attitude unbecoming of democratic fulfillment is the ?Might Is Right? paradigm. As we have examined this is a respect for raw power. This is fiat power and its logical ethical consequences at work. Despotic Hierarchy runs on pure power whereas democratic systems run on negotiation and compromise. Mogaddam also examines the concept of rule of law versus a more arbitrary form of justice based upon what he terms ?political solutions?. Arbitrary justice is what signifies despotic hierarchy due to fiat power being that which drives the system. Power imbalances based upon basic differences in assumed rights and liberties between dominants and submissives in this system creates an ethical situation that must be resolved either by threat of force or negotiation. In the fiat power system force or the implied threat of such is the preferred methodology used by the dominant in the pair. This is a matter of a law of paths of least resistance. Negotiation takes too long. The path of least resistance is force when one has fiat power. This leads to an arbitrary justice system which is at least partially based upon the threat of (martial) power. Thus we can see how power dynamics in relationships and the culture of fiat power in particular, are fundamental to forming the ingrained, underlying psychological worldview of Despotic Hierarchy.

Despotic Hierarchy being an ancient paradigm that pre-dates human history, it must be concluded that it is a deeply ingrained system within our cultures and thus our psyches. We can witness these qualities playing themselves out all over the news, throughout history and in our daily lives. This is due to the fact that ingrained paradigms are at work in our subconscious minds. These paradigms are from an ancient way of living which is now a part of our collective stories, particularly around how we see power and leadership due to living under the environmental pressure of the social systems of the previous moral order. In plain English, what I am saying is that we all have ideas about leadership and power that have some authoritarian instincts attached to it because the old paradigm of authoritarian power is ingrained. I also see a growing portion of the world moving away from this old paradigm, slowly, steadily, sometimes violently.



Fundamental Differences
It should be noted that despotic and democratic systems often exist in a conflicted relationship with each other due to a fundamental difference in human relationships and thus leadership and organizational styles. For instance a democracy is deeper and deeper the more transparent it is. As stated before, the entrenched hierarchy of despotism is a social system best suited for warfare. Despotism thrives in darkness and secrecy. Military operations require a bit of this ?need to know? information to be their privilige in order to be successful. Questioning of authority is not something that you do lightly in the military or with a martial branch (e.g. ? the police), which are necessarily despotic or fiat powered heirarchies in organizational structure. Questioning of authority comes at great risk in an authoritarian environment. In a democracy we must be able to question authority otherwise we have no agency and our consent is now absent. Without consent there is no more democracy. Democracy is a slow, deliberative process. Despotic hierarchy enables quick, decisive, executive decision making. Having executive hierarchical structures such as elected representatives we call presidents, alleviates the need for a timely, decisive, executive decision making capability.

Despotic describes a social organizational style which has created assumptions about power and its place in society and how power is modeled in leadership roles and designed into governance structures. The way in which despotic styles of governance and their leaders have wielded power in all realms has left an indelible mark on history. I sometimes think that all of human trauma can be traced back to basic inequalities amongst us. You could say that we are undergoing a crisis of abuse on an epic, global scale. Thankfully the solutions to our problems are within our grasp.






Democratic Morality




Humanity is now engaged in a fundamentally new ethical outlook. This outlook is based upon a scientific, humanistic understanding of humanity and is being conformed to consciously and intuitively by those populations living under the influence of liberal democratic institutions. The cultural pressure of living in an institutionalized ethical system based upon equality has fundamentally shaped our worldviews and put them into stark contrast with the preceding global worldview.

If we consider what democracy is we may come to reduce it to the right to vote. Upon deeper consideration, this is obviously not true. In the United States we believe that our democratic union represents the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If we reflect upon what it means to be happy and what liberty entails, we must conclude that in essence, democratic or egalitarian impulses are psychological in their nature and speak to a universal truth about humanity. We are all equal. This is the core truth of what a democratic union represents - a physiological as well as psychological truth. This is necessarily true in order for there to be a claim that this is something more than a mere political reality. In fact, I would argue that at its core democracy is a psychological reality.

If we consider a completely disabled person who cannot see, hear, feel or move do we still consider them a human being with rights and liberties? This person cannot interact with us in any way but still thinks, feels, desires, suffers, loves and exists as any of us does. The answer is a resounding yes! This is a human being! At this point the body has lost much of its meaning. It has been reduced to a vessel for existence. Now consider that many people would terminate a loved one?s existence if that person is brain dead with little to no chance of recovery. Thus, we could argue that for these people, our ultimate reality is not necessarily our body but what lies within the body or what the body brings forth as an attribute of our selves ? the personality. The self, our psychology - that is what is sovereign over the body and soul, that is where our ultimate sovereignty lies. This is where all powers emanate from. All of our decisions, desires, motivations, intentions and love come from our personality. Even our ability to consciously move our body ultimately comes from our personality/executive functions. This psychological reality is based upon a reflexive truth. What I mean by a reflexive truth is that it reflects itself back wherever you look ? we are all equals. Characteristics which are inherent to being human must be considered a qualifying attribute deserving of our equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Now that we have established the psychological aspect of democratic impulses, let us re-examine how power expresses itself as three types of authority ? physical (POWER), cognitive (TRUTH) and actualized (JUSTICE). Thus physical authority is power, cognitive authority is truth and actualized authority is justice. The founding fathers broke up our government into three major parts of authority; the executive, the legislative and the judiciary branches. Authority is the agent of justice so these can be seen as expressions of justice. Executive justice, legislative justice and judicial justice are all the ways in which the democratic ethical machine we call government delivers justice. Therefore, the entire purpose of democratic government is to deliver justice.

For terminologies used in this discussion see Social Currency Theory p. 98. I hope that the reader will begin to appreciate as we continue that there are no reflexive principles and no symmetries present in the despotic paradigm. On the other hand symmetries abound within the democratic paradigm, which suggests that democratic justice is based upon laws of nature. We must remember that morality is a medium for something else and is a conflated currency therefore it matters what system it is that morality is carrying. In the case of our moral democracy we utilize (roughly speaking) the sovereign power system which states that we are all equal. This system of equality is a scientific, humanistic truth that is fundamental to our reality. This system of equal justice elegantly extends out through the superstructure of government, courses through the criminal justice system and finds ground in our applied systems of justice (e.g. - economic). This is a system which is based upon laws of nature! That is why it looks symmetrical. In fact we know that democratic justice is based upon an essential, reflexive, scientific truth; all homo-sapiens are created equal. Therefore, we can know for a fact, that the sovereign power system is based upon assumptions that stem from an axiomatic natural law: we are all equals.

In looking at democracy from a psychological perspective, Fathali M. Moghaddam?s nine point diagram, which centers around psychological paradigms pertaining to styles of democratic leadership, includes the ideal that:

1) leaders are responsive to citizens
2) the rule of law (equal justice under the law)
3) leaders are removeable by popular will
4) freedom of expression
5) minority rights
6 ) independent judiciary (impartial, unbiased justice)
7) universal suffrage (the right to fair and free elections)
8) meritocracy (the idea that we deserve something or some consideration based upon the power invested in something - expertise, effort)
9) distributive justice (a concern with the just allocation of resources)

If we break this list down we can see that these are rules and/or principles around what power needs to look like in positions of power (leadership style) for a peer based system of justice to be enacted. The antithesis of democratic reality is a despotic or authoritarian one. Thus, the loss of any of these paradigms being applied to leadership qualities equates to an abdication of these principles and the power they hold (especially to enact justice) and thus a consolidation of such powers into an authoritarian leadership ?entity? or paradigm. Without these principles in place regarding the qualities of leadership as a part of the psychology of the public engaging in the enterprise of a democratic union, democracy has little to no chance of succeeding and established democracies may even devolve into tyranny with the loss of these characteristics amongst the population. This is what Moghaddam?s work seems to suggest.


POWER (Executive Justice)
Sovereign Power Dynamics
Therefore justice is what centers and revolves around all discussions of a democratic reality. Equality means that issues regarding fairness become centerstage and are brought to bear under a new standard of equal justice under the law, not the arbitrary justice of a fiat power system. Being that martial power is always the power of last resort, the power of the state (in which we have embued martial power and authority to ultimately enforce the law) is primary to matters of justice. This martial power is at odds with the sovereignty of the body politic in general and the individual in particular. This relationship (state and sovereign body politic) as well as the relationship of the individual to the group are all primary to questions of justice. The dynamic between these individual and corporeal bodies and their relationship to each other brings into question assumptions about power, truth, the use of power, and how a system of justice creates a dynamic of power in a reflexive philosophical and ethical environment. Thus the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness involves psychologically-based concepts surrounding power - sovereignty, agency and consent. These qualities are a logical consequence of a reflexive ethical reality and its relationship to power in a sovereign power system. They define the ethical pivot point from which spring all values concerning democratic morality. These are fundamental considerations in determining whether or not one is operating in a ?despotic? or a ?democratic? power framework.


Personal Sovereignty
This is the ideal that you are sovereign because you are a homo-sapiens. That you deserve certain inalienable rights due to being a homo-sapiens (In a world of nation states we would need to regard ourselves as citizens of a nation state as well, with rights exclusive to this group). The idea of personal sovereignty is a logical extension of the ethic of republicanism which states that sovereignty lies within the body politic not the state. When considering sovereignty and who is ultimately sovereign we just need to ask what makes up the body politic. Clearly it is individuals. So sovereignty ultimately lies within the individual. This has to do with who, ultimately has authority. We must always remember that we have formed a union together, as a society of individuals, when considering issues surrounding our personal sovereignty. We can imagine personal sovereignty as our personal power expanding out from ourselves and interacting with other sovereign powers in the environment.

In our relationship to the state, we have ceded martial power to the state granting it conditional authority but we retain the final say - we are the ultimate authority. This division of power (between state and sovereign) is the might of the United States Constitution at work. It limits the powers of the state and grants rights and liberties to the sovereigns. Sovereignty is a zero sum game when considering any competing corporeal bodies of power such as a government body or a business entity or a religious body being in competition with such sovereignty. Such a thing cannot be allowed to compete for sovereignty within a system designed with the personal sovereignty of the human race in general, and the citizens of the nation state in particular, in mind. There can ultimately only be one sovereign in such a power system. That sovereign system is based upon a reflexive core psychological (as well as general physiological) truth. We are all equals. That sovereign is the body politic of homo-sapiens within the nation state in question (e.g.-the United States).

Decentralized Power
A feature differentiating the two systems is that in the despotic heirarchical system power is actively pooled in the hands of the few and in the democratic system it seeks to spread out and abet the abuses of pooled power. Therefore, the elimination of all hierarchies is not necessarily the concern of democratic systems rather it is concerned with power (and all power relationships based upon consent). That is why we have checks and balances in our system of democratic government. Another way to look at this is to say that (nation-state) power is decentralized, made accessible and responsive to the sovereigns - the body politic and ultimately the individual. Power is spread out over the many (e.g.- federalized into local, state and federal governments) and where it is consolidated it is based upon consent of those giving power away. Democratic/egalitarian systems cannot always gain true peer to peer status (true equality) in all affairs; rather they should seek to approach the ideal, with considerations of merit in mind. If we do not reward merit we fail as a society but we cannot allow abuses of power from those with merit. We can imagine merit as rewarded power accumulated into one person as a stacked entity.



Agency
This concept is a component of personal sovereignty. Agency refers to one?s sense of having power in a situation. Notice I say ?having sense of? in that this is psychological. One needs real power in order to have agency, but one without a sense of real power is also one without agency even if that real opportunity is available to them but they are not aware of it or are intimidated into being afraid of utilizing it, or any other number of conditions which can limit a persons sense of power in a situation. This includes the opportunity and ability to move/travel, express oneself and/or communicate.

If we do not have what we need to be safe and live in security, or to pursue our aspirations we do not have the democracy promised by the words, ??right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.? A certain ?sphere? of sovereign influence (agency) is needed as a bare minimum for each and every person to exist, then to thrive and ultimately to find happiness in a peer environment. Therefore this must include sovereignty over personal effects, including personal information and ownership of things. We could term these minimum levels of existential security.

Unfortunately there does not exist philosophical agreement, complete legal terminology or systems designed to utilize the concept of agency for all of these levels of sovereign agency and therefore some of these implied egalitarian sovereign rights and liberties remain unprotected. Rights and liberties are generally concerned with abuses of power and are therefore forms of negative rights. In fulfilling agency we need to provide for needs. We need to define this in terms of positive rights. This entails providing for needs of the public and/or individuals, not by creating punitive measures. These would apply to ideas of liberty and happiness as applies to the concept of agency. Perhaps ?incentivizing? the state to provide more agency and happiness to its citizens is the right approach here?

For example:
? Creating programs that offer people opportunities for personal, professional, educational, etc?growth in various areas of our lives might be the right approach. Providing resources (either through the state or through state sponsored privately run growth programs) in unique formats and programs for entreprenuerial and/or scientific pursuits would be one example of systems that might provide for public needs in a postive application of justice. These may be open universities and technology schools, including laboratories for those showing qualifying knowledge to utilize such facilities. This is an open-platform meritocracy. We should have lower levels of qualification until entry is eventually open to the public at the lowest strata. This must be an upwardly mobile path to greater knowledge and thus access to higher tiers of services provided for by the government for public use. Security measures for dangerous materials or areas of research would need to be kept in place. Media Government (see p.67), or some other program, could assist in maintaining a free, open system that is responsive to its users by providing a fair assessment of the programs and services.
? Having a feedback/rating system whereby the public can rate and access the ratings details of these programs, which needs to be mainstreamed and published (by a peer-reviewed society), enables a flexible environment where the government has input from the public and the public is watching for a response from the body or bodies in question. ? We use this same feedback/rating system alongside a social media platform creation, or the adoption of existing platforms for use in such a system where we rate the effectivity of a program. ?Effective? programs will be continued and funded and those deemed ?ineffective? could lose funding and dry up. Considerations for minority voices would need to be upheld.


Consent
In the new paradigm of universal equality there has been a fundamental shift away from the despotic system, which is based upon an unequal system of entrenched hierarchy. Democracy is built upon persistent consent. The entire system. If we are all equals then consent must be given in any power exchange. Otherwise it is exploitation and abuse from an egalitarian ethical point of view. Consent is essential to democratic government, without consent there is no democratic union. Representative government is based upon consent from a power exchange that emanates from us up to those representing us in the government. The power flows up in this situation and is accumulated into the hands of the few (e.g.- Representatives, Senators, the President and Supreme Court Justices). This is all done by democratic process. This is the assumption of consent in our society between ourselves and the government. We consent to be governed by democratic process. This is an important distinction. It distinguishes our power from the state and makes us the clear sovereign.

If this seems like a half hearted commitment to actual, full consent, remember that we live in a society of peers. Thus we have social rules around justice, which considers consent and its application a critical part of the process. We call some of those rules, especially in regards to our relation to the state and each other, democratic processes (e.g.-elections, voting), rights and liberties.

As regards democratic processes - in order to safeguard the people?s consent democratic society needs laws regarding voting rights, transparent accountability procedures and equal access to voting. Otherwise election fraud can be the result, as is the case in the United States where long lines are a regular occurrence at certain polling locations but not at others. Access needs to be made equal and convenient. Having a public holiday when society votes resolves this. The vote is sacred to a democracy. The vote is our consent. We should treat the entire voting process with sanctity as a religious person would their temple, in my opinion. If the vote is our consent, then those who don?t vote are saying that this system does not represent them and they feel no responsiveness from the system. Why do we not have a system which gives redress to those who don?t vote? What recompense or voice could we give them? Having a system that resolves these questions would grant a greater measure of agency and thus implied consent in our society.
TRUTH (Legislative Justice)
Standards of Truth
Truth is a form of pure cognitive power. Issues of justice and authoritative sources of information rely upon standards of truth. A standard of objective truth is a critical issue to a justice system which claims to be equal under the law. Thus in our search for good education, free and fair media, scientific knowledge, maintaining the free flow of information, as well as leaning upon our cultural wisdom in cases where quantifiable, objective or credible avenues of knowledge cannot be found (e.g. ? peer juries) - all of these things assist in a search for what is true.

Decentralized Truth
Negotiation, compromise and best possible information will enable smooth functioning in the democratic type of situation whereas in a despotic environment, or an exploitative power relationship ? these complexities do not exist. The relationship is simple and easy: you do what I say or else. This is because of the relationship of power to truth. The combination of the two together determines authority. In the despotic context they are combined into one all powerful entity (authority). Truth has power to the mind because what we believe to be true fundamentally determines what we believe is real. Thus, truth and therefore knowledge translates as a form of authority to the mind. This is what matters of justice ride on ? what we consider to be true. Because of this authority that truth holds over us we must keep its processes separated from martial power (the state). This is why the founding fathers wanted to keep the media (?the press?) separate from the state.

This kind of power, the maintaining of pluralistic ?standards of truth?, must be considered a vital function of ?government? but must be separated from the state as a necessity. Truth and (martial) power can no longer occupy the same seat in government as is prudent in any democratic leadership milieu. The combination of the two into one (martial) entity constitutes a dangerous regression into oppression and authoritarian rule. The combination of truth and (martial) power into one entity represents authority. In this scenario we now lose the ability to question authority. This is no longer the reflexive ethical reality which loudly declares, ?We are all equal!? and admits to our collective mortality, and thus the need for peer review. Thus we must always keep the production of information as regards all processes of Standards of Truth free from state influence, not just the media. The final authority must be the truth, or as close as we can get to it.

Peer-Review, Facts, Evidence
Truth and morality are intimately tied together and therefore a respect for peer-reviewed standards of truth have become a part of democratic moral reflexes for an increasing number of people who intuitively understand the importance of such a system. Therefore a respect for information processes, facts, evidence, critical thought and reason becomes a part of our moral palette. Three main avenues of peer-reviewed information processing deserves mention; the media, education and science. Democratic societies must always seek to maintain the integrity of these systems. This means issues regarding the integrity of the peer review process, as well as transparency issues, now become paramount to our understanding the truth itself.

Media
In a peer to peer environment, negotiation and compromise is crucial and so facts and information have a great importance. This makes education and media critical functions in a democratic society. This is why it is a right and a priority that an open, democratic society maintain a free, plural and fair media and that all information production that has to do with a Standard of Truth must be peer-reviewed. The media is the watchdog of society because it deals in ongoing, current, persistent, updated information processing. The founding fathers thought of the ?press? (widely considered the Fourth Estate) as an unofficial arm of the government. In other words, they saw the function of the media as being a critical function of good government. The role or function that the media was supposed to fullfill is that of an ever-vigilant watch-dog of the government. Since there was no internet or radio or television technologies we can only assume that journalism is the underlying entity in need of protection in these formats and should be regarded as being a unofficial position in our governmental structure. Thus whenever journalists are involved in information presentation we interpret the term ?press? into the term ?media?.

Education
Since information is critical to functioning in a democratic system then citizens having a good education, particularly in critical thinking, is fundamental to good government. Good information and critical thinking is fundamental to any peer based endeavor. What is the coup de grace for educational understanding of democratic processes is having a clear command of the nature of evidence. This is because in a democracy citizens must make decisions that adversely affect them and their society as a whole and evidence plays a key part in making policy decisions. We also must consider peer-review systems as integral to information processes in our education system. Peer-reviewed societies of professional educators should decide what literature is used as a benchmark of knowledge in our schools and universities. This is the most basic form of information processing, education itself, and so this strikes at the heart of a nation?s identity, worldview and therefore overall ability to react to the world in a competent manner. Education?s importance cannot be overstated in either the development or the maintainence of a healthy democratic society. Leaving Standards of Truth processes (like textbook production) in the hands of the state constitutes a dangerous slide into the authoritarian paradigm.

This is unfortunately, the sad state of affairs in the United States. The United States has a centralized, authoritarian (not necessarily authoritative ? there are questionable histories introduced into our texts, suspect narratives and even more questionable omissions) textbook processing system (all textbooks are made in Houston, TX and are standardized). It is a state run and controlled narrative. Our public education system deserves better than this. We need peer-reviewed textbooks in a competitive marketplace of ideas for educators to choose from not a pipeline of state controlled data. Standards for public educational material can be produced through peer reviewed societies as well, not through a state run apparatus.

It being pointed out that Standards of Truth processes should be kept clear of martial power (i.e. - the state) we need to be clear that the state has a role and a clear responsibility in providing a quality education to its citizens, as a right. Therefore a quality public education system should be seen as fulfillment of these rights through means of distributive justice. Why doesn?t education get the priority it truly deserves in a democratic society? Is it due to the lack of understanding of its primary function and purpose in a democratic society?

Education is our clearest link to understanding the past, ourselves, the world around us and therefore to each other. These relationships all determine our (psychological) future. This is why we mandate that we educate our children; they are our entire future! Thus a nations trajectory is determined, in large part, by the quality of its educated populace. These things just go hand in hand for a democratic society ? education and our future. Therefore we need to maintain peer-reviewed Standards of Truth when it comes to education especially. This means that teachers should be credentialed but credentials must be maintained by a peer reviewed society of educators not politicians! Any authority to maintain credentials should be facilitated by the government but not controlled or even overseen by the government. There needs to be a clear seperation of power here. True authority to maintain and distribute credentials will be in the hands of a public non-governmental entity run by professional educators. The society of educators needs to be seen as an unofficial arm of the government, just as the media is.

Science
Democracy ideally runs on a competition of well-reasoned and/or objective, verifiable, quantifiable information and gets mired in bad data. The same is true for scientific endeavors. Open societies and science thrive together and their trajectories are intimately tied together. Scientific knowledge, the modern way we come to know objective truth, relies upon an open, free society of peer-review. Liberal nations have relied upon scientific knowledge for everything from policy decisions to decisions regarding what constitutes justice. We need to keep scientific processes free from state influence as much as is feasable in order to attain the optimal functioning of the entire enterprise.
This is critical to humanity?s understanding of its place in the world, how we react to the world and other pragmatic cosmological as well as technological questions.


Transparency
The pivotal role that truth and knowledge plays in a peer system of justice means that issues of transparency are important to the free flow of objective, reliable information. Truth and knowledge, being forms of cognitive power means that power dynamics and transparency have everything to do with one another. When it comes to issues of transparency, it must be coupled to power, particularly the more concentrated the power there is. We need to know what is going on if we are going to make informed decisions about our future and who?s hands we put it in. I believe that in a democratic system, the more power we give to someone the more we need them to be transparent with the public, concerning issues around potential abuses of such power (which includes one?s character). In some cases they are literally being given the reigns of life and death over the community. Those who are being governed deserve this in return as a matter of justice. The higher up and the more concentrated the power, the more a group or individual should be transparent with the power they hold, over those they have power over. I believe that this goes for all realms of power. The more power one holds the more they are responsible as well. Responsibility and power go together for a person with a moral conscience. Democratic societies need laws and/or systems (which could be mere customs regarding infractions) around these issues. Leaders should be transparent with the public. These are our peers and these are acts of service, or they should be. If someone is serving in the public interest then the public deserves to know a bit more about them. That is only reasonable. If they are not serving in the public interest then the public deserves to know that about them as well.



JUSTICE (Judicial Justice)
The Struggle for Justice
Sovereign power dynamics creates the conditions in which rules regarding the sovereigns of the state, you and me, and our relationship to each other, the state itself and other abstract bodies that may compete with us for sovereignty, are based. There are several factors that we consider when assessing power in our system of justice. Generally speaking the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few but the rights of the individual are the foundation of the rights of each individual in the group and this must be taken into consideration when we create laws and systems of justice. Then we must consider the all important relationship of the state - the place where we place martial power - and its relation to us, the sovereign(s).


Personal vs. Communal Rights and Liberties
John Rawls wrote that justice is always a struggle between freedom and equality in a free society. I believe one reason for this is because there is a duality between the need for personal vs. communal rights and liberties in a free society; this being a duality means that you can?t fulfill both communal and individual rights/liberties at the same time. Issues of personal vs. communal rights/liberties will impose one upon the other in many instances. Most particularly personal liberties and communal rights tend to clash with one another. For example, all persons in a room enjoy freedom of speech but one person has a bullhorn and drowns out the other voices. This individual?s personal liberty has now imposed upon the community?s right to freedom of speech. The idea here is that either something is shared or someone enjoys it personally.

The relationship between the individual and the individual as a member of a group was expressed in terms of independence and tolerance by mathematician and philosopher Jacob Bronowski. [6] This primary philosophical relationship of independence and tolerance between the individual and the group creates a cultural and philosophical environment where the values of honoring dissent, questioning authority, freedom of thought and enquiry are essential. These are also functional value sets for both science and democracy. I call these functional values because they enable the optimal functioning of both enterprises. Bronowski also stated, ?The society of scientists must be a democracy. It can keep alive and grow only by a constant tension between dissent and respect; between independence from views of others, and tolerance for them.? [7]
I believe that these are some of the attitudes and principles (independence and tolerance) we need to keep in mind especially when considering issues of personal vs. communal rights and liberties.


The Eyes of Justice
In fact, we could see Bronowski?s principles of independence and tolerance as the ideal attitude, including its philosophical consequences, for a counselor, lawmaker or a judiciary to adopt when considering matters of justice. Resolving these tensions is often how the rubber meets the road regarding the details of justice. Thus, ??only by a constant tension between dissent and respect; between independence from views of others, and tolerance for them?? can we arrive at justice, to apply Bronowski?s phrase in the context of justice. This ethical tension seems to apply to any peer based ethical reality ? not just scientists. As stated before, this tension creates a cultural and philosophical environment where the values of honoring dissent, questioning authority, freedom of thought and enquiry are essential. Such values can be seen as vectors of agency and sovereign space and thus are philosophically applicable to a wide range of legal situations. In an environment where equal justice under the law is the ethics we live by we can only see the above sets of values as being crucial to good government when it comes to issues of justice. This applies to the working elements of a justice system. For example, we want our judges to be the martial authority but to take on such attitudes as Bronowski suggests towards the citizenry, whom we acknowledge maintains ultimate sovereign authority ? honoring of dissent, allowing one to reasonably question authority, etc... We would like to believe the same to be true for all participants (lawyers, lawmakers) in their attitudes towards one another in these regards. These values are in this context a peer-based, cross-platform issue, regardless of power or authority. With these factors in mind let us explore how these vectors of oppression create avenues of ?justice? because of the power dynamics between the relationships in question which make up these vectors.



The Vectors of Adjudication.
When we consider justice in these relationships we are concerned mainly with abuses of power. This creates vectors of oppression through various relationships between minority and majority parties and potential or competing power differences between the sovereigns and foreign corporate entities. Competing corporate sovereignty is an oppression that can only come from realms of power not associated with the will of the people (the people?s will emanates directly from the cultural realm) because your own power can?t oppress yourself ? therefore, only martial/state, economic/business, knowledge/church qualifies.

The first vector represents a loss of power in terms of agency that is considered unacceptable (baseline rights and liberties). The remaining vectors represent abuses of power between party?s that necessitates a systemic introduction of sectionalized law; civil, criminal, statutory and federal. From these vectors spring forth principles and laws designed to protect us and grant us freedom. Thus we could see these vectors as the vectors of adjudication. This is a system of unresolved tensions and seems to be dependent upon such tensions in order for it to function properly.

- Oppression can come from a baseline of equality not being met. This is a power relationship of self to self. Usually we try to regard these baselines as some of the elements of a free society that create opportunities to organize and participate fully in the political, economic and cultural elements of life. These baselines are some of our inherent rights and liberties. Some of our rights protect us against discrimination based upon inherent human characteristics such as sex, race, creed, sexual orientation, etc... Some basic baseline liberties in a democratic society include the right to free speech/expression, right to dissent, right to assembly, right to religion/belief, and freedom of movement/travel. These rights and liberties guarantee the sovereign that a baseline of sovereign power remains intact in any situation. These baseline rights (and certain baseline liberties) are considered to be inalienable to any citizen of the union.
-Oppression can come from the state itself over the sovereign public or the sovereign individual. If we look at the Constitution of the United States the primary concern of it is to limit state power and guarantee citizen rights and liberties. A prime example of abuse of state power would be in the case of an illegal search and seizure of property, or an illegal entry into a person?s domicile (a violation of the sovereign space/agency of the individual). Guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law are especially concerned with abuses of power from the state. Some of our indisputable communal rights as a sovereign people is the right to assembly - a protection against the state; and the right to regular, free and fair elections open to all citizens ? a protection against the state, and others; our right as individuals to participate fully in public life ?protection against the state, and others; the sovereignty of the people over the military, via civilian government, which means that the military ultimately serves the civilian public and never gets to be in control of public decisions or used against the citizenry - protection against the state (the military in particular).
- Oppression can come from the individual; an irresponsible and/or criminal person can subsume the agency and sovereignty of other individuals and/or the community in general in terms of power from any of the four realms (such as a shady Wall Street investor bilking the public of its funds, thus subsuming public power for their own benefit). This is why we generally create laws that protect the public from irresponsible and/or criminal behavior of individuals. Civil courts resolve disputes not involving rights and liberties violations, or other criminal violations between private parties.
-Oppression can come from competing corporate bodies, such as a majority group over a minority one (a basic principle of democratic justice is a respect for minority rights), or similar dynamics within a power system (e.g.- monopolies oppressing small business owners right and ability to engage in free enterprise on the free market ? the market being the bounds of the power system in this case).
- Oppression of the individual can come from a corporate entity which tramples upon a person?s personal sovereignty and agency (esp. rights and/or liberties). Usually these are civil cases, except in rare instances. Civil courts resolve disputes between private parties in cases not involved with criminal matters. This is often the only protection one has against a private corporation.
-Oppression can come from a corporate entity competing with our sovereign power by undue influence or control of the state and thereby subsuming the sovereignty of the people. Thus we have rules around sovereignty from religious bodies (separation of church and state) and from other nation-states (treason).
What is noticeably missing from this list is protection or sovereignty from the new corporate entity ? the business. There is no recognition that corporations illegitimately compete with our sovereign rights. Thus we have few protections from them and too few rights in regard to them. In fact corporations have been ruled ?persons? able to enjoy our sovereign rights; which means as citizens of these United States we are no longer the sole sovereign. This is what is clear from the advent of corporate personhood and the Citizen?s United ruling. We have lost our sovereignty from corporations. I say sovereign from because we now share our sovereignty with these entities (business corporations) due to them being considered persons. This means, by power differences (corporations have more power than you do in the economic realm) and more importantly by differences in quality of beings, we are not equal. Corporations are not homo-sapiens. This destroys the ethical reflexivity of the egalitarian sovereign power system and thereby corrupts the philosophical integrity and elegance of the sovereign power system.

This is how power dynamics determines many of our laws. This is also how the left and the right leverage some of their most salient arguments against each other. Some issues regarding personal vs. communal rights and liberties, and issues revolving around justice in general will always be contentious grey areas, unfortunately. Case law, peer juries, lawyers, lawmakers, judicial review are all a part of the process of providing for an ongoing discussion of what defines the details of justice in our society.




Democratic Leadership:
Wielding Power, Power Accumulation
What does a democratic statesman look like? How do we assess and/or create an icon of what it is we are looking for in leadership? What sort of easily identifiable paradigms can we consume together as a culture so as to make better choices in leadership as our union progresses into the future? The problem I see with asking such questions is that the answer is going to be subjective, but I will submit that if such a leader existed they would be transparent and clear about their platform and what they stood for in concrete policy terms. As religious traditions attest, we would know them by their deeds; which means we would also know them by the way that they wielded power, which includes the way in which they accumulated that power. Accumulation of power has everything to do with ?wielding? power because accumulation is the opposite expression of power put to ?work? ? or wielded. This means in plain English; follow the money. The source of a political leader?s money says everything about who they will represent ? they will represent that moneyed interest. Corrupt methods of attaining power (i.e. ? money) should be a clear signal to free people that this leader is compromised at best. For instance, taking corporate money from super PAC?s is one clear signal of political corruption. Abusing one?s power is another signal to the public that someone is not fit for office, even if such abuses are not illegal. If this person had a long career, they would always or usually be on the right side of history when it came to struggling for the rights of people who were underserved, underrepresented and outright abused by society ? we would know them by their deeds. This would signal to us that this person always had a clear moral understanding of the axiomatic democratic principle of minority rights. I believe that frankness, a desire for peace, willingness to negotiate, a desire for amity between nations, willingness to compromise, an ability to see another?s point of view and a marked humility are some qualities I think would come to the fore in a democratic statesman ? once again, we would know them by the way that they comported themselves, by their deeds, so to speak. At the end of the day, I believe it comes down to the specific policies that a candidate presents to us and whether or not we believe in those policies.


Redemptive vs. Punitive Justice
Not everyone who is a homo sapiens is considered a peer in good standing and deserving of all the rights and protections in our society. Criminals are obviously considered to be marginal to outright undesirable elements of society. We remove the rights of people who commit crimes as a punishment and as a necessary remedy to justice. Yet we do need to retain a baseline of rights for every human being if we are to be dignified people, such that we don?t do things like torture people, or imprison them without reason or subject them to cruel and unusual punishment. I believe that in a truly egalitarian moral environment the society in question does its utmost to reform its citizenry. This entails correcting the underlying issues, instead of obsessing on punitive and transactional justice measures such as we do. We have a system which smacks of an old ethic of justice. It is not a paradigm suited to solve problems or serve humanity. It is more concerned with who pays and gets punished and how much than with solving the underlying problems.

Seeing peers means you are more likely to want to see humanity as good than evil by nature. This is only natural being that I want to be treated with dignity and thus must reflexively give it to you. This dictates how, ideally, we want to treat those who have trespassed against our morals. This is the lesson of the Nordic ways of criminal justice, I believe. Their humane treatment of and sincere efforts to reform criminals in their society is a new kind of penal outlook. [8] It is redemption rather than punishment. I believe they have intuitively instituted egalitarian moral reality in their criminal justice programs. This ethical reality centers around the reflexive idea of existential mortality. To admit that one is existentially mortal is to embrace a profound humility about one?s humanity. It is an acceptance that we are all mortal in every way possible; emotionally, physically, intellectually, morally, etc... We are all products of our environments. We are also a product of our DNA. The two together, especially when there is trauma present makes for an embroiled picture. The Scandinavian nations are a model for us to aspire to in my opinion. Not to say that these cultures are perfect, but when we look at some of their applied moral systems such as economics and criminal justice, I think we would do well to copy them. We may learn something from some of their other systems as well. For example, Finland has an excellent education system, ranked first in the world by most standards.


Intimate, Personal Democracy
The more intimate we become with another the more we require a transparency on the part of our partner and ourselves. Deep consent assumes transparency as part of the context. This is where we share our mortal, vulnerable humanity with one another. This is what we do in personal relationships. This is when two people engage in deep, respectful, authentic intimacy with one another as only two people can: as peers, as equals. This is intimate egalitarian reality. This suggests that democratic morality requires a greater psychological and emotional maturity in all our relationships in order to be realized.

Humility
I believe that living in a peer to peer system means that democracy in general, and intimate democracy in particular involves not only being transparent with each other but being transparent with ourselves to ourselves. If you wish to be transparent with another you must first become transparent to yourself! In other words you have got to be humble. You must be honest with yourself as much as is humanly possible in order to achieve true intimacy with another. I believe that Churchill was right about (accumulated) power and that he was viscerally expressing the democratic ideal about it when he said that power corrupts. J.R.R. Tolkien expressed the same sentiment with his tale of a ring of power which could seduce all minds. We all have egos. The bigger the ego the bigger the blind spot. The more power there is (real or imagined) the bigger the potential blind spot and the greater the potential for real harm. It takes an extraordinarily humble person to wield power equitably. Which is why we are so wrong headed in going after the most obnoxious, gun toting, hawkish personality that there is thinking this is going to make us safer. This is the old moral paradigm regarding leadership roles coming into play. We should also design our institutions with self-correction in mind. A self-correcting institution is a humble institution. Science represents the most humble enterprise of all time. It?s record of self correction is unmatched as an enterprise.

Humility makes you smarter. I believe a person is only as smart as they are self aware. If you are closed off mentally to something, some idea, perhaps about yourself, which perhaps was the right idea, but you did not like it for whatever reason, then you are effectively less intelligent. You cannot bring your knowledge or intelligence to bear upon the problem because you never updated your information.

Another reason why I believe humility is so important in discussing an egalitarian moral milieu is that it represents an admission of a reflexive reality: I am mortal and so are you. The more we discover about human reality the more we come to find that we are mortal in every way conceivable ? psychological, emotional, physical. In fact, we are prone to error and lack of power in every way concievable. This is a recognition of our existential mortality.

A traditional aspect of humility is the ideal that we regard others with a bit more respect than we regard even ourselves. Too often we see people in a free society latching onto the idea of personal sovereignty with an arrogance that lacks consideration of the fact that we live together. Without a regard for others a rank irresponsibility and even criminal behavior can result. This type of humility is an example of one of the reasons why I believe that religion is a store of wealth and has a place in providing human ethical sustenance in ways that are uncanny. This definition of humility is a wisdom that comes from traditional spiritual practices. Value ethics such as this has little to no firm logical grounds in ethics that can be ascertained as an objective truth, thus reliance upon tradition which, if we consider the effect this worldview has on society, is the best attitude we could take as a society (then again perhaps John Nash proved that this attitude is mathematically best). Democracy requires a certain amount of humility for it to operate.

As a population matures in democratic morals and a democratic society deepens in its peer-based expressions of consent, respect for mutual agency and sovereignty, transparency, peer reviewed information sources and data, a deeper, humanistic respect for the dignity of every human being regardless of their class, race, creed, sex, sexual orientation, etc?will be the result. This is ultimately what democratic morality promotes ? human dignity. It is a reflexive egalitarian truth. If I want dignity and respect, love and honor I must give it to you. We just have to come to face what science itself verifies: if you are a homo-sapiens then you are a peer. In order for the entire democratic moral system to function to its full capacity what must occur (either consciously or unconsciously) is an adoption of the ethics of egalitarian principles into our minds and hearts so intimately that they become our worldview. What this looks like is that the circle of ?us? becomes wider and wider until it finally includes all homo sapiens on the planet. Ultimately human dignity is what underlies all of democratic reality. The recognition of human dignity is a reflexive moral reality that accepts that we all wish for our own well being and the well being of those whom we love. Thus we accept that each of us, being equals, recognizes the dignity of the other.


The Power Of Love
The Theory of Social Power would be incomplete without acknowledgement of the strange power that has fascinated humanity throughout history and seems to bind society together at its root level. For human beings, love is definitively a social power or phenomenon. It is a social phenomenon in that humans are a social ?self?, psychologically. This is because there is no ?self? without another personality involved in the creation of that self therefore love, being a psychological phenonmenon, is a social phenomenon as well, at least for humans. But what about love in animals? Do animals love? The experience of love obviously has something to do with the type of brain one has. Perhaps certain animals are capable of love and others are not? Is ?love? the very spark of life itself or is it merely part of our limbic brain? Is love that which makes us get out of bed, avoid a tiger, make love, get angry, go to work, etc?? This is an intriguing line of thought and one is inclined to feel that we have hit the proverbial nail on the head - love is mere motivation. Thus it can be reduced to either an aversion or attraction to something, with the well being of the ?beloved subject? in mind. The problem with this line of thought is that for human beings, when we colloquially call it love it becomes a unique psychological phenomenon that sometimes takes on physiological elements (please realize that we are now in a discussion relying upon colloquial definitions ? there is no universal, objective truth in the following statements). For human beings love does not seem to be dry motivation; it is something special, something unique, something more. This seems to still hold true when we refer to our love of something inanimate.

Whatever love is, this strange experience has real power over us. This should be undeniable to anyone who has studied human history. Love seems to be the power of the relationship itself come to life, this intense desire and/or bonding to something or someone or our very own selves. The greatest aspirations of human culture are often based upon our fascination with this indescribable but common human experience. Is there a relationship between love and creativity? If so it brings to mind strange and wonderful possibilities about the nature of us. Love can cause us to engage in acts of incredible courage and self sacrifice in service to those (or that which) we love. If we consider that this thing called love is an impulse so strong that it overcomes mortal desires, for some this includes the very desire to live in order to serve that which they love, it must be considered, at times, to be a form of insanity. What people call love can drive some to extremes of action oftentimes with negative consequences. History is also full of this mortal tale of humanity. This thing called love seems to be a double-edged sword. Yet it is a mystery of, or perhaps a clue to our nature as to why this cognitive aspect of us, this intense attractive, bonding experience we call love, holds such power over us.

Morality and Love: An Intimate Relationship?
Please refer to Social Currency Theory (p. 97) for concepts and terminologies utilized in the following discussion. Since Morality acts like money for human beings we know that it is therefore a medium. Which begs the question, a medium for what? What is this power that morality is carrying? Money refers to a market value. The market refers to things of real value. That is how money gets its power. Ultimately money refers to substantive things of actual value in the real world. So if morality is also a medium, like money, what is it referring to? What could be of substantive value in the real world that morality is referring to? Well morality is the system or rules by which we create a society. So in effect, it defines the relationship itself!! If morality is the system of the relationship then without morality there is no relationship! Therefore morality, in effect, is the relationship. Morality must be referring to the relationship itself! There must be a power with which we can represent the relationship itself.

The power we are looking for we defined when we defined culture. This power is meaning itself. Meaning is power to the mind. The relationship itself, as an iconic representation, holds ultimate meaning to us being that morals, in large part define who we are since we are psychologically social creatures by nature. Thus there must be some power we are looking for that gives ultimate meaning to the relationship. Many people would say that love is that which gives ultimate meaning to the relationship. Love is colloquially thought to be full of meaning. Now consider that morality is also the glue that holds society together and has the quality of being an attractive, micro-level binding force in sum total. Love is a mysterious, ill-defined phenomenon which is colloquially considered to have these characteristics as well. Is this the power that is behind morality? Does love determine ethics for human beings? Is love responsible for the formulation and sustenance of morality? If this is so then we can see that since morality carries power to all four realms of human social existence, love is that which powers all four realms of social power/existence, making it the sovereign of powers, so to speak. A power supreme. Some people claim that love is that which ultimately defines our humanity. If so then love would be considered the core of what we are; the fact that we love - our core sovereignty.

We must consider that love has the potential to be a currency in its own right, a something that we all believe in together that holds real power over us but has no real ?there? there. It refers to something else. What that something else is is probably a deep psychological, cultural mystery. What I am saying is that it is possible that love is mass cultural hysteria and that it doesn?t actually exist as a thing at all. This doesn?t mean it doesn?t have real power over us though. It has power because we all say that it does, in this case. Whereas if love is an actual power it contains power because of its own virtue. If love is a medium for something else this brings to light other possibilities when we consider what sort of power love may be carrying. Is love a medium for spirituality, as many spiritual traditions claim, for instance?


Traditional Moralities
Religious traditions throughout the ages have expounded on the nature of love, inspired generations and cultivated entire civilizations. Religious thought will probably always have a place in resolving questions for those that believe, pertaining to those areas of existence that science and rational thought cannot penetrate. Although traditional religions can cohabitate with a universal egalitarian ethic, religions can sometimes obscure and complicate the democratic picture. Embracing a universal democratic morality has been something of a tricky question partially because of the differences in what we traditionally call morality ? in particular what we term religious beliefs. These moralities and their competing worldviews can sometimes make for a problematic landscape simply because religion is filled with beliefs or traditions which go against egalitarian reality in some manner. They are all traditionally patriarchal, for instance. There is hope though. There is something that religious traditions seem to agree upon, which is either a belief in human oneness on some spiritual level and/or some iteration of the golden rule.

A golden rule is an admission of peer status due to the empathic nature of the golden rule. One must be able to commiserate with the state of another as a pre-requisite to even being able to comprehend the golden rule much less carry out its edict. Thus, one must make the concession of certain states of being as a reality in this other person. This is an admission of a sort of equality, a certain peer status. It does not make one a true peer with another, that would either be recognized or not. Thus the golden rule is a nascent precursor to true egalitarian thought and admits for all sorts of ideological impurities as far as a universal morality is concerned. It does seem to point to a common humanity though. If any religion can admit that all humanity is one then it is a precursor to universal democratic morality, at least. Religions can thus cohabitate with and even become intertwined into this egalitarian morality. Ultimately, in my view a universal egalitarian morality needs to be the foundation for any other morality that exists in society. This is already happening in modern liberal democratic societies across the globe. My hope is that religion can bolster and supplement the moral fiber of democratic societies. That being said, we must always remember to separate religion from the martial power of the state.

Democratic morality simply means that all homo-sapiens share in the same rights and liberties. All homo-sapiens are recognized, as a self evident truth, to be peers. Characteristics which are inherent to being human must be considered a qualifying attribute deserving of our equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Recognition of peers is all it takes to enact and ultimately realize a democratic moral milieu. Any religion which truly believes in the edict of the golden rule must see that we are all the same humanity and that therefore democratic morality is complementary to their existing panorama. Any belief system with established traditions and institutions engaging in discussions regarding non-falsifiable, non-quantifiable ideals surrounding cosmological questions can be considered a religion. For more discussions on God and Spirituality see p.119.


Democracy and Peace
One effect that modern liberal democracy has had is that today?s democracies are far less likely to go to war with another democracy than an autocratic state is to go to war with any state in general. [9] I believe that number would have contained more peaceful democratic societies if more of those societies had been more deeply democratized. Our societies are rife with despotic structures throughout our institutions. This may be the cause of many of our social ills including warfare itself.

Several miracles occurred the last century which I do not believe the world has ever seen before. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi succeeded in utilizing pacificstic methods to secure democratic rights from their liberal democratic societal oppressors. I do not believe that a despotic society would have reacted the same way that ultimately, democratic ones did twice. These seem to be some of the scarce moments in human history when peaceful protest elicited real power. The struggle of Nelson Mandela is another. His struggle and the struggle against apartheid (although not pacificistic) is another example of an oppressive democratic society giving in to public pressure for systemic change. Recently, the effect of seeing peaceful protestors brutalized by the police in the United States has galvanized domestic and global opinion in favor of the protestors. It seems that peaceful protest has more profound power and sustained influence than violence in democratic societies.

The Toledo War
Recognition of a democratic union is a solution to warfare. We take our problems to courts rather than use guns. We take it for granted that we live in a peaceful arraignment in our federated union. This could easily not be so. I was once asked if I had ever heard of the water wars between California and Arizona in which people fought and died. Well I hadn?t. It was because it never happened. But it did almost happen in what is now Ohio. The Toledo War broke out in 1835 because governments of Ohio and Michigan both claimed jurisdiction of a strip of land granting waterway access. Both militias had a stand off; only one cannon shot ended up being fired. The whole thing was resolved in United States federal court by allowing Michigan to become a state as a compromise for it giving up its interests in the land. This illustrates that wars could have and likely would have broken out between state militias if there were no federal union. Serious problems go to courtrooms rather than battlefields in a democratic union.

The road to world peace is laid out before us. Democratic federated union is the pragmatic, proven solution to bringing differing peoples together. Being in a federal union itself, where all parties have faith in the justice system and the execution of such justice, is a guarantee against violent conflict. Instead of bringing serious issues to a battlfield we bring them to a courtroom instead. This is how a democratic union civilizes human beings. A nation-state is a union usually determined by cultural boundaries. In our case our union is one constructed out of literal?.thin air! We are a nation founded not upon DNA or a specific culture as most other nations are, rather we are founded upon a set of ideas. The idea of ?United States of America? holds power because we all say that it does. That idea is backed up with institutions: a court system, legislation, laws, judiciary system, law enforcement, etc? This makes it something more than just imagination. The same can be done for the rest of the planet as well.

Our Peaceful Nature
Most people remain ignorant of the fact that we are actually more related to bonobo's by DNA, a smaller version of chimpanzees, than to anything else on the planet. Bonobos are peaceful by nature, as far as killing and warfare in their society goes. They have a matriarchal society that is highly sexual where the females gang up on the males to keep the males in submission. Two bonobos that do not know each other would more likely have sex than fight whereas the opposite is true of chimpanzees, especially of the males. Chimps are patriarchal, hierarchical and go to war. Sound familiar? They are both, us.
One has the same social order as we are used to living in and the other has a social order, which mimics, perhaps an imperfect power restructuring that calls upon a different side of our nature; our feminine nature perhaps. I am not calling for humanity to emulate bonobos for their matriarchal ways or even for their open sexuality, although I think a sexual revolution would be healthy for many humans societies as long as such a revolution happens alongside or post feminist revolutions, but I believe that humanity can learn from bonobos about ourselves; we have a peaceful nature which we have obscured by our own creations. When I speak of creations in this sense I particularly mean social creations such as the nation-state, religion, currency, etc?

If we truly are a creature caught up in a world of our own creations then warfare is an unnatural institution under these assumptions. It is no more natural than democracy is. We were egalitarian before agriculture. Some anthropologists even believe that we may have been peaceful before agriculture. Somewhere along the line we learned to be like chimpanzees. Other than humans and chimpanzees, only ants know how to go to war as a species. But the bonobo remains or became peace loving and sexual like a hippy of the ape world. So we are truly both a warlike creature, and a peaceful creature from the standpoint of genetic history. Perhaps it is our culture that needs to change, not our nature. It is a moral culture that lies at the heart of bloodletting. It feels pedantic to have to say it but I feel that such an obvious thing must be pointed out. One's morality allows or disallows for one to kill another. War is a cultural phenomenon. It is a disease like racism. A lot like racism. It is a systems problem. It just looks natural. This is what the bonobo tells us about ourselves. The trauma involved in killing is testimony to this as well. Killing is traumatic for humanity. Yet we practice it all over the globe with alarming frequency. This is a systems problem of moral dimensions.




The Critical Nature of Gender Equality
Arising out of an ancient ingrained moral order based upon patriarchal designs has implications to it; our sexual identity has a great bearing upon our realization of the egalitarian ideal. Since patriarchy describes the evolution of the despotic heirarchichal system the total emancipation of identity roles which deeply questions assumptions of man/woman will be critical in gaining any true vision of equality within any new emerging egalitarian order. Patriarchal despotic expressions are particularly virulent forms of bigotry because sexual attitudes and the present hierarchy are necessarily entrenched together due to their co-development throughout history in reaction to the pressures of brutal competition and warfare. The complete overthrow of the patriarchal system and the eradication of its paradigm are what may be required for humanity to truly move past the dehumanizing character of its expressions.

This has logical propositions contained within it: the fate of homo-sapiens may be tied to the fate of women. The emancipation of women is a precursor to the elimination of overpopulation, hunger and environmental issues. No other indicator tracks with overpopulation as does women?s education and opportunities for independence; i.e.- rights, liberties, employment, childcare, birth control, etc? [10] Thus the emancipation of women is the only factor that tracks with overpopulation exactly, and overpopulation affects environmental issues. Since this is true it suggests that the very survival of homo sapiens hangs in the balance of how our species decides the role of women and girls in our societies.


A New World
There are realms of social power where democratic principle has not been utilized but can and should be applied in order to fully democratize our society and truly engage in a commitment to this experiment. I believe we are capable of democratizing all four realms of social power including 1) state/political, 2) economic, 3) knowledge/ideas and 4) the masses/culture or society itself. This would constitute a completely democratized society, something the world has never witnessed. An integrated democracy would involve a society where cultural groups, corporate entities as well as state entities and their corporate structures would all be organized democratically, as much as is feasable.

Very few remnants of a despotic, patriarchal heirarchy would remain. Religious institutions would no longer feature a near-infallible leader handing out truth from the pulpit, rather, faith would be discussed and opinions shared based upon the belief system in question, democratic systems would become instituted within the power structures. Experts in theology would be considered clergy with opinions rather than the authoritative interpretator of divine literature. Corporations would be radically different in their organizational structure as a result of this fundamental reorganization of society. Democratic corporations would be featured in the new economy. Entirely new markets would be created utilizing new social currency creations that utilize egalitarian morality as an economic force. The way our government Bureau?s, Offices, Departments, Branches, etc?organize would feature worker-owned models, or something granting greater agency and sovereignty to the workers in government jobs. We would see new and innovative ways to grant greater access and power to the individual as well as the public on issues and in their daily lives if we implemented democratic ideals with a deeper commitment.

People?s personal beliefs, morals and therefore worldview would be profoundly different in this type of society as compared to ours. The foundations of this society would be
recreated as a system of completely integrated democratic frameworks. Consent would
be designed into the system and the way in which power gets expressed would be based upon considerations of agency and sovereignty as well as transparency. The powers of society would be designed to require and enable public access to power. For instance, executives (i.e.- presidents) could have limited military powers but War Powers Acts would ultimately require a mandate by direct vote from the public. We would have rules around voting us out of war as well, giving the public leeway to change its mind. No longer would we sit idly by whilst our leaders get us into unpopular, unnecessary wars.

People in this world would have little tolerance for exploitation in any form and would not tolerate the abuse of power by those who hold it. Strong leaders with an abject absence of humility would be avoided as asinine children by these peoples? standards. This society would take particular offense the greater and greater the amount of power wielded and abused. This attitude would reflect in the measures designed systemically and by law. Those with great power who seriously transgressed in their abuse of power would face severe penalties. Our practical application and enforcement of such principles would determine our commitment to the egalitarian ideal. Greater agency and personal sovereign respect would be a result of the implementation of this ethical system. I believe that a deeper respect for human nature and humanity in general would be a natural result of living within such a society. People from this society would be justified in looking at us and calling us barbarians! This is what an integrated democratic society might look like. A main avenue through which we begin creating this society is through the one power which sustains all others; economics. We need a new economic worldview. Therefore we need a new economic paradigm based upon democratic ideas. Democratizing The Economy is this paradigm.


Democracy: An Evolutionary Outcome?
I would like to consider a radical idea; that universal equality and it?s democratic social expressions may be an evolutionary outcome of a superior social order for an animal that invested heavily in a big brain. Consider that in order for us to leverage that big brain we must become highly social. This is because in order to leverage our technology we must become more cooperative, which optimally means being more compassionate, more altruistic and kind. These attributes have a greater chance of getting you farther in a democratic type of system (which runs on negotiation, information) than they do in a despotic system (which runs on dominance, power). Giving people consent means engaging them in the process and reinforcing agency of the individual and the group. Forcing people to do things will never yield the same results as giving people a deeper consent and ability to be involved in the critical processes and decisions of the corporate body in question. That corporate body can be involved in any of the four realms of social power: state, economic, ideological/knowledge or cultural and this will still be true. Democratic peer-based bodies yield greater cooperative results than unequal, fiat power structures can ever hope to. We are strangely altruistic and compassionate creatures by nature. We are the most cooperative animal that there is as well. These are all signs of a highly social creature. This is part of why I believe that homo-sapiens have specialized in being a social creature. Our social complexity speaks for itself. Is it such a stretch to imagine a grand strategy on the part of evolutionary design when we see evidence of grand evolutionary strategies in many other areas including specific biological strategies and behaviourial strategies that are an integral part of entire ecosystems? Becoming a democratically organized, technologically saavy creature may be a natural outcome of having engaged in an evolutionary strategy of being highly social and having a big brain.


Applied Morality

A Democratic Economy?




Some of the greatest psychological upheavals come from the creation of social technologies. Corporations and liberal democracies are social technologies that have created profound global change. This change in social structure has created a deep psychological rift in our worldview because of the power of these structures to change society and the world around us. The world looks vastly different than it did before corporations or democracy.

Corporations and democratic organizational styles are both forms of technology. From a historical perspective, they are innovative, radical new ways of organizing people and resources. Both represent corporate bodies in two different realms of human power: one we generally consider to be in the realm of the state, which has fiat power over martial matters and the other is in the realm of economics. We call national corporate bodies a state, nation or country. A national corporate body is a way to organize a population and its resources into a unified political force. We call economic corporate bodies a corporation, firm or business. An economic corporation is a way to organize and utilize/exploit labor, capital, resources, technology and create a product(s). They are both corporate bodies. Corporeal means a body, a physical body. Corporate refers to any union or body including an imagined or abstract body. Business corporations are an expression of the scientific revolution. They are neither good nor evil they are amoral by nature. They are social technology.

Science is related to the discussion due to its historical significance and due to the fact that economies and wealth are produced largely on the back of new technologies. Corporations have become a featured part of society because they are an efficient and effective way of organizing technology ? utilizing labor, capital, resources ? to create a product(s). Without the technological boom that is a result of scientific discovery corporations would not have such a prominent role in society.
The two are not synonymous- capitalism and democracy (remember that there is no capitalism without technology, which means there is no capitalism without science!). Capitalism and democracy appear together because their driving forces (science and liberal egalitarian ethics) both thrive well in the same philosophical environments.
We are an animal which increasingly lives in an abstract world of our own making.
Culture is created by environmental pressures and yet culture and technology have created environmental change to such a degree that most things in your room were first conceived of in someone else?s mind before they existed in reality! Abstract concepts can have real power. Currency and the formation of abstract nation states like the United States is testimony to this idea. The U.S. is not based upon any specific physiological or cultural boundaries ? we are a nation based upon ideas, not DNA.

Given the power of culture to create a feedback system which is reacting to environmental pressures, and yet in itself creates environmental pressures it presents to us an inescapable existential reality; that culture is so powerful that it can obscure the difference between cognitive genetic predisposition and cultural predisposition. This is the classic nature versus nurture obfuscation*. If it is true that culture has the power to obscure genetic nature because of our increased sentience then it is entirely within the realm of possibility that human behavior might look very different given a different
cultural context, despite individual or demographic genetics. Some moral systems will contain superior functional capabilities enabling the leveraging of cooperation as compared to others.

If we accept the premise that environmental pressures have a significant effect upon
culture then we must accept that this clearly indicates that the way one makes their
money and the environment in which one works must have a profound effect upon how
individuals and cultural groups end up seeing the world. Therefore, whether you work in
a democratic environment or in an autocratic environment will determine what kind of
society you are going to be a part of and what personality characteristics will proliferate in your culture. Because work greatly determines the quality of one?s well being and also determines whether or not one live or dies in many societies, we can expect this type of
environmental pressure to have a profound effect upon society in general. What this
means is that every facet of our society will be affected by the way we economically
organize because economics is the greatest environmental pressure there is next to warfare or some other castastrophic disaster. Economics sustains all other social powers. You can?t have a military, a state, fund ideas like churches or build artifacts of culture
including rudimentary technology like pen and paper, without the basics of economics being involved. These things all require economics to function. Even thinking requires
economics because we burn calories to think. Almost nothing exists without economics
tied to it in some way. Therefore, our entire society will be shaped by the way in which we economically organize.





*We are incredibly plastic creatures and seem to be able to override our instincts more than other animals. We also have interesting cross wiring from our cerebral cortex to our cerebellum and other parts of the brain, unlike other animals. [11]


Morality and Economics
Without a relationship there is no market. A buyer and seller must communicate. How power is expressed between parties (e.g.- whether or not each party is fair or not) is what determines the moral nature of such expression of power. Therefore we can say that
economic policy is a moral expression, since morality is always at discussion around power and this extrapolates out to complex social interactions we call a marketplace.

Being that power expressed is a sort of realized morality since morality is always at discussion wherever there is power, we can see all expressions of economic power and therefore of economics in general, in terms of an applied morality. In simple language it means we put our money where or morals are in pragmatic realistic terms because
morality has everything to do with pragmatic realistic consequences. Furthermore, because morality acts just like currency and society creates currency as a mutual imaginary construct which carries real power in the form of meaning, the moral paradigm which we believe in will be realized, as a society, as the expression of our societies economic paradigm. Both of these lines of thought lead to an inescapable conclusion: morality is expressed as economic policy.

Since there are only two relationship dynamics paradigms we must conclude that the expression of the two relationship paradigms are in terms of either a peer to peer environment or a dominant/submissive environment. Being that this dictates that there are only two basic styles of social organization we can conclude that we are discussing economic paradigms in terms of the two core moral paradigms: despotic hierarchy and democratic morality. With this in mind we can begin discussing each paradigm seperately and comparatively.



Autocratic Corporatism




I want to start by being honest about the positive aspects of the economic system that we have experienced for our entire lives. We would not enjoy the technological revolution we live in if it were not for the modern economy. Globally, it has created technologies and wealth beyond the wildest imagination of the greatest minds of the fuedal world. At times it has lifted entire populations out of poverty, as has happened most recently in China, India and other parts of the world. I do not wish to dismiss the real, positive aspects of modern business. It is how we make our livings, it is the fabric of our communities. The positive aspects exist. But to say that the economic system is working for the mass of working class people, is not apt to influence, control and eventually corrupt many of the other systems around it, be that the critical function of the media or our very political process itself (where we desperately need campaign finance reform) is to turn a blind eye to the reality of the world that we find ourselves living in at this moment in history. Let?s celebrate technology, honest, ethical, responsible business and embrace the reality of the benefits of economic growth whilst being honest and critical at the same time of the underlying system that is the root of a host of problems.

The place you work at is probably not a democracy but rather a hierarchical autocracy that operates on fiat power within the context of the rules and laws of the political land in question (including international laws and agreements) and the corporate body in particular. A simple way to understand what I am saying is that you can lift political forms and drop them right into a corporate context. If you still don?t understand what I am saying let me ask you a simple question: Is the place you work at a democracy? No it isn?t, is it? You work in an autocracy, a despotism of a sort, organizationally speaking.

As previously discussed, the despotic paradigm contains a system which is designed to exploit. That is its nature is to exploit. The fiat power relationship dynamics of the system mean that in order to have a large middle class in an autocratic corporate economic environment you must make laws to create and sustain a middle class because exploitation is part and parcel of the system of fiat power by definition. A large middle class is not economically natural in an exploitative situation such as an autocratic environment. Despotic hierarchy by its nature reduces a submissive persons? agency and eliminates a submissive persons? sovereignty. Exploitation is not necessarily a moral judgement. Such judgments depend upon ethical violations created by such exploitation.


Wage Exploitation
By definition of having (economic) fiat power* over you, your employer has used his or
her (economic) fiat power to negotiate your work conditions and wage on an open market.
This means that without laws to protect you, or a labor movement to support you, you
have negotiated for your wages from a position of very little leverage. What do you think
the market bears in this case? It is a basic law of supply and demand. The market bears what you and everyone else allow it to bear negotiating from a position of relative powerlessness (when I say ?relative powerlessness?, remember that in most societies working equates to survival). It bears you a lot less than you would make if you had more negotiating leverage or if you worked for yourself. History has shown clearly that without democratic controls on the employer, the worker gets exploited to such a degree that the employee is worked to the bone and still cannot make ends meet. [12] There are many many people in the United States of America, the richest country the world has ever known, that cannot feed themselves after working two or three jobs. The reality of the economic practices of autocratic corporations have borne themselves out in our everyday lives. It is a simple law of supply and demand in a fiat power driven heirarchichal environment that creates hardship, extreme misery and suffering.

Another way to look at the problem is if an employee earning a wage were not paid less than what they are worth in terms of value added production, then they would not be employed. In a wage earner employment situation we have agreed to be exploited by consent. That is the reality of the vast majority of employed persons today. We agree to
economic exploitation compared to what we could earn for the actual value that we add
to a product. This means that you create more wealth than what you are paid. This is
true because compared to what you would pay yourself for the same work performed you would pay yourself a lot more. This is taking into consideration what your company could afford. Compared to worker-owners, which are a fully democratized economy that features worker sovereignty and therefore no exploitation whatsoever, the vast majority
of wage earners are being economically exploited. That is the nature of the autocratic
relationship. It is an unequal type of relationship in power sharing dynamics within the
system. Therefore exploitation is necessarily going to be part of the culture. Without a
democratic construct to control the exploitation that naturally occurs under this system such exploitation typically reaches grotesque levels.
Richard D. Wolff, economist and Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst provides a brilliant, incisive analysis and insight into the intimate workings of a capitalist system from a Marxian point of view and his conclusions are the same as mine. We need more democracy. We need democracy at work. Wolff?s Marxian
critique of capitalism agrees with my overall assessment of autocratic or
despotic economics. It merely utilizes different paradigms and terminology
to arrive at the same critique of what I differentiate as autocratic corporatism
as opposed to a democratized economy. [13]

*Within the laws of the land, otherwise it is political fiat power.
Grotesque Income Inequality
As a political paradigm, economic corporate paradigm and thus as an overall market system, autocratic corporatism has proven to be a deeply entrenched hierarchical social structure that gives you wealth inequality as one of its features. There is now a wealth of historical and statistical information that proves income inequality causes all sorts of social ills including an increase in homocides, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, single mothers, drug abuse, prostitution, suicide, failed relationships, depression and anxiety. [14]

According to a new report on CEO pay from the Economic Policy Institute, chief executives at ? 350 companies made $15.6 million on average in 2016?271 times what the typical worker earns. [15]

This shows the extent of the problem in the United States, where wealth and income inequality are so gross that it is mind boggling. We are the wealthiest nation the world has ever witnessed and we also have the greatest wealth and income inequality that the world has ever witnessed. The two of these things together make for astronomical exploitation. This also illustrates that the typical worker cannot be earning much in comparison to what they are actually worth. If we look at the above figure of $15.6 million/year being the average CEO pay then it comes out to about $58k/year for the bottom paid employee.

To illustrate how grossly the public is being underpaid all we need to do is understand that if all the increase in productivity was spread more evenly with an 8:1 ratio of $15.6 million we have to divide by 8 to get an amount of $1.95 million/year. This would be the bottom pay of an employee at this firm if profit were more appropriately divided compared to what the CEO makes. Even if we divide by another 8 the bottom earner would still be making $243k/year. This is probably closer to what a real average wage should look like at major profitable corporations. These corporations instead pay huge sums to CEO?s and payouts to boardmembers. This is how astronomically the public is being underpaid because we have no negotiating leverage due to the absence of a labor movement.

This is of course a very rough guestamite of what we have probably lost in real wages ever since Reagan (and every administration since) began attacking labor and dismantling the New Deal. If you think this is too pie in the sky consider that in cost-of-living adjusted real wages workers in the 60?s and 70?s were able to send their kids to college, have two cars, a house and all amenities paid for on one income. If you want to be able to buy a house, send your kids to college, pay for health care, rising energy costs, have your spouse stay at home all day and have all your amenities paid for in today?s world then you need to make about $243k/year. Even a meagre third of this amount would be a significant income for most people ($81k/year). If we say half this amount ($121k/year) should be the average American income then we are definitely being reasonable. Astounding to consider, isn?t it.


Our Places of Work: Despotic Hierarchy
History shows us that benevolent autocrats come around not too often. This is true for a political or an economic autocratic environment it seems. This is partially because competition can become brutal in these environments. Autocratic systems are about fiat power, which means assumptions of power differences make the system function at every level. This results in the ?feral? parts of our nature needing to emerge (and thus we unconsciously graviate towards the authoritarian leadership paradigm) in order to protect ourselves in an environment where near - fiat dominance and power are ultimately the way the rules are made around high stakes life and quality of living issues. This will naturally lead to an abuse of power. I believe that when many people finally make it to the top of a corporate ladder their worldview has been shaped by the environmental pressure of needing to eat. People are now apt to see things in a manner sympathetic towards and may even promote leadership paradigms around fiat dominance. Fathali M. Moghaddam?s ideas regarding the psychology of democracy may prove invaluable in evaluating people?s psychological attitudes regarding the workplace and whether or not they match up with democratic values in peer reviewed clinical studies of workplace psychology, values and attitudes towards the world of work and employment.

When we go to work in a hierarchical despotism, there is often a huge communication gap on an emotional, psychological and intellectual level. This is the result of the lack of agency at work in an autocratic environment due to the fiat power relationship. A lack of agency naturally erodes our ability to be authentic. Thus a lack of trust in our relationships at work can translate into deep insecurities in our relationships in general due to toxic modeling of the use of authority and power in work relationships in an environment devoid of personal sovereignty (as worker), and thus reduced agency. Intense professional pressures only add to these negative psychological effects. Overall stress levels are heightened. An increase in anxiety, depression, irritability, anger, sleep problems, change in sex drive, can cause people to abuse drugs, alcohol, overeat, exercise less and socially withdraw. [16 ]

Negotiation is also required in many fiat-power driven contexts but without consent there is only so much authentic negotiation and cooperation that can take place between non-sovereign individuals (especially ones that are in a competitive stance towards one another!). We are effectively cognitively impaired when we are being exploited and can?t truly speak our minds. New studies on scarcity strongly suggests that we are lacking in cognitive bandwidth when we are experiencing scarcity. [17] If we are experiencing a scarcity of agency then what does that mean about our cognitive impairment? This is why worker sovereignty creates the most efficient work environment that there can potentially be. We get to bring our whole brain, our whole self to work.


A Rampant System
I do not want to demonize business people. We need business. There are plenty of fine people who are just making an honest living out there. But if we are to be completely honest we must look at the history of the American labour movement. It is filled with countless stories of how savage, brutal and inhumane autocratic employers can be to people, including children, without labor laws to protect society. The way big business and industry in general treated people before labour rights were seized by the public and labor movements became a force to be reckoned with is a living nightmare. The era of the Robber Barons and the Gilded Age are reminders of this.

Without legal protections or labor unions to fight for concessions, poverty and indentured servitude becomes a reality for the masses under the unbridaled influence of autocratic corporate structures. History has shown that many economic autocrats all too often act like political autocrats when given the opportunity. Despotic hierarchy is a system efficient at war, be that political, economic, ideological or cultural war. In an ideological, political, cultural or economic environment warfare equates to destroying, or gobbling up your competition quite like an ameoba would do. A desperate struggle for greater and greater capital is what determines autocratic corporate market dynamics. These dynamics are realized as endless, rapid growth. This is why what we term ?capitalism? looks like a cancerous growth.




Democratizing
The
Economy




Since culture and morality are both shaped by power and democracy is concerned with how much power a person or social body has especially surrounding issues of consent, we can look at the issue of Democratizing the Economy in light of these considerations. Therefore, Democratizing the Economy consists of applying issues of consent and power to the economy. Concerns regarding consent and power create a dynamic in which issues of citizen agency and sovereignty become central to the discussion of Democratizing the Economy. Discussions are therefore in terms of implied rights and liberties to citizens, no matter what environment they find themselves in, including work.

A large middle class is a natural consequence of applying democratic principles and values to the economy. This is because you are providing greater powers of consent and therefore real power to citizens in whatever environment they find themselves in. Power in the form of liberties, rights, services, goods, money, etc... Democracy spreads power out over the many and holds in check those who have consolidated power which constitutes real or potential abuses of power over the general public as well as the individual citizen (e.g.- as worker). Democracy seeks to equalize things and is deeply concerned with whether or not the general public or a particular citizen has sovereignty and agency. If the corporate body in question features heirarchical structures, democratic justice requires these be representatives (CEO?s, managers, etc?) and that structure must be there by persistent consent of those over which that heirarchical construct has power otherwise it is exploitation.

Abuse of power and having great power historically go together, therefore democracy is concerned with relative amounts of power between individuals and the public (just as we do for those holding state power). Rights and liberties concerning access, protection and/or entitlement to goods, services, compensation, etc?all in real political and economic terms are what?s at stake. Therefore democracy is especially concerned when someone gets too much power or when one falls below a baseline of power. Money is one form of power (a physical aspect). Being involved in economic decision making is another critical aspect of power (the cognitive aspect) in this context.

Despotic hierarchy is not a system efficient at alleviating human suffering. Egalitarian democracy is, because it gives redress to all people adversely affected by an economic environment. Therefore, realization of egalitarian principles are the ultimate goal of Democratizing the Economy. The ultimate realization of Democratizing the Economy refers to the full expressive ability of the individual as well as the general public being realized as unrestricted agency and sovereignty in an economic sense. This ideal may prove to be like true peer to peer status, an unattainable ideal to aspire to. A democratic economic framework at the very least, means the end of gross wealth inequality and economic exploitation by autocratic market forces. At the most it contains vast possiblities in terms of ethical social economics compared to what we now live in. It also may be necessary for our continued survival as a species.

Our Engineered Society
A system which is built on intense, even brutal competition and power over others is not one that is conducive to the more amiable sides of human nature. A system built upon negotiation and the need for good data rather than pure power will bring out different characteristics in people than one which runs on fear and near fiat dominance over others, which creates brutal competition. Since our work evironment has such a profound effect upon our psyches and our outlook we have a choice to make as a society. We can either continue to reward the more feral and brutal side of our nature by continuing to operate in autocratic/despotic organizations or we can reward authentic cooperative and empathetic characteristics in people by creating a system which runs on negotiation and compromise.

This doesn?t mean everyone in a despotic hierarchy is nasty or that everyone in a democracy is nice. This doesn?t even mean that every organization that is organized as a despotic/autocratic hierarchy is horrible to work at. This is obviously not so. For one, democracy runs on a fierce competition of ideas. So there is competition in a democratic environment to be sure. What it means is that the ?cream? rises to the top; in a despotic heirarchy those behaviors which most likely determine success run on pure naked power, or the submission to it. All too often in a hierarchichal environment this means that you have to be submissively obedient to authority, very saavy and/or nasty because such an environment allows abuse of power from the top and therefore requires reactions (oftentimes abusive in consequence) from the lower tiers of power. It?s trickle down behavior modeled by leadership and intensified by competition. In a democratic operation you better have some real maturity, good data and good reasons about you because being a peer means that cooperation and mediation will get you farthest. Although there is still competition in a democratic environment the need to compromise and negotiate necessitates other characteristics come to the fore. The environment that people operate in dictates which characteristics will get them the farthest in that environment.


Human Brutality: A Systems Problem?
Some of us seem to think its human nature to be mean and nasty because it is so prevalent and pervasive in our societies. I believe it is a systems problem, not a human nature problem. We may have unknowingly socially engineered ourselves to express our nastier sides because we are always in something of a feral mode due to surviving in brutally competitive environments of our own creation. Perhaps we have created an abstract reality out of thin air which now holds real power over us? A democratic system that runs on negotiation, gives us agency and enables us to have sovereignty through consent over power in all areas of our lives may be the solution. It is truly mind boggling to realize that in this free society we do not have true freedom nor have we ever been truly free because we don?t have agency in all areas of our lives and we certainly don?t have a realized egalitarian sovereignty!

Worker Sovereignty
There are many ways to democratize an economy. The reason why I believe worker-ownership is the best way to democratize an economy is because you are giving the worker sovereignty over any decisions which might affect them. This is equivalent to granting sovereignty to the citizens of a political state. This is called the ethic of republicanism. The ethic of republicanism describes any nation in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for representatives who govern the body politic by consent. Consent is granted through means of democratic process. In the U.S. Constitution the sovereign rights are within the body politic NOT the state. This is an important distinction. It means that the people grant the government the right to rule over them by consent. The government has no right in and of itself. It is granted this right by democratic process. This implies that sovereignty is held within the individual. Only by consent does the individual, as a member of society, allow governance without exploitation. Exploitation necessarily eliminates sovereignty. Exploitation is not necessarily a moral judgement, such judgements depend upon ethical violations caused by such exploitation. Democratization can and should be done for corporate bodies and economies in general. If even a third of our economy was democratically organized it would have a profound effect upon our society. Imagine the benefits of being an (citizen) owner of the (state) corporation that you (live) work in. The only question remaining is; does it actually work?



Applied Democratic Solutions



Mondragon

Mondragon corporation in Spain is the largest worker-owned cooperative in existence and many point to it as a sort of flagship of cooperative corporate structure due to the complex, integrated organization evident in the Mondragon collective. They began as a university and then started businesses with worker/member control. Today they have their own capital control in the form of their own banks (this is one way to secure your sovereignty as a unique economic entity), which is part of the democratic collective structure and are a diversified collective of industries which span the economic spectrum. They are engaged in agriculture, retail, high tech and heavy industry to name a few industry sectors. They also have a research division which can tout Microsoft and GM as customers.

Democratic Capitalism
Being that Mondragon and worker-owned cooperatives in general are privately owned enterprises competing on the free market they must be considered capitalist ventures; the difference being that they feature democratic corporate governance structures versus what is common today ? an autocratic corporate governance structure. Technically speaking, this makes worker-owned corporations like Mondragon democratic capitalism as opposed to autocratic capitalism! Capitalism being the market system underneath the governance style, which in large part determines the markets? character. At Mondragon they vote on the CEO. In other words they hire the CEO not the other way around (same goes for every level of management)! The workers are well paid (they pay themselves) and have phenomenal job security (they are owners). Mondragon has existed since 1956. Mondragon boasts over 74,000 people employed as owners. In 2008 when the banking crisis crashed the Spanish economy, unemployment exceeded 36%! Mondragon lost not a single worker-owner! They did it by sharing in the pain where they could: they voted and decided to cut hours for all employees. In those industries where it was necessary they cut people and retrained them at their university. Their bottom line is not just profits. Its about people?s well being as well. Human dignity is designed into the system it seems.



Labor Unions
Labor unions are an immediate way to democratize an autocratic economy. The workers unite in a democratic organization we call a union and seek to extract rights and benefits from the corporate autocrat(s). Labor unions raised our standard of living in the U.S. for generations. The labor movement brought us the weekend, the 40 hour work week and sick pay. Without unions and the labor movement people wouldn?t even have the weekend off. Employers used to work people to the bone before unions and the labor movement pushed back and demanded better conditions and pay. Unions were instrumental in creating a comfortable standard of living and a large middle class from the 1950?s through the 80?s when a third of the economy was unionized.

The problem with this arraignment is that it pits the workers against the economic autocrat(s), and it allows the owner/boss/autocrat(s) to run the operation without worker input. A corporate body at war with itself is certainly not the most efficient or meaningful way to democratize an economy. This is not the most efficient way to run a business. The worker has no increased agency in the decision making of the corporation, nor do they have any sovereignty. The owner(s) are hamstrung by the union. Although limited in its ability to truly bring democratic principle to bear upon an economy, unionization of labor is a necessary and critical first step in democratizing any modern day autocratic corporate economy. This type of organizational system is akin to having a king and a parliament, where the king retains sovereign powers held partially in check by a democratic body. Notice that there is no constitution in place with which to limit the autocrats? sovereign powers or grant rights to the people (workers).

The Board of Supervisors
Another way to democratize an (autocratic) economy is to institute national laws mandating a democratic structure be part of corporations. This is what Germany has done. In Germany it is law that half of a corporations Board of Supervisors (an executive board designed to bring shareholders and workers to the executive table together) must be worker representatives. This gives the worker half the vote in any corporate decision that is made. This means that the workers have veto power over any corporate decision. This is a way to integrate the worker into the ?state? apparatus - the abstract body holding power. In this case the abstract body in question is a business entity and thus integration into its power structures is the goal here; decision making processes in particular are what are at stake. The workers now have full consent for the first time. Its not sovereignty but they do have formidable agency within the corporation. German law has decreed that any public German corporation must obey this law.

What defines this type of corporate or abstract body is that power is shared between two sovereign entities ? that of autocratic power and that of the public identity (as worker, in this case). This does not grant full sovereignty to the body politic. In this situation, the euphemistic king has been usurped of his sovereign powers and now must share sovereign power with the euphemistic populace. This is similar to having a constitutionally-limited parliamentary monarchy. The ?constitution? is the charter/legal language describing the Board of Supervisors and how it limits the ?kings? powers and grants rights to the ?people? ? the workers.

The Italian Job
The Italians have a very innovative and creative humanitarian solution to their economic problems. Legge Marcora (Marcora Law) of Italy is a program designed to facilitate the buyout of corporations by workers so that the corporation can be converted to worker-ownership. The emergence of Italian worker-owned corporations is a direct response to historical market failures, business closures and rising unemployment in Italy. Since the early 1980s Italy has been engaged in this program but it seems that their commitment to it is growing by economies of scale. With worker-owned corporations the worker has both full agency and sovereignty! This is a peer-based democratic union. There is no analogy here.

The Ratio of Equitability
Democratizing the Economy can include the application of an earning ratio between the top and bottom pay of all workers at a corporate entity. Being that democracy is concerned with pooled power this tool directly addresses this issue. This ratio determines economic need and uses it as a baseline to reward talent and effort. The ratio strikes a balance between rewarding individuals and giving too much power to one person, thereby avoiding the toxicities that wealth and income inequality create. Awards for talent and effort can never become a ratio of power that allows for the oppression of others over which that awarded power represents a real threat in the consolidated hands of an individual or a group.

In economic terms a sample Ratio of Equitability could be 8:1 from top earner to bottom in a corporate organization. It means that if the janitor makes $40k/year that the CEO will make $320k/year. Mondragon Corporation uses a wage ratio of 5:1. Low ratios of income inequality creates a social strata that does not lead to all the social ills that are associated with the gross income inequality of despotic systems. The laws of the land and the corporation?s policy gets to decide if 5:1, 8:1 or 20:1 is right.

Progressive Taxation, High Top Marginal Rate
Another way to spread the power out over many is to redistribute the wealth through a progressive taxation program like what we had in this country for forty years under Democratic President Franklin D. Rooselvelt?s New Deal (roughly between the 1930?s through the 1970?s). The ethical argument for progressive taxation says that the entire environment in which a person or a business gains their wealth must be taken into consideration when deciding what is equitable in the case of taxes. Businesses utilize a greater share of the commons and what are considered common resources in order to operate including our police, fire, education, transportation infrastructure, communication infrastructure, utilities, etc?and that is why they must pay a greater share of the wealth because that is where our tax dollars go. If those who utilize the resources are gaining progressive benefits from the system (including all the wealth) and do not maintain those resources then those resources eventually will fail. These services maintain infrastructure, protects citizens from some of the adversities of life (baseline distributive justice) and offsets the cost of living expenses for poor and middle class consumers ? the body politic. This type of tax program and its attendant entitlements and public works programs were one of the main reasons we had a large middle class in the years that directly followed (from the 1940?s through the early 1980?s). These programs are protections and guarantees of goods and services. They are like a baseline of distributive justice, or economic equality realized through economic means, which is in this case income tax.

What this looks like is we tax the rich progressively more with a high top marginal rate. So say you make $100 and you pay 10% on it then on the $101 dollar you pay 11% (for that one dollar over $100 you pay 11%). That?s how progressive taxation works. We used to have top rates as high as 91% under the Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower. We took that money and put it into public works programs (like building bridges and roads), education, public pensions (social security retirement) and insurance programs (social security disability and medicare), amongst other public services.

Laws and Regulations
A free and open society must be enabled to engage in enterprise but it must also have protections from the abusive powers that can come from the economic realm. Therefore we have a multitude of federal, state and local laws that regulate business activities and protect the public. Regardless of how business is organized (either democratically or autocratically) we will always need to have legal protections for the general public, our communities and the environment regarding business practices.




Proposed Democratic Solutions

Multiple Corporate Bottom Lines
Being profitable is of course important in business but making it the exclusive reason for business leads to humanitarian crises. We can create an economy based upon different bottom lines than the one which we now must contend with ? the sole bottom line of corporate profitability. An example of a possible alternate would be the triple bottom line system where social and environmental bottom lines have equal or at least greater weight than they now have on the corporate balance sheet. Social bottom lines include fair and beneficial practices towards labour, the community and the region in which the business operates. Environmental bottom lines generally are concerned with the environmental sustainability of the business and its environmental footprint. This model fits into an egalitarian worldview in that it considers community (including worker) and environment (the common resources which the community enjoys) as an integral part of the business cycle. Community and environment are integral parts of the body politic and the economy in general. Thus it could be reasoned that this is another ?democratic process? in that it makes corporate power responsive and responsible to the community in the form of bottom lines, to include the communities interests, which includes the environment which they live in and around. Having multiple corporate bottom lines can place a priority on humanitarian values, and make it a consideration in how a corporation?s profits are made and spent with the worker, community, region and environment in mind.


Social Currency
Ethics and justice (based upon peer assumptions of justice) can be designed into a system in innovative ways. For example, we can create all kinds of currency for our ends. Using the power of currency as a social construct we could use something such as Bit Coins to represent social bottom lines. This currency can be part of a marketing plan using social media technologies, granting our currency marketing value as well as social consequences as we tie it to a marketplace created for rating businesses based upon ethical factors. Establishing a value system where labor, environment, community involvement, charity involvement, and other factors would show up alongside financial performance data creates a powerful tool for marketing and analysis. Businesses which lacked in their overall rating would show up in a marketplace as devalued. The value of the business would therefore be rated based upon this type of capital ? Social Currency, which could be represented by Bit Coins. Bit Coins, for instance, would come to serve a purpose in an ?alternative? consumer driven market where value driven capital doesn?t just refer to the dollar market value but to the ethical market value as well. The value of the coin would be integrally tied to the market and its indices. Having the Social Currency Market (SCM) show up on Wall Street would add more value to our currency.
Our market could also be a place where such currency is valued and traded for other forms of capital just like we do now. We might transfer or combine our currency for currency with associated real value at this marketplace. For example, we could tie the value to local food economies, raising the value of the business slightly in the process as well. We do this by creating a local business mutual fund. This would tie the currency to something of real value, food in this case, and create capital for local farmers as well in this instance (for more on Social Currency Theory see p.96).


Economic Civil Rights
and Liberties
President Franklin D. Roosevelt once promoted the idea of economic civil rights and liberties for citizens. He came to recognize that the present Bill of Rights doesn?t go far enough, particularly for a wealthy nation like ours. His ?Second Bill of Rights? included the right to a useful and well paying job, housing, medical care, a good education and protections when we are old or sick or unemployed. He also included the right for every businessman to be free from the oppression of unfair competition, which he defined as domination by monopolies. He understood that allowing private monopolies to exist is dangerous to public and individual freedoms, particularly when it comes to entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Bill of Worker?s Rights
A bill of rights for workers alleviates most of the problems we find in the marketplace. Having a Bill of Workers Rights provides us with a set of legal principles in which to begin having discussions around how to provide for the needs of every person that desires employment. The problem with a workers Bill of Rights is in interpretation. Does this indicate that a person has a right to demand a job, and then the question is from who? Or is it an indication of government policy and which direction it must go in? And then the question becomes how to enforce such principles. A Bill of Worker?s Rights doesn?t necessarily pin down legal language that can be applied to the issue. Therefore I suggest another avenue.

We define our rights as a desire, not a need, then we can say that when a person desires employment, society must provide such for them. Then we need to discuss what the Conditions of Employment are. The Conditions of Employment must include providing safe, Gainful employment. The Conditions of Employment must also be fair to the employer. The Conditions of Employment must therefore take into account the fact that the person desiring employment must be able to fulfill the requirements of the job. This clearly indicates that the person desiring employment will require an education. Therefore society must provide anyone desiring employment with the means in which to fulfill employment: entitlement and access to either a free or affordable, quality education must be provided to the citizen desiring employment. This is one logical consequence of a Bill of Worker?s Rights.

Cost of Living
The Conditions of Employment must acknowledge that safety is defined by OSHA and that Gainful indicates that the job provides for all of a citizen?s fundamental economic needs. Fundamental economic needs indicates that which a homo sapiens needs to survive as an employed person: including housing, quality food, clean water, energy costs, healthcare, childcare, transportation, communication and insurance needs. We would call this a breakdown of the Cost of Living. The Cost Of Living is synonymous with fundamental economic needs and would therefore indicate and define certain civil rights and their attendant liberties.

Other logical consequences of having a Worker?s Bill of Rights are that society must provide safe, affordable housing, free quality education, quality commons for relaxation and recreation to it?s citizens desiring employment. Covering all the Cost of Living is a logical consequence of having a Bill of Worker?s Rights. All of the above items are required in order for a citizen to be able to be employed. This effectively solves our philosophical problem and addresses what Franklin D. Roosevelt intended by his Second Bill of Rights for people desiring employment. We then need to address the needs of citizens who do not desire employment or cannot work. The problem is an economic one so the solution is an economic one: take the cap off of social security. Right now people making up to about $130,000 pay into Social Security. That means that whatever someone makes above approximately $130,000 does NOT get taxed! If we just tax everyone the same rate for Social Security then Social Security will be able to provide everything for anyone who cannot work. Finding available jobs is going to become more and more of a pressing issue as automation and robotics becomes more and more of an economic reality. So we must consider a living wage as a viable option for some people. A living wage would be a subsistence wage that a person would earn for simply being a citizen of the United States. This idea is typically called U.B.I. or universal basic income.


Domestic Worker-Owned Programs
The United States should institute a worker-owned job growth program to spur economic growth and promote entrepreneurial American enterprise. Unfortunately, there is a roadblock to this type of program right now because banks and credit unions will only loan to autocratic corporations. They do not have instruments designed for democratic corporations in mind. We must create financial instruments that make credit readily and safely available to insure the sovereignty and growth of democratic enterprises. A confederate of worker-owned co-operative credit unions may suffice to power the program we seek to create. Credit unions may even become federated with these new co-operative businesses at some point, should the credit unions feel that this is financially feasible.

This would be the first step in implementing this program ? supplying liquid credit to the market. Such a program could focus on communities that are underserved such as communities of color and demographically poor areas. Resilient local economies would spring up as a result of worker-owned small businesses. Having a domestic worker owned economy would likely have a similar effect on the overall economy to unionization because it raises the wage floor of the labor market.

We should also have another program to buyout existing corporations. This program gives workers the first opportunity to buy the business from the owner, if the owner should sell or move (out of the regional area or the U.S.), at market value, after a thorough assessment of all capital assets. Once again, liquid capital that insures corporate sovereignty needs to be made available and cheap to the collective consumer(s) and/or their corporate identity to enable this sort of buyout program.

Another critical component to the success of this program is supplying it with pure cognitive, not just economic/physical power. We need to educate the working populace. Democratic systems require a good educational base for them to function properly. This is the secret of Mondragon?s success, I believe. They started as a university. Community college programs offering accredited programs that lead to certification (a credential that demonstrates a level of proficiency and education with the concepts of democratic worker-ownership) will be a vanguard in providing tools for rapid, pragmatic, ethically-driven growth in an economic environment committed to the ideal of equal justice under the (distributive corporate) law. This introduces distributive justice into the economic environment and creates conditions for a meritocracy of peers with needs in common. Such a justice system translates power into a respect for the essential good of democratic meritocracy - an acknowledgement that we must reward merit or we fail as a society but that we cannot let merit translate into powers of oppression.

Building an American Mustang
So we could say that in our system we seek for the following to be true; justice translates power. Translates into what is the question? The answer is power gets translated into goods, services and through such things and their expression into the moral currency we are trading in. ?What? is the wrong question then, ?how? is more to the point. How does one translate power through goods and services into justice? ...is really the question.

Our ethical beliefs will show up in our systemic design, or they should if we design our system with care and thought. This is critical to our understanding of sovereign power systems and their creation ? they are ethical engines of raw power. Remember this is not mere euphemism. Morality is a medium that carries real power! As we continue to experiment with systems of egalitarian economic justice we will come to design social machines with greater economic and ethical efficiencies with superior capabilities as compared to others. It will be a balancing act. Innovative ways to organize corporate structures will need to be imagined just as we imagine building any other type of machinery such as an automobile or an airplane. We can build a lean, mean, fast-as-hell American built mustang or we can build and drive a beat up old jalopy... It depends upon our ingenuity and its limitations. So let?s get to work?



The Great American Mustang
Corporate Template



Constitutionally-limited Corporation
The Great American Mustang, the institution of a constitutionally-limited corporate entity, is an innovative way to create a democratic environment under a complex corporate structure that is flexible and reactive to a growing, expanding market. Designing businesses around the sovereign power system as modeled by our United States Constitution and Social Power Theory should yield the results we need for just, equitable business and strong growth. Therefore, in creating a democratic union at work we should consider the institution of a constitutional limit upon the powers of the ?state? - the corporation in this case, through the institution of a corporate constitution.



The Mustang Constitution
When it comes to how our constitution (technically we will be establishing a corporate charter) comes into play, it will look something along these lines; our corporation has no martial powers other than economic power to contend with therefore there is no law to enforce that is ?martial? other than to promote or terminate an owner or a manager from their positions of power. Therefore we can imagine expressed powers coming in the form of an ?executive?, ?legislative? and ?judicial? set of functions that are mainly concerned with a positive form of justice. This is the uncanny wisdom of the founding fathers (or perhaps the Iroquois?). They had no Theory of Social Power yet they understood that power expressed itself into three parts of authority ? physical (POWER), cognitive (TRUTH) and actualized (JUSTICE). They therefore broke that power of authority up into three major parts of our government; the executive, the legislative and the judiciary branches. Therefore we will follow suit, utilizing governing devices created by our founding fathers and adapted to our economic needs.



The Legislative Branch ?
The Union
When considering our legislative body, it will be made up of the entirety of the corporate body, including those bodies and areas of expertise that conglomerate together to form various voting blocs, interests and/or perhaps areas of corporate concern. When considered as a whole, we term this body our Union. The major departments of IT, Marketing, Operations, Human Resources and Finance are all found here. Ideally, contentious relationships do not necessarily exist within this body. It would be best if this relationship was a cooperative one amongst the internal bodies that make up the Union but it may not necessarily be so, depending upon industry needs. In sum total, all of these bodies within the corporation make up the sovereign body politic. This is the voting body politic with sovereign rights and powers. This is the legislative branch. We could use a tri-cameral approach very similar to Media Government?s structure to give professionals and minority voices a special place in our government (see Media Government p. 75) or create something new, depending upon what type of services and goods we are trying to produce.

Policy Creation
This body politic, the Union, constantly holds meetings at all levels of management right down to floor production meetings and discusses the procedures and logistics of business. These are coordinated into higher echelons of the peer-elected hierarchy, until it percolates all the way up to the executives which reviews the information, discusses and formulates policy suggestions to be presented back to the body politic. The idea is that policy filters back down to the floor and vice versa until finally policy congeals into an executive decision. Corporate boards that organize executive and legislative representatives together at a board meeting (such as the German Board of Supervisors) might be useful devices which enable us to optimize the power and efficiency of this system. Whereas the Germans are utilizing this innovative device as their pitiful engine to putt, putt along the economic highway (their economy is quite formidable despite this!) we should think of the Board of Supervisors as a header on top of our ethical engine.

Super Charged Hot Rod Mustang:
The Engine Header ? The Board of Supervisors
Headers make it easier to push exhaust gases out of the system. What this means to us is that, when we place the Board of Supervisors over our power train (the executive and legislative branches of government), the header burns off the chaff on corporate issues more quickly than if we didn?t have this social device and now we are getting down to brass tacks quicker, as concerns policy development. The difference between our engine and the German engine is that they are dealing with an incredibly inefficient fiat power system (think of the fiat system?s total power output as that of a tricycle ? it relies upon direct, manual, brute fiat power for worker motion/motivation) that they are attempting to make efficient through the use of a restricting device on the power of the old sovereign, which forces a sharing of power with the new sovereigns ? the workers.

A ?Steam? Powered Engine
The two powers are at odds with one another in this configuration, creating incredible inefficiencies, as they plot a trajectory forward in deep contention with one another. Thus the German engine can be likened to a steam engine, with no refined explosion chamber (the Board of Supervisors acts as the ethical chamber for this system), it is therefore grossly inefficient and lurching in its responsiveness. They throw a dirty fuel based upon deep mistrust (worker input and agency combined with executive input and agency) we could liken to coal into an open chamber (represented by their inefficient power system, which runs on fiat power and binds this social device in an overarching governmental purpose ? restricted autocratic impulse) heating opposing, entropic forces and through contentious reactions they create the ?steam? to make their vehicle move. Despite all of this the German economy is quite strong. That?s because the rest of the world is riding tricycles whilst the Germans have advanced to steam engine technology.

Note: the fiat power ethical engine can be very efficient if, and only if, there is little to no tension between owner and workers. We see this in some small business environments. If so, this policy engine outperforms even the mustang due to there being an authentic coordinated fiat power effort. That is the issue though ? creating sustained authentic effort! Authentic effort contains possibilities foreign to enforced employment. Without distributive justice that systemically reflects and rewards authentic effort there cannot be a sustained society of this sort.


Mustang Glory ?
The Internal Ethical Combustion Engine
In contrast, let us examine the sovereign power system. We only have one source of power. Our fuel source is pure sovereign, unadulterated creative energy (represented by peak worker agency) confined to a powerful release within an ?engine block? (i.e. - our focused democratic ethics expressed as the three major governmental structures, producing justice within the confines of the Union itself) for peak torque (economic output/production) that pushes the ?pistons? of the executive branch ? the CEO and the CFO into action (policy creation which equates to executive operation of the vehicle). Whereas the Germans are at odds with each other on two sides of the Board, creating some strange sort of dilapidated engine, our powers are on the same side (in Union we find strength!) and working in tandem. Our powers are not working against our sum torque but rather the corporation is forcefully propelled forward on a trajectory that creates a vector focused on the product(s) at hand.




The Union Engine
The drive train of our Great American Mustang is simply the sum of the three Estates of government. The legislature is the source of all the power in our system being that this is where we have placed sovereignty. Nothing happens without the consent of the sovereigns. This is our fuel tank. Thus our entire fuel line can be seen as a series of agreements of consent. Our fuel is trust. We run on trust believe it or not (actually you do believe it or it wouldn?t work for the U.S.?). That is how the whole system runs. Therefore our relationships are ultimately what make us strong. If our trust between each other is strong then we are burning pure fuel, if not we are burning dirty fuel. As the saying goes, ?In Union, we find strength!? Thus we could call this engine the Union Engine. Our drive train is the thick trunk of trust that courses through the legislative sovereign body, which gives meaning and purpose to the critical functions of the judicial branch that enacts and enables the executive branches powers. The combination of the legislative (Union) and the executive branches (CEO, CFO) in this system equates to our power train. Through agreements made between these powers (using our header ? the Board of Supervisors), the powers of the corporate body itself are enacted upon the environment and therefore the market. Hopefully we have a formidable product to offer the public. If we do, we should see healthy returns if our mustang is running efficiently (considering market factors).

Flexible Design Capabilities
This part of the corporation, the Union, contains the system that must fit the needs of the industry that this corporation serves in. Therefore this part of the corporation will be industry specific in design and concerned with the day to day operations as well as overall corporate concerns. Thus the ?legislative? branch will be comprised of the production capabilities of the corporation as well as all administrative offices (i.e. ? the CEO, CFO, Human Resources, Peer Review, etc?). Worker-owners who are actually operating in these environments will have the lions share in deciding how these bodies will be organized and how the overall organizational system will be designed around these functional bodies as well. Think of the departments that make up this branch of government as comprising the different systems (including user interface systems) that make up a vehicle; electrical, ignition, lighting, control panel, steering, braking, etc?

Our Chassis
The details of how to run a worker-owned co-op now come to the fore as we consider building our mustang?s framework ? its chassis and its features. We must consider many different organizational and systemic parameters including meeting planning, meeting organization, rules around voting, hiring of management, hiring/maintaining a professional class, voting on pay classes, etc? these are the operational details of how we make our machine run efficiently, effectively and ethically. Community college credentialed courses on how to form, organize and run worker owned businesses will be a critical tool in hammering out the details of worker-owned corporate governmental construction. From there it is up to the ingenuity of the public to come up with those forms of democratic corporate governance that work and discard those that do not. We have only just embarked upon a grand new experiment?

Industry Specific Designs
Due to the vast flexibility of this branch?s organizational structure, recognized corporate templates representing differing styles of ?Union?, ?legislative branch? or ?First Estate? templates, intended for specific industry applications, should emerge out of the market from competing designs of specialized industry standards for this branch of government.

This illustrates that such a system can and will work efficiently and effectively if we can imagine the correct applications of power. What this means in economic terms is that this machine will do more than just compete if it is a truly efficient and effective drive train as well as overall vehicle design we have built for the specific industry we are competing in. For instance, if we want to develop a corporation that was like an all-terrain vehicle then we might need to design our mustang with rugged and replicated systems in mind, or if we need a vehicle that is more like a fighter plane, we may need to be able to provide raw power, at full throttle, to our engine in order to possess a flexible, aggressive peak performance machine (at overall cost to our system in the form of entropy to ethical efficiency) in an intense market environment.

Specialists ?
Unique, Critical Elements
This leaves us with the overall problem of needing to maintain specialists and having specialists develop in areas of industry. We can see these specialists as those parts of our ethical or social power machine (however you want to look at it?) that represent essential technologies requiring unique knowledge to produce, develop and maintain a working system (such as aeronautical designs, a computer or an engine). We can see this as a sort of stacked power and view this type of power as inseparable from the individual. This brings with it new parameters around power and how to treat it. The problems of high merit (and therefore skill) will always plague a civilization that requires specialization and therefore technocratic takeover is a clear, constant and present danger under a democratic structure (which runs on information and negotiation!). Any professional classes included into the corporation (i.e. ? made an owner) should have their work audited periodically in order to maintain integrity of the system. This is just like doing a special mechanical check-up on essential systems of our ethical machinery (like performing tune ups). With small groups of specialists we cannot do peer review to check their work, therefore we can only audit them (this would create a growing industry of accredited, professional, independent, for-hire auditors for every conceivable specialization!).


The Audit, Transparency Clauses
No power should be consolidated into technocratic leverage over others. This is a source of potential corruption and oppression. Therefore we audit professional class owners wherever possible and limit their (procedural) powers, via contract, where they hold specialized power over other sovereigns (including the corporation as a whole) and where it is deemed appropriate to equalize power differences. This is not just about preventing corruption either. Accountability is also about understanding that people make mistakes. This is an inefficiency that gets added to the system if not corrected as well. Perhaps professional groups/individuals should have an procedural ethics clause as part of their contract with the corporation as a whole and as the nature of their relationship to other sovereigns within the corporation (we are now restricting rights in this situation in recognition of an inseparable stacked personal power present in the system, being that specialists possess unique, critical knowledge)? Procedural transparency clauses that require an open information platform between specialists and the body politic may prove critical to maintaining ethical efficiency. Transparency is a key tool in equalizing the power of a potential technocrat(s).

Equalizing the Power Drop
In taking power away we should re-compensate these individuals in some other manner (e.g. ? a wage increase) which does not create potential for corruption or abuse of power. This equalizes the power differentials in the system. What this means in plain English is we don?t want to piss off our specialists or fail to attract them in the first place so we compensate them well to offset the restrictions placed on their autonomy (in terms of workplace transparency). Besides we have just restricted these peers in ways that we do not do for other owners! They must be compensated for this power loss in order for us to even begin to maintain any power equity and thus claims of equal justice under the law. Specialists possessing high merit are not a blameworthy thing; we merely need to protect ourselves from the potential power of high merit and thus we have a need for a power drop in procedural areas for specialists, particularly when it comes to issues of workplace transparency.


The Executive Branch ?
The CEO, CFO
The Union votes upon and selects executives from members amongst the body politic. No specialist executive will be hired without the constraints that peer sovereignty requires (especially in regards to transparency issues). Being that no martial threat shall emanate from the ?legislative? body and we shall limit the ?judiciary? powers, our concern then is to become an advocate for the Second Estate - the executive decision making capabilities, whilst protecting the rights and liberties (in terms of procedural but especially distributive justice) of the sovereigns of the corporation. We must free up corporate ability for growth without sacrificing our freedoms. How do we do this? We don?t need to re-invent the wheel here; we follow the procedural philosophies of the United States Constitution. We limit the powers of the ?state? and grant rights and liberties to the sovereigns of the union.

Limits on Executive Decision Making
Therefore, the constitution of the corporation or what we call the corporate charter, must spell out the law of the corporation and make it clear what powers the executive branch has, what the limits of the office?s powers are and when the CEO, CFO or any other executive officer must ask the body politic for permission first in order to act, where and how they have freedom to act and/or in some cases, must inform and ratify a decision previously made. The ?rights and liberties? of the sovereigns in this case are ?martially? secured being that the sovereigns are owners, so we are speaking of distributive rights ? positive rights. Therefore we are more concerned with limiting executive powers over our positive rights ? the business decisions (cognitive justice), and the goods and services (physical or distributive justice) which result from such decisions.

For example, there is a meeting with another potential business partner coming up. Our CEO will be negotiating terms of contracts with this company?s board and their CEO. Before the meeting starts, the CEO goes over the potential or actual contract to be discussed with a special department and it is broken down and analyzed by our corporations? team(s) (having peer review, if it can be done here, will go a long way towards fulfilling a democratic ethic ? but this will most likely be handled by specialists). This is then presented to the corporate body in various department meetings across the corporation. These departments report their concerns and findings to head offices which collate these into a report for the CEO to present back to the sovereign body in a hearing, then a general meeting where it will be voted upon and decided what provisions the CEO will be given decision making powers on and how far the body politic will allow him to bargain. The details of that bargain are going to have to be trusted into the hands of our CEO to some extent. The body politic won?t know until the deal is over what these are sometimes. This is why we must do our best to limit powers and set conditions beforehand during general meetings.

In another scenario, all of these conditions may have been settled upon beforehand and the CEO now has carte blanche, within limited parameters set out by corporate charter, of what he or she can do in this meeting. This facilitates the need for quick, decisive, executive decision making in a fast paced corporate environment where risk taking may need to be part of the milieu. This design allows for CEO risk taking, as well as mistakes but introduces the potential for corruption as well.

The Executive Carburetor
This indicates that there is a mix of fixed and flexible (constitutional and policy) limit options which can be integrated into the system to suit the needs of varying industries and specific situations. These exist along a spectrum between the two extremes styles of constitutional limits (no fixed limits, all fixed limits). One must recognize that there is a governor that exists between the fixed limits and those unrestricted and implied powers of the executives. We can open and close this governor as needed, (through our legislative body?s powers ? the powers of the Union) feeding direct power to our executive(s) at a loss of ethical efficiency. This is exactly like having a carburetor that feeds fuel to an engine. If we open up our carburetor it burns fuel more quickly but less efficiently and it gives us more power to move/grow quickly when and where we need it. This tool balances a measure of raw power, efficiency, flexibility and ethical safety within our government. The brakes on the system are the legislative body (the Union), which has power to limit the power of the executive(s) or remove and replace the executive(s) if need be.


The Judicial Branch

The H.R. Department ? Production Overhaul and Maintenance Facilitation
In creating our ?judiciary? branch, our Third Estate, we should consider adopting existing corporate structures such as the establishment of an H.R. (Human Resources) department or something similar that can equitably determine job performance and recommend actions (but not be able to officially take them ? separation of powers!). This would be equivalent to the judiciary branch of government. This H.R. department should depend upon peer review procedures for its formation and decisions. Democratic systems need democratic processes, except in certain executive functions (like for a CEO position) where we consolidate power on purpose. No department should play king, ever. Cross-plat-forming of power (like a check on internal H.R. procedures from the employee?s peer group) to prevent any sort of authoritarianism from arising within the ranks of the H.R. must be implemented.

Pay Raises, Bonuses: Peer Review - The Final Say
Leaving the weight of this decision in the hands of direct peers is actualizing a commitment to knowing the owner?s merit in the most relevant setting we can find. Offsetting the opinion of direct peers with that of the overall company?s perspective creates a situation where we now consider the entire company?s needs in light of the needs of that owner and what the owner provides to their department in particular as compared to the company as a whole. The H.R. department would therefore be an advisory board that facilitates this process. Direct peers hold most weight in these types of decisions, but we could have the entire body vote on pay raises, bonuses and/or such conditions and standards or we could leave certain increase margins within the purview of our H.R. department or some other body or the hands of representatives. For a large operation, several different departments of this sort may need to have industry specific advisory jurisdiction over matters of hands on job concerns (esp. regarding wages, work conditions) and be coordinated by a corporate lead Human Resources office. Remember, this is concerning issues of distributive justice (i.e. ? wages, work conditions). We always leave critical decisions, such as distribution of power, in the hands of a peer reviewed process. We should guard against this becoming some rote, impersonal process, not particular to the person in question. People don?t just value the paycheck. People like to be truly acknowledged for their contributions. Without this sincere acknowledgement we can say that this person has just lost agency. This is a serious matter to our ethical engine because if someone loses agency we slow down ever so much. If many people lose agency we have a significant power drop in our system, amongst other problems.

Promotions: Peer Review - The Final Say
Promotion can be done in similar systemic styles. Once again, promotion should be a peer based decision. Change of guard in management is merely a matter of a direct vote by the affected department(s) in question. Promotion will probably be a fluid quantity in a peer-owner environment. Owners and departments taking on new responsibilities should be anticipated as typical behavior from people personally invested materially and ethically in the corporation they work in. Therefore, our H.R. department may be playing ?catch up? in providing just rewards to owners that exhibit entrepreneurial spirit or facilitating and documenting an overhauling of the job descriptions of entire departments. Keeping such an evaluation system up-to-date is ethically of critical importance because overall company profits and their distribution will be partially based upon these findings. There may be instances where we must outweigh ethical efficiency with the need for rapid growth but we must never forget that Social Power Theory clearly indicates that ethics carry real power. Thus if you neglect your ethics your engine will suffer in performance ? not just ethically, but economically as well, as corruption sets in (this is like getting gunk in your engine). Therefore, being ethically efficient translates into economic efficiency, overall. This includes being efficient with rewards ? not too much or too little. Peer reviewed systems will bring about the most equitable variance here. Assisting departments in redefining job positions and overall departmental technical purpose will be a major part of the H.R. department?s responsibilities. This will probably take up the bulk of this department?s work. The Human Resources Department performs critical functions equivalent to overseeing everything from major systems overhauls (e.g. - replacing the transmission system) to routine maintenance like brake, tire, aeronautical equipment checks and fluid replacement or injecting fuel cleaner into our engine. Human Resources will need to conduct its own meeting schedule in order to maintain standards that reflect the productive reality of the corporation as overhauls and promotions become an urgent issue in an aggressively expanding corporate environment.



The Peer Jury
Right now we have a closed sovereign power system with no means of correcting or evacuating power impurities to the ethical system, or what we could term corruption or abuses of power. Therefore we can also imagine another type of body; let?s call this the Peer Jury. This is an adjudicating body of the corporation on matters of ownership and management. This is a daunting power to hand to any body so the ultimate decision always comes down to the sovereigns ? the entire corporate body (the entire company ? or just directly affected departments, if the accused person opted for such and such was granted as a right - would vote on someone?s termination, after a ?trial? and/or a hearing). We want power checks on this body by the defendant manager or owner?s direct peers. They should have the greater weight in the matter. We want to make sure that we only terminate and/or demote people who are irresolvably disruptive to the harmony of the corporate environment ? our democratic union. This is and should be a traumatic process to our union. Demotion and being voted out of a position are two different processes. Demotion is a reprimand for an abuse of power as well as a loss of responsibilities and powers.

Termination, Demotions
Termination of someone?s means of making a living is a serious matter. We don?t want intimidation or any power play at all coming from the Peer Jury or from anyone else in the union! They are not king! The Peer Jury merely processes certain critical proceedings (i.e. ? demotion and termination). The true sovereigns of the corporation ultimately make this critical decision. If the corporation is significantly large it may consider placing such power in the hands of representatives. The rewarding of goods and services and the retraction of such both must be considered sovereign ?martial? powers and therefore the true sovereigns of the union must, ultimately have a say in such matters even if it be through channels of consent and an exchange of power. The true sovereigns are those homo-sapiens defined as owners of the corporation in question.

System Filtration
This body functions like a fuel filter or a catalytic converter: it filters out impurities it finds in the (ethical) fuel and blows them out the exhaust. If this sounds harsh, remember that these corporations will be competing on the free market for their very existence. There won?t be room for people who are chronically and unreasonably disruptive or grossly unethical in the work environment. The competitive efficiency of the marketplace requires the corporation to run ethically efficient due to the systemic design of our machine. This machine we are building is a means of distributing justice, never forget. We are talking about democratic justice. Thus our citizens, our owners, must act with egalitarian justice towards one another, ultimately, for this machine to run well.




In Conclusion

An Efficient System
An efficient system such as the Great American Mustang represents will dominate the competition, that is, if ethics carry real power as Social Power Theory states it does. This is, in part, due to greater efficiencies expressed in the form of free creative impulses. This is due to the workers having greater agency. This means people are going to be more creative at work and therefore there is going to be more innovation and invention. This shouldn?t be a surprise to us, being that democratic governance and scientific discovery are intimately related processes. They both require the same functional value sets in order to operate at full capacity; freedom of inquiry, thought, speech, right to question authority, honoring dissent, independence of thought and tolerance of others points of view are some of the necessary philosophic environmental factors both enterprises require for their existence to thrive. Therefore, this is where democratic corporate enterprises will find their edge ? innovation and discovery. We might want to call our corporate design?The Enterprise! I?ll leave that name for some other inventor-entrepreneur out there. See if you can do better than the Great American Mustang! I dare you (and hope you succeed!).

Either a standard must be reached by democratic mandate, consensus and/or each corporation needs to independently translate democratic justice into economic terms concerning adjudicated proceedings within the corporation, limits on executive powers, establishment of rights and liberties of the sovereign (including worker suffrage), for this system of justice to operate efficiently and effectively. A peer-reviewed standard of rating could keep democratic corporations ?honest? in their infrastructural commitment to the egalitarian ideal. Such a rating system could be part of an innovative new market where ethic valuations are considered alongside capital assets (for more on this see Social Currency Theory p.94).

I believe that sophisticated mathematics exists within the detailed expressions that logically extend out of the sovereign power paradigm. I believe this math will express ethical truths. I would love to see someone build a beautiful economic moral engine utilizing mathematics as the core for rules on ethical distributive justice (?The Enterprise? corporate template anyone?). Can it be done equitably or is this just a problematic scenario? This might be how we arrive at peak efficiencies utilizing this technology.




Implications of Autocratic Corporatism


We now live amongst powerful autocratic institutions (large corporations) which have been infused into every element of our society. Corporations have quite literally captured our state, our media and control our means of living. Therefore we need to address several key concerns if we are to become free from corporate influences pertaining to critical elements of our free society. Corporations are not evil or good, they are amoral by nature. They are also not going to disappear, nor should we wish for them to. They are technology. We need to design this technology and a system for it that makes it suit our needs not the other way around. Right now we seem to be in service of its needs. Let us not forget that these are autocratic entities and their hunger for profits is therefore endless. Regardless of how they are organized corporations will always be entities with immense power and should be regulated and/or alternatives to their power need to be made available because of this entangled state of affairs that we find ourselves in regarding corporate reality.

Corporations and State
The first concern that we need to deal with is creating a clear separation between corporations and state. Corporations are not people: they do not have our sovereign rights and do not get to compete with us for such rights. There is only one sovereign. That is the people of the union. That is ultimately the individual homo-sapiens within that union. Any monetary influence by a corporation should be omitted from the political process either by law or systematically or both. Public funding of campaigns is a great option. A meager tax would provide all the funds we need to provide for such a program. Paying taxes in order to guarantee our freedom from corporate manipulation of the political process is a prudent expense. Creating a law that invokes the corporate death penalty (dissolution of the corporation and all its assets) on any corporate entity that dares break the law by buying political influence, would ensure the integrity of our elections. What we desperately need at this moment is a movement that brings about a Constitutional Convention to amend the Constitution and make 1) public funding of all campaigns law and 2) make it a capital crime for corporations to interfere in politics.

Corporate Media
Arguably mainstream journalism has never lived up to the independence and critical thought that many of us would like to see come from our news media, especially today. There was a time when journalists had far more independence and critical thought in their narratives. Corporate controlled mainstream media has a corporate controlled narrative because that is who pays the bills. Thus issues which corporate sponsored advertisers find inconvenient to their narrative or are undesirable to cover do not get mentioned, become framed unfavorably or even suffer outright attack by the ?objective? journalists who present the news to us. Thus issues of vast income inequality, climate change, anti-war sentiment and views, systemic racism, systemic sexism and the systemic corruption of our political process by corporations are all stories that are never mainstreamed by corporate controlled media unless forced onto the stage by massive public opinion (such as with the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality ? an issue intimately tied to systemic racism). What we need are laws that protect the rights of journalist and protect them from their employers (defining the way an employment contract can be engaged in with a reporter) so that journalists can speak freely. This means we may need to institute a system of journalist rights and liberties. This may be all that we need. On the other hand, we may need to institute what the founding fathers implied when they termed the ?press? the Fourth Estate ? an unofficial arm of the government. We may want to actually create that government (see Media Government p.82).

Public Broadcasting
It is time for a vast commitment to funding of public broadcasting and minority voices in the media. Right now even our public broadcasting services rely upon corporate funding, which skews their reporting on issues the corporate establishment deems inconvenient or antagonistic to their worldview ? a worldview in which they make endless profits, historically at the expense of all other values. This is because autocratic or fiat power entities tend to produce a toxic environment to those seeking fair, plural reporting that meets journalistic standards. Once again, paying taxes and/or charging fees to private media corporations in order to guarantee that there are mainstreamed/legitimized sources of information from minority points of view and a mainstream public broadcasting service would go a long way towards having a truly free and commonly accessable media again. This is equivalent to saying that the media is part of the commons and we have a right, as a free society, to secure a significant portion of the media as the commons for common use. Right now the mainstream media has been entirely captured by corporate interests. This includes all regional and locally syndicated news outlets.

The Internet
The internet needs to be made a public utility as well. Infrastructure necessary to maintain the internet should be nationalized, as should our telephone infrastructure. Although I feel we must do the utmost to preserve our private economy, some services should be under the purview of the government. We can lease out the work to private companies but the people should own the infrastructure through the government, just like how the government owns the roads. We should consider doing the same for monopoly platforms on the internet that have become a standard of communication. This would be like creating national parks, or public spaces along our internet roadway ? places where we congregate. Except that the spaces we are creating serve a function; it is a place for us to communicate with each other.


Institutional Racism
With the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the killing of George Floyd by police and the subsequent protests against police brutality, the nation has begun to recognize the institutionalized racism of the justice system and other systems in our nation. For profit prisons, bail, the war on drugs (esp. marijuana), police quotas are all parts of a system designed to make money off of criminalizing behavior that statistically targets and adversely affects the poor and people of color. This and the systemic underfunding of healthcare, housing, employment opportunities and an overall lack of public services for African-American communities in particular, and poor communities in general, has become highlighted as a source of the problems facing our society today as we attempt to tackle institutionalized racism. What has not become part of the mainstream conversation is how the overall economic decline of the middle class and the poor in our society adversely affects people of color. This is probably because this would immediately become a ?political issue? with economics at the center of the discussion.

Recognition of what Martin Luther King saw over fifty years ago needs to be acknowledged: when income inequality increases the middle class, the poor and African-Americans in particular suffer the most. This is not a system that works in a vacuum. Poor white people suffer as well and then go on to blame minorities for their fate as they are rallied against minorities by authoritarian forces. We must ask the rich to pay their fair share (e.g.- thru progressive taxation) and fund programs for the underserved, especially and including African-Americans in particular and minorities in general. If we are to make this a reality we will need strong labor unions, laws and rights for workers in this country because corporations are not going to relent on their own. Ultimately we must remove money from politics if African-Americans (and everyone else) are to find justice in the United States because the problem is systemic and therefore the solution is fundamentally systemic. Politics is fundamental to the system and a corrupted political process will never yield the balance of justice necessary to realize an equal justice under the law for all people.

We see alarming trends all over the world with the rise of right wing authoritarian movements in other nations. Underneath it all is a discontent with the system as it is ? you can be sure economics is at least part of the reason for such discontent. Autocracy (in all its forms) and authoritarian instincts tend to go together. This is not to say that corporations love racism. But business does love order above change which means the business community doesn?t really care to do anything about racism systemically. Profit is the only concern of the vast majority of the business community. In fact, we can expect to see resistance to systemic change except in cases where public pressure forces changes in corporate behavior. Those corporations that brandish slogans and advertisements but lack the promotion and implementation of systemic policy changes are suspiciously self serving. I believe this situation would be different if corporations had a democratic order within. Although I don?t think that democratic corporations would be perfect, a system run on negotiation and thus information is going to be more self-correcting than one run on pure fiat power such as corporate autocracy is.
Universal Healthcare
When we think of an issue that should definitely be within the purview of the commons healthcare cannot be dismissed. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis it has become clear that having healthcare tied to a profit motive is not only inefficient but it is unethical. The absurdity of people surviving the disease only to face astronomical hospital bills is an affront to basic human dignity. We shouldn?t have a healthcare system which only serves those that can afford it. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, ??a necessitous man is not a free man.? This is a system which is patently immoral. The United States has one of the poorest healthcare systems in the world in terms of statistical outcomes and costs - we pay roughly twice as much as other nations and still have uninsured and underinsured people by the millions. Furthermore, most United States bankruptcies are from medical related debt. This is because we allow a middle man, profit driven insurance companies, to make immense amounts of money. Healthcare should be a human right, especially in a wealthy nation like ours. Healthcare should not be driven by profits. Corporate autocrats have placed themselves between you and your doctor in an attempt to make as much money as they can. We need to either remove them from the process or we need to remove the profit motive from the system. Medicare-for-all is an ethical, efficient, simple solution for the United States, which is the only first world nation not to guarantee healthcare as a human right to its citizens!

Global Climate Catastrophe
This issue is an egalitarian issue merely because we all use the commons, those limited resources we all hold in common like water, air, etc... Thus we are all adversely affected by the environmental costs of doing business. Right now we have a corporate ?socialist? economy (this colloquial definition of socialism is fatally flawed in that any government involvement in providing services is going to be termed socialist by such a definition. Government cannot be synonymous with socialism!). We ?socialize? the costs of doing business, like environmental costs, and privatize the profits. What this means is that polluters don?t have to pay for ruining the environment but they get to keep all the profits and the public has to pay for the cleanup. We even give subsidies to polluters in many instances. Perhaps corporations should be held directly accountable for the costs of doing business and its impact on the environment? In the face of global climate change we face a daunting task: we must save civilization as we know it. This is not an understatement. The Pentagon has acknowledged that the greatest national security threat that the United States faces is that of climate change. The scientific community keeps giving us dire announcements regarding climate change and the need for urgent, drastic action if we are to survive as a species!! Yet, none of our leaders seem to take this threat seriously (except for a very few? only those politicians not taking corporate donor money, such as Bernie Sanders, seem to bring forward grand enough plans like the Green New Deal to appropriately deal with the gargantuan problem). This is because of the influence of corporate autocrats on our political leaders. Could it be that they are this corrupt or are they just obtuse to the reality and gravity of what is happening? It seems that our political leaders are clearly corrupt. Thus the issue of autocratic corporatism is directly tied to the environment, saving our union, our lives and our planet.

The Nature of Morality



Now that we have exhausted our investigation of moral systems we can begin to appreciate some aspects of morality which were previously unclear, unheard of or even considered downright inconceivable. For an understanding of some of the terminology used in the following discussion please refer to Social Currency Theory p. 98. Some of the aspects of morality that Social Power Theory reveals and other aspects which it suggests include:

? Morality exists to provide greater levels of cooperation amongst species of animals. That is its evolutionary purpose for being.
? Good and evil do not exist as absolute qualities; these are hueristic, invented ideas - useful and convenient ways of looking at the world.
? Morality is the foundation of society itself. Without a moral code there can be no society. The rules of society itself, what decides whether or not we even begin to form a society together, are what we call morals.
? Morality acts like a medium to carry power, just like money does. It holds real power because we all say that it does! It is a system of collective trust.
? Morality is that which causes all other realms of human civilization to operate. It is the social system of all other powers. The four powers are a sort of social currency in themselves and they carry morality and its system within them. The four powers of human civilization are martial, economic, knowledge and cultural power.
? There are only two fundamental or Core Moral Systems that exist in the world because there are only two ways in which to politically organize; as equals or not equal. Those two Core Moral Systems are Despotic Hierarchy and Democratic Morality. A moral actor is either operating in one system or the other or an amalgamation of the two.
? This defines the general differences between conservatives and liberals. We can see liberals and conservatives in light of ingrained paradigms. Liberals tend to question ingrained paradigms and conservatives do not by definition. If you are conserving the past then you are promoting the past, either consciously or unconsciously. If we look at the big picture, conservatives and liberals have different brain types and therefore need each other for survival. Evolution made us this way for a reason. Let?s respect that.
Liberals come up with new ideals and paradigms then say, ?Hey look at that! What if?? which causes conservatives to say, ?You freaking fruitcake! You?re going to get us all killed with your crazy ideals!? This is an extreme example of a conversation between conservatives and liberals but it illustrates something fundamental about us as a species. What we have here is a micro-policy engine operating between us that regulates itself. Conservatives are the brakes in the conversation and liberals are the gas pedal. Nature made this for us. This is good systems design. Let?s not break it or piss on it or disregard it. Let?s change the conversation around the policies instead.
? Democracy is a fundamental moral code that stems from the laws of nature. The essential equality of homo-sapiens and the ideal that there is an absolute form of justice has created a beautiful ethical system full of philosophical integrity which is balanced with unresolved tensions that express superior forms of governance (the two ideals together form the ethic of an equal justice under the law).
? Love is, most likely, that which powers morals. This being so, love is that which powers all of human civilization and is that impulse which expresses itself as the four transformations or kinds of social power. This phenomenon has real power over us. Perhaps love is succinctly put, motivation?
? Morality can act like a medium, system or it can be the power of a system (likely utilizing love as its source). This is due to the fact that all of social existence is dependent upon morals. Therefore morality is considered a conflated currency ? it is tied into other social currencies and often co-exists as a sort of superposition within those social currencies.
? If morality is the system or rules of society then government equates to a system of justice. It doesn?t matter what kind of government it is. This is because morality is the system for government as well as for society in general because morality is a conflated currency. If morality is the system for both society and government we can see government as a way to resolve issues of moral concerns. Resolving moral issues we tend to think of as justice. Therefore, the entire purpose of government is to deliver justice to its population.
? Therefore government is the end product of morality. This makes sense being that morals are the rules of society itself, which is what government enforces. Government, in effect, enforces the morals of the society in question upon its population. Government is the end product of a moral system and is considered an integral part of a moral system.
? Justice is fundamental to a moral system. This is because of the relation of truth to power, the combination of the two into one entity produces authority. Authority is the agent of justice. Authority realizes the moral code by enforcing moral values upon society. Thus we can say that justice is, from the point of view of a moral actor, the entire raison d?etre (reason to exist) for morality in the first place.
? Authority comes in three kinds of expression; physical, cognitive and an actualized expression. When we combine the physical and the cognitive we get an actualized expression of authority as well but justice seems to have a relationship to itself and expresses its own reality as a set of rules (law). We measure the ?potential energy? of authority by comparing the concept of authority (defined as the power to determine) to itself. Thus we compare the potential to determine with the ability to determining in order to understand our total capabilities in this situation? By doing this we naturally get ?actualized expression? as a third category ? the act of determining. But this equation assumes that justice was perfectly and fully realized. Therefore, this suggests that justice is a quantifiable quality.
? If this is true, being that government is the end product of morality we must conclude that there are governmental functions which therefore come out of nature; a legislative function (create law), an executive function (enforce law) and a judicial function (interpret law). Notice that these are all functions revolving around law as the focus of ethical reality. Law can be seen as the system (in Social Currency Theory terminologies) of the moral code and therefore holds primary importance, for without law there is effectively no moral code. If this is true this means that the laws of nature extend beyond these three structures and span out into the justice code as mathematical entities.
? If this is so then this must be true on out to the extents where randomness becomes a part of reality; out to the extents of quantum reality where Heisenberg?s Uncertianty Principle comes into play and to the extents of the Planck limits. This goes against everything we think of when we consider morals or ethics. Mathematics and ethics were never considered to be two entities which were intimately tied together, until now perhaps. We may be seeing imaginary numbers, state vectors, state vector collapse (ideas usually reserved for quantum physics discussions) and ethics discussed together not far into the future if this turns out to be true.
? This will be true not only for criminal justice but for civil issues as well as for issues of distributive justice. This opens up new possibilities for positive applications of justice, particularly in the areas of economic justice and economic theory.
? Regardless, this does not discount the continuing need for value ethics. There will always be a need for value ethics in human civilization simply because we are emotional creatures by nature. We are subjective quantities and therefore a code which can explain our subjectivities and how to create a system of justice to deal with our human mortality is critical to understanding ourselves, each other and creating attitudes we can live by. Thus religion and other traditional moralities will always be a potential storehouse of wealth to human civilization in those areas of understanding that deal with non-falsifiable, non-quantifiable ethical judgements.
? This does not put religion into a subservient role to mathematics when it comes to serious religious concerns either. Therefore, consider and be clear of mind; in those areas concerning non-falsifiable, non-quantifiable cosmological questions, religion finds potential relevance for all of time. This is a clear axiomatic truth when we consider the nature of the question(s) ? they are non-falsifiable. Therefore, this is not my opinion, even if you don?t like religion. This doesn?t make religion ?true? either. It just makes it potentially relevant to the conversation, within certain contexts.
? This also doesn?t make atheists a legacy ethic either. They are serving a necessary function. They are the conservatives in the political conversation here; they provide the brakes on the conversation, so to speak. We need this filter on the conversation or we will careen off into doom in some fashion or another, which is why evolution made some of our brains conservative, I believe. Let us all honor this diversity of our DNA and its expression. If there is a God, then DNA is an expression of God?s wisdom (in very general terms), is it not? So we can argue, from all points of view, that all points of view are critical to a cosmological conversation that is forward progressing can we not? Ergo, God loves atheists. This is the agnostic, egalitarian point of view.
? We have a fundamentally broken system which is at the root of our problems. The lethal combination of technology and despotic hierarchy threatens humanity with a clear and present danger. The more we progress technologically under a despotic system of power and leadership styles the closer we move towards the brink of destruction. Our understanding of applied moral systems, what they are, and how they operate, are the root of the problem and therefore this is the solution to our problems.
? If all of the above makes any sense at all then I must present to you one more incredibly relevant, if not the most relevant piece of information; Social Power Theory strongly suggests that we must change course if we wish to survive as a species! This is a long-term trajectory prediction but this should be clear to any concerned, awake and aware person that this is true right now, in light of climate change and our impending doom.
? This is an inextricable conclusion due to the intimate relationship between science and democracy. These two apocalyptic social technologies have shaken the foundations of human civilization itself and we live in the wake of these great revelations. Ever since the Enlightenment, humanity has been on a steady trajectory towards a deeper egalitarian expression of justice despite democratic society?s appalling record of injustices. We now have the opportunity to fully embrace this social reality, which stems out of natural laws of human equality, whilst the onset of compounding technological advance continues irresistibly and unabated towards greater and greater levels of power consolidation into the hands of autocratic forces the world over.
? A consolidation of autocratic technological power spells doom for human civilization due to the combatative nature of fiat power. Warfare is the end result of power consolidation for a despot; therefore we must examine our ideas surrounding leadership styles and embrace the moral reality of universal egalitarian ethics if we wish to survive as a species.




Media Government

The Fourth and Fifth Estates Constitution of the United States of America


This is an innovative way of protecting the media from United States government and corporate influence. This would effectively accomplish what the founding fathers meant when they termed the ?press? (what we consider to be the media in general in modern terms) to be the unoffical arm of the government. They understood that the media needed to be kept separate from governmental powers but it was recognized as an actual necessary function of governance. This project is meant to fulfill the meaning behind this recognition and actualize it into a proposition. We accomplish this by creating a ?government? entity that remains separate and sovereign from the United States of America. We?ll call this new government the Media Government of the United States: The Fourth and Fifth Estates.

Expanded Rights
? Through this new government body we create a system of positive justice with a constitution granting journalists explicit and expanded rights as citizens of the United States Constitution ?therefore members of this new government are still under U.S. law, but with expanded powers - to freedom of employment rights, inquiry and travel. These expanded rights cannot and will not impede or restrict in any way the sovereign rights of any individual or private group?s right to privacy. These expanded rights will be in regards to the United States of America as a government entity. Thus expanded rights are concerned with power differences between journalists (as defined and acredited by Media Government) and the United States government, and how the laws are interpreted and enforced around journalists and their rights in the United States.
? Expanded rights and their definitions are agreed upon and ratified through treaty and/or through Constitutional amendment(s) of either or both Constitutions of both sovereign governments, one being a proxy state of the other, the original state, the United States of America. Proxy state is defined in the Constitution of the Fourth and Fifth Estates of the United States of America.
? Expanded employment rights include defining acceptable and optimal work conditions, opportunity to work, typical contracts, protection from being fired (unless for specific reasons) or harassment by employers and a right to legal representation if these rights are breached. Other agreements or rights would include that employers provide adequate equipment and that journalists remain independent. Defining these terms will be critical in providing the intended freedom and independence we wish to instill in journalists.
? Expanded rights to inquiry and travel would be leveraged solely against United States government public entities, powers and officials and implemented by the United States of America. Issues of expanded rights will be discussed by the Journalist House of Representatives and litigated by the Journalist Advocates and offered up as legal statements, advice and direction for the United States of America. This would be an ongoing legal battle between the United States and Media Government for access to and transparency from the United States power structures by certified journalists and perhaps non-certified journalists as well. We must leave the weight of the martial power, the last say in this case, in the legal hands of the United States government but we give Media Government legal influence in matters specific to its areas of expertise, that being expanded rights. This makes Media Government the potent watchdog that the founding fathers always hoped the press would be. If we complete the design of Media Government with care and attention to detail, it will become more than a mere watchdog, it will be a pitbull.


Sovereignty Oaths of Media Government
and the U.S. Government

? Both governments swear an oath to the body politic ? the undisputed true sovereign of their respective and collective unions. This is their solemn charge and their common connection, their reason for being ? to serve the people of the union. Thus they are bound together in union to the body politic, the true sovereign, the people that these two governments serve, one state, Media Government, being a sovereign proxy ? such as defined in the Constitution to be described - of the original state, the United States of America and ratified by treaty between the two sovereign states. Note: we would need the United States to amend its Constitution or create a substantially strong law that could not be broken or amended that guarantees the independence of Media Government from the United States government in order to make this agreement stick.


A Sovereign Proxy State
Martial Powers Agreements

? This body, the Media Government of the United States, shall be in agreement with the United States of America and its true sovereigns, that its officers shall never bear weapons in protection of their offices and duties and that the Media Government of the United States shall not possess nor distribute weaponry of any sort under any conditions. No martial powers will ever be allowed to exist within the Media Government of the United States. The United States of America holds all martial powers as is justified by the true sovereigns of the United States of America by virtue and by law.
? We cannot mix martial power into Media Government?s power structure. It must always ask the United States government for assistance with martial matters, especially regarding external law enforcement. If Media Government has carte blanche to utilize martial powers then it in effect has such powers. So Media Government and its public servants must be restrained from easy access to U.S. law enforcement. How do we accomplish this? We say that the U.S. government agrees to protect access to official Media Government property but not to patrol or police the grounds of the property itself. Unarmed patrols of Media Government personnel would have to secure Media Government property if necessary.
? The United States powers must respect the non-martial sovereignty of Media Government and its properties by remaining clear of Media Government districts and property unless serving a warrant for arrest of an individual citizen(s) or if a clear and present danger to citizens of the United States presents itself. Media Government police forces shall assist with United States law enforcement in upholding United States law when United States law enforcement operates within legal bounds upon Media Government jurisdiction. United States law enforcement shall provide verification of legality to Media Government for such encroachments upon sovereign territory.
? The United States of America will agree to protect Media Government?s property and material holdings from harm and enforce the law, upholding the rights of Media Government as written in the Fourth and Fifth Estates Constitution and by agreement between Media Government and the United States. The lawyers/legislatures that write this part of the Constitution better be fair minded and know what they are doing. The devil will be in the details here regarding law enforcement encroaching upon Media Government property for official purposes.
? No martial power will ever be granted by the United States for use against the sovereign government entity of the Fourth and Fifth Estates of the United States of America and guarantees, systemic and legal, will be put into place to insure that this remains true by Constitutional Amendments and/or agreement by treaty between sovereigns. Dissolution of the union itself could be the result of dissolution of Media Government by force of arms and/or use of oppressive powers by the United States government against Media Government. This decision could be triggered by certain events and placed in the hands of Media Government. States would be able to freely cede at this point, the power of the union itself would thus be threatened. This is one example of an incentive device to prevent invasion and breach of Media Government?s sovereign liberties by the government of the United States of America. This would help prevent oppression by the United States government upon the sovereignty of Media Government in general as well.
? I could see the Supreme Court being challenged by the sovereign power of this body?s internal adjudicated proceedings and its rulings on matters concerning Media Government?s areas of expertise due to the fact that the Tri-cameral body (to be described) will be discussing the issues of expanded rights. This could present a problem between competing sovereign powers. This must be resolved by treaty and through the new constitution, in detail.
There are two general ways to resolve this:

1) The weak state option: as a general rule the U.S. can ignore such rulings but will not be able to entirely dismiss such in their court rulings. This means that the Media Governments rulings would have no actual legal weight in United States rulings but its bodies could record statements in regards to such rulings which would be regarded with legal consideration by the United States courts, which may or may not come to embrace such statements as law. This leaves all martial power and decisions around the use of the influence of Media Government?s internal legal rulings and their consideration in the hands of the government of the United States of America.

2) The strong state option: another course of action is to give the proceedings in the Tri-cameral House actual legal weight in the courthouses of the United States of America. The United States would have to agree to this by treaty. If we do this we give Media Government a lot more footing against the U.S. in leveraging their way into the government?s secrets. This should not threaten national security (as long as we write the law correctly!) because we will be giving special caveats and rights of privacy to those offices, departments and public officials who necessitate security clearances and other national security measures. The downside could be excessive litigation, intimidation of the United States government on the part of Media Government and journalists in general (that might not be a bad thing?).

? Martial authority of the United States of America over that of the Media Government of America will be limited to enabling and protecting a referendum process by direct vote of the people of the United States of America in order to amend the Fourth and Fifth Estates Constitution.


The Tri-cameral Journalist House of Representatives

The House of Redress, The Senate of Professional Redress,
The Probate of Minority Voices


The Journalist House of Representatives
? In our new government the public votes on local journalists to represent them in the Media Government. This elected body would be equivalent to the legislative as well as judiciary branch of this body?s government. We do not need to fear combining these two powers because there is no martial authority within this government. It only maintains internal authority. In this system, just as is the case in the United States system, the body politic holds all sovereignty ?we term this legally the true sovereigns. Media Government?s power exists to serve this body politic. This body politic is explicitly all homo-sapiens deemed citizens of the United States of America.
? This tricameral body we can term the Journalist House of Representatives. The three bodies discuss problems internal to Media Government and resolve them together.
? Powers and rules between the tri-cameral houses could be designed with the United States bi-cameral legislature in mind, parsing out said described powers into three entities. This body, when considered as a whole, holds authority in regards to matters of Media Government internal concerns (ultimate authority remains with the sovereigns ? the body politic). This body holds no authority outside of that.
? The Journalist House of Representatives? entire purpose, their reason to exist is to cut through to the truth (or as close as we can get to it) arming journalists with the power of inquiry, free speech and freedom of travel. Notice the antagonistic language. It?s on purpose. The relationship between the two sovereign governments is meant to be a contentious one. It is not meant to be nice. That is because if these two governments are playing nice, the people, the true sovereigns, are in big trouble. These powers must be kept separate and contentious, with an overarching purpose that unites them in synchronized antagonistic harmony under a binding set of agreements: they are both here to serve the people, not themselves, or each other!

The House of Redress
? This body will be a tool for redress of institutional issues within Media Government as well as that body which constitutes the peer review bodies that make up the community of published journals of review in general and specific to areas of expertise.
? Endorsed journalist representatives from the general public can run for elections and advance into this government?s power structure, regardless of journalist certification. This would allow new voices into the peer reviewed systems of Media Government. This is a means to override Media Government?s technocracy.
? Alongside the general public, the body of the peer reviewed society of journalists should endorse a host of candidates to be considered for this body. Such endorsements should be considered to have more weight than public endorsements but do not invalidate public endorsements.
? Endorsements and candidates of the body politic and the peer reviewed society of journalists will hold elections, be voted upon by the general public and will decide the House of Redress.

The Senate of Professional Redress
? We should have a ?senate? type of body as well, to offset the effects of majority rule ? one that is offered to the community of journalists. We could call this the Senate of Professional Redress.
? Only certified journalists get to vote on who serves in the Senate of Professional Redress. This is a way to make sure that expertise has a voice in the discussion but it also introduces more power to the technocrats.
? This body would have the same powers as the House of Redress, excepting those rules concerning conduct between the bodies.
? We may want to give the Senate more weight when it comes to procedural powers. These are the professionals after all. These people have been certified by their peers. That is also the problem though. We now have a closed power system (the Senate) that is acting like a whirlpool. If the technocrats get to decide who is a part of their club, and what the truth is, then we have descended into doom. We will eventually end up with corruption in this scenario. We need to put a check on the technocrat?s powers. Thus we need minority voices to come to the fore.

The Probate of Minority Voices
? We need to design another system to infuse minority voices into the government with a third body made up of the minority voices of the community. This would represent the plurality of every point of view that can be categorized, with special considerations given to underrepresented points of view. We organize these points of view in a Probate of Minority Voices. The other two houses decide who sits on this house out of their representatives with a caveat - you must be underserved. We may want to give an equal membership representation coming from both the House and the Senate or we may wish to weigh it differently. I prefer to give both bodies an equal representation in this body.
? We don?t want to give more power to the majority voices. We want to give it to the minority voices. So selection to this body comes with caveats ? you must qualify as being underserved. The entire body of the Journalist House of Representatives will maintain standards of what qualifies as being underserved.
? This body must have special powers which give it voice in the Journalist House of Representatives chambers proceedings. We could give this House veto powers over certain matters or procedures of government in order to give weight and voice to the underserved. Powers that our U.S. Senate has such as the filibuster may be reserved for this body, for example.
? Creating platforms for minority voices and prioritizing for such, must be designed into Media Government. The Probate of Minority Voices will make it their mission to ensure that Media Government, through systemic design and maintenance, represents the underserved. Media Government is an advocate for minority rights and voices in media and actively promotes such at local, regional, state and federal levels. Plurality, diversity, as well as accessibility are the goals of Media Governments advocacy platforms.


Media Government Powers, Limitations and Responsibilities

Certification of Journalists
? Media Government will oversee the process of certifying journalists through facilitation, of a peer reviewed society of journalists that creates benchmarks and maintains standards of journalism.
? Certification would be a means to grant access to the expanded rights and liberties delineated in the Constitution of Media Government. Certification bestows the title ?journalist? upon its bearer. Non-certification is not a restriction on practice of one?s rights to free speech and journalistic pursuits. Certification means that one meets certain standards of journalistic integrity. Reporters without certification are still considered to be part of the community with the rights to free speech, travel and inquiry.


Maintenance of Published Journals
? Peer reviewed bodies should be broken into areas of expertise. These may be journals that are facilitated through the government?s services. Journals are not run by the government or owned by the government. These are privately owned and maintained institutions, although public institutions (of either the U.S. or its proxy government ? Media Government) may also utilize Media Government services in order to establish and maintain public information, sources, references and any other intellectual resources deemed necessary in the publishing of journals. The Media Government just provides services and protections for these institutions. These journals may (and probably should) aid in the maintenance of the integrity of the certification program.
? Published journals of journalist?s ratings from several competing authoritative sources that are independent of Media Government but may be utilizing its services would be critical in maintaining certificates and their standards.

Transparency Issues
? Specific agencies, offices, bureaus and functions of the United States will be given rights and protections from the Fourth and Fifth Estates powers of inquiry and travel. These will be made specific in the Fourth and Fifth Estate Constitution and ratified by agreement with the United States of America.
? Media Government is a transparent society. There should never be a need for state secrets in Media Government.
? Information regarding journalistic sources need be kept secret. These are not considered to be Media Government secrets. These are journalist sources and must be kept private. Media Government assists in maintaining journalist information source?s safety by providing legal assistance and protection for journalists and their sources.

Additional Powers and Limitations
? How do we pay for this new government? We cannot have the United States holding the purse or else it gains control of Media Government. So we must allow Media Government to levy taxes on the public and on media in particular in order to pay for this new government. Paying additional taxes, even though they should be modest (the overhead won?t be a fraction of the cost of the U.S. govt.), won?t go over well with the public. We also don?t want to tax minority media voices out of existence to support a government which is supposed to advocate for them through a media use tax. Such a tax system needs to address the organizations ability to pay, market share and access to outlets.
? What happens if people don?t pay? We can?t enforce the law against the public ? Media Government has no police or authority to enforce the law, so how do we deal with collecting taxes? Media Government must ask the U.S. to enforce tax collections for them. The United States just never gets to touch the funds. So we have Media Government send out its own invoices and keep its own accounts. The United States just enforces the law for Media Government on behalf of their respective and collective sovereign citizens, who remain the charge of both governments.
? Representatives can?t hold office in two cameral positions of power. For example, membership in the Probate negates membership in the House and/or Senate.
? The entire body of the Journalist House of Representatives will maintain standards of what qualifies as being underserved. This function means that the entire governmental body meets together as peers and discusses, refines and ultimately defines the term underserved. This must be done regularly as a scheduled process. This process must be transparent and up for public review.
? Media Government shall have legal powers, enforced through the United States of America (unless it is a proceeding against the United States of America in which case it will be taken up by proceedings laid out in the Constitution of the Fourth and Fifth Estates), and such powers shall be restricted to protecting the expanded rights, as defined by agreement with the United States of America, of its members.
? Media Government makes suggestions to the United States government regarding actions, criminal and civil, or even of a more specific nature regarding concerns of media outlet(s). Media Government has no right to legislate, interpret or enforce legal matters of public or personal interests unless it concerns Media Government explicitly.



Journalist Advocates

If there is a ?martial? power that Media Government holds it is that of its army of litigation specialists. The United States Government will come to respect and perhaps even fear the litigious powers that Media Government brings to bear in its areas of expertise. This will, in effect be the ?executive? branch of Media Government. It will have a minor role compared to that of the presidency or other executive positions in most democratic structures. This army of lawyers Media Government provides as a service to assist and protect journalists, as well as the interests of the general public in knowing the truth (or as close as we can get to it). Think of this branch of government as an ACLU on steroids ? focused on specific civil liberties.

The Executor Advocate
This body may create a hierarchichal structure in order to manage and represent itself if deemed necessary. No authority or powers shall be granted to said office(s) except through peer societies and by regular consent of the governed bodies. We could call the top honcho the Executor Advocate to scare the hell out of the U.S. government. The Executor Advocate would ultimately oversee the operations of the entire executive branch of Media Government. If you are a United States government official, you will not want to mess with or hear from the Executor Advocate or one of his or her representatives. Journalists would have a huge stick that they carry with them everywhere they go now - the Executor Advocate would be journalists ?motivator? and safeguard against public officials, police, low-level military, etc? Just a mention of the word Executor?and police would magically move out of the way, access to information considered legal would be granted, public officials might even magically stop lieing, etc?Only those officials and departments of the United States government with security clearance issues and caveats against expanded rights and their definitions would be exempt from the powers of the Executor Advocate and this department. To be clear; only expanded rights are under the purview of the Office of the Executor Advocate.

We would have to be explicit in the mission statement of the offices created in this branch of government that privacy rights of citizens will be upheld, respected and promoted. Internal laws can be made to punish and remove officers that disobey or do not uphold this credo. Beyond this there are no internal measures we can take to insure the public is safe from the Office of the Executor Advocates practices or journalists in general. We do not want these new powers to become oppression. Do we need to create an opposing power to the Executor Advocates or will the might of the U.S. government be enough to protect its citizens from the Executor Advocate if the Executor should use their powers to breach people?s privacy rights, for example?



The Privacy Rights Association

Now that we have made journalism a powerful force to be reckoned with we must consider what this new power may bring. It can and will lead to oppression if we do not design our system correctly. We must create a power that will oppose the power of the journalist when it comes to privacy rights. Thus we create an association made up of public citizens and civil rights associations that wish to focus on this specific issue. If a reporter (or a representative of Media Government) dares to try to manipulate or intimidate someone into revealing compromising personal information, even if it is relevant to a story, it should be frowned upon by the community of journalists and the general public. Therefore procedural, civil and/or legal protections and their remedies should apply. I feel that similar protections should apply to certain private corporations and their secrets (e.g. ? patents, technologies, etc?), and rules around celebrity harassment should apply as well. Although the community of journalists need to make it culture to not allow such behavior we cannot trust people with power to police their own power so we must create an association that will police journalists in regards to privacy rights violators.

The Privacy Rights Association will serve this purpose. This independent body will be a review board that serves as a watchdog over journalists that abuse their power. This should be a peer reviewed, democratic society. Those journalists that are found to be violators or irresponsible with the privacy rights of private persons or qualifying establishments will suffer a warning and they can be put under review to have their certification pulled. We cannot reprimand a reporter anymore than this, unless they actually break the law. Losing the power of expanded rights and potentially being blacklisted from enjoying such rights if abuse continues, should be incentive enough to prevent most if not all journalists from abusing their power.



The Journalist Protection Agency (JPA)

Media Government might recruit the assistance of the United States in protecting their sovereign rights as journalists and this could be part of the agreement between the two sovereign bodies ? the United States creates and makes available a protection service to the Media Government of the United States of America. Perhaps we would call this new government agency the Journalists Protection Agency (JPA).

Responsibilities, Features
? The JPA travels with journalists, always at journalists? request, JPA officials operate on the principle of consent, and protects the journalists? rights in situations where martial power might try to interfere or impede with journalists safety, rights to access, broadcast or expression. The JPA is always an advocate for journalists? rights. This is their role.
? JPA authority exceeds that of normal security personnel. JPA can and will arrest peace officers, public officials and any other persons interfering with journalistic work. Only select public officials (e.g. ? the President, Supreme Court Justices, etc?), secret service, FBI, and certain intelligence services remain beyond the authority of the JPA.
? The JPA remains independent of Media Government but has certain obligations. These obligations would equate to enforcing a set of positive rights being leveraged by the JPA against the government of the United States of America, sometimes in real time using appropriate martial force, if necessary, to secure these rights. These rights would be in regards to issues of journalist access, inquiry and freedom to broadcast.
? Only JPA officials with security clearances can attend events that are security sensitive. Differing level of security clearances can be determined by the United States and Media Government and settled upon by agreement of both parties. The United States should hold the greater weight in these discussions being that it necessarily holds state secrets in the interest of the public good and not the JPA or Media Government. The JPA does its utmost to insure that all JPA members meet all standards deemed appropriate by an officer in order to remain fair, accessible and independent of the influences of the government of the United States of America.
? JPA officials cannot be fired or reprimanded by Media Government except through laws of the United States, and by agreement of those laws, Media Government can find redress for inaction and culpability in a JPA agent failing to protect their charge.
? If they are not serving in their role a body created by Media Government, which rates JPA member performance can publish their performance for journalists to see.
? The JPA receives funding from Media Governments? discretionary budget, whose minimum and optimal funding level will be determined by Media Government and ratified through ongoing treaty agreements with the United States. In cases where Media Government cannot or will not pay for the JPA the United States will cover the costs of maintaining the JPA?s minimum level but retains the right to sue Media Government for damages in these instances.
? JPA officers combined authority and right to carry arms can potentially intimidate civilians into compliance with journalists. Oppression could come from the JPA in the form of abuse of citizens? rights to privacy. This could turn into an ugly breach of personal space and/or privacy rights. We might need to have a citizen?s body that regulates and watches the JPA for abuses of power against the public. Or we may find the local police can do this job just fine.
? A new oversight body could be set up, maintained and enforced by citizens of the U.S. government. We could call this JPA Citizen?s Watch and it could be imbued with authority over JPA officers in specific. This body does not carry weaponry. They do carry lots of surveillance equipment, handcuffs and karate chops (just kidding) to arrest suspected rogue JPA agents if necessary.


There are several potential problems I see with this arraignment:

? The JPA: could become a body that is used carte blanche as a martial power by Media Government. This would be a clear violation of powers and agreements within its own Constitution. Creation of the JPA might be a horrible ideal all together and an overreach of power. What happens if the Executor Advocate begins to call upon the services of the JPA? Now we effectively have a new martial authority with powers over matters of production of information ? a virtual king. This is a very very dangerous situation to a democracy. There must be a clear separation of powers between the JPA and the Executor. The JPA is an independent body and must remain that way. How do we accomplish this?
Perhaps the JPA commits to never allowing hierarchy in its ranks? They remain a strictly peer to peer society. They have no leaders and never will. Thus there is no consolidated power. But bribes and corruption can still happen between two parties wielding power, however little. Media Government officials could corrupt JPA members with gifts and bend them to their will. Perhaps the JPA is a bad idea but Media Government is alright? Perhaps the Executor Advocate is already filling the role of the JPA? Is this level of power even necessary?
I?ll weigh in and say that although I invented the JPA, I?m very suspicious of it as an entity with real martial power; in fact I believe it to be an overreach of power in our (the United States) society. Perhaps in other societies or situations the JPA makes sense? Perhaps it must be defanged a bit in order to be less ethically volatile in our society (i.e. - volatile with its power), as well as more ethically feasable as a systemic addition to our power structure? Perhaps the JPA should never bear arms? They can be imbued with real authority but not have the right to bear arms in any official capacity. They would still be the muscle of journalists, just no guns. Does this make them useless when journalists have the full power and weight of the Office of the Executor Advocate to call upon? Or perhaps they are an international service only, which brings up difficulties around the JPA and its legal legitimacy?
? Scientific pursuits may need to be explicitly excluded from the purview of Media Governments powers. The same goes for education. The fact that journals of science may fall under the purview of this government as a natural consequence, is a cause for concern to me. This is my opinion. I do not think that a consolidation of Standards of Truth under a single government banner is wise for all disciplines.
? We may not need Media Government, just some of its ideals. We could have the U.S. government oversee a journalistic peer-reviewed credentialing service. Through these credentials one bears the title ?journalist? and has expanded rights under our laws. Simple. We should emphasis that the government facilitates the credentialing process, not governs or controls it. If the state is making the rules around a peer reviewed society and how it should perform we are already in trouble. This is the danger of having a martial state this close to Standards of Truth powers. Also, now there is no Executor Advocate to back up journalists and courts will no longer consider the House of Journalists internal rulings as part of their own judgements. There could still be some sort of JPA, but it would be a full part of the state.
? Media Government may be a bad idea altogether. We may not want to consolidate the power of the production of Standards of Truth of the media into one entity. Having centralized services means the U.S. could just come in and shut it down (unless there are somehow systems in place or guarantees to protect the proxy state from the actual state) with its martial power (effectively ending freedom of the press/media) if the U.S. ever becomes corrupt and so inclined. Have we created the necessary safeguards to insure that this new invention doesn?t become a monster? Maybe conservative voices on this matter should hold sway?
? On the other hand, Media Government would effectively solve the problem of corporate corruption, bias and the erosion of journalism in our media services. We will now be able to trust our journalists because they will be independent voices, certified by their peers. Media Government could prove to be a useful tool, a boon for journalism, or it could prove to be a cumbersome and potentially dangerous mess. If we utilize such a tool we must design it well.






Social Currency Theory
Creating the Basis for a Social Currency

Semiotics and Language
Out of all the cultural artifacts that we can think of language comes to mind as perhaps the most important human invention ever. That is because so much of our thinking is based upon language. This means that much of our psychology is dependent upon our language for how we produce, interpret, store and realize meaning. Having language means that when we speak or think in language the world comes in aspects of semiotics. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and the study of meaning making as elements of communicative behavior.

In semiotics Charles Sanders Peirce, one of the founders of semiotics, described the relationship between the sign, what it represents and the interpreter as separate and ??not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs". [18] Charles Sanders Peirce ? devised his system of three categories. During the 20th century, the term "semiotics" was adopted to cover all tendencies of sign researches, including Ferdinand de Saussure's semiology, which began in linguistics as a completely separate tradition. Peirce adopted the term semiosis (or semeiosis) and defined it to mean an "action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence ". This specific type of triadic relation is fundamental to Peirce's understanding of "logic as formal semiotic". [19]






?


Symbols
Semiotics - The Theory And Study Of Signs And Symbols
In semiotics, the meaning of a sign is its place in a sign relation, in other words, the set of roles that it occupies within a given sign relation.
Two aspects of meaning that may be given approximate analyses are the connotative relation and the denotative relation. The connotative relation is the relation between signs and their interpretant signs. The denotative relation is the relation between signs and objects.
The Triadic Model Of The Sign
Separates the meaning of a sign into three distinct components:
1.The Representamen. Which is the medium, or ?sign vehicle?, through which the sign is represented. For example, this could be written/spoken words, a photograph, or a painting.
2.The Interpretant, or what is meant by the sign.
3. The Object, or that to which the sign refers.
(From Wikipedia)



Money

The 3 Functions Of Money

Medium of Exchange ?A medium of exchange must be portable and faithfully store data.

Unit of Account ? a unit of account is any system which provides a unit of measurement to represent real value of any item.

Store of Value ? a store of value must maintain predictable value for future use and be able to be used as an exchange for goods and services.

(from Wikipedia)
In the preceding picture we see that the interpretant (or signified for Saussure) is what the sign means. The representamen is the sign; (or signifier for Saussure) it can be a hand gesture, a smile, a cough, a sign, a word on a page, an equation, etc... The object is what the sign stands for; it is what is intended by the sign or symbol. This is Peirce?s model of how we create meaning out of a sign or a symbol. My purpose here is to impress upon the reader that this is happening in our minds all the time.

I agree with Saussure?s dyadic model as well and interpret it as representing a more rudimentary set of cognitive functions. Both describe a process in which we must refer to something in order to ascertain its meaning. Saussure just leaves out the subject (the interpretant in Peirce?s model) in the equation. There is no point of view associated with his model, being that there is no subject present. This creates the suggestion of self awareness in Peirce?s model and creates an interesting issue regarding consciousness and how we define that. The issue makes no difference to this argument.

Economics: a Semiotic phenomenon
It is clear that we are involved in semiotics when we use money as well. When we reduce goods and services to a representation of value on a piece of paper we are using symbols to make the transaction. This includes any type of capital ? real estate, stocks, cash, etc? Capital is a symbol of something with real value. It requires us to perform the exact same cognitive functions that Charles Peirce described in his triadic relation theory.

Consider that in a market environment individuals and groups of people conduct transactions using language and symbols. Symbols are innately a part of language, writing and money. So these people are utilizing the functions of Peirce?s triadic relation model with every transaction that they make. Furthermore money is a symbol.

A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign

A symbol is a mark, sign or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol

Money is a symbol because it is used to represent the value of another thing. This does not mean that additional meanings that are attached to money are also attached to semiotic processes. This just indicates that these kinds of meaning (the ones involved in semiotic processes) or more importantly, the process of creating these kinds of meaning (whatever meaning is attached to money) are the same for both money and semiotics. I will let other people argue about what kinds of meaning there are, what they are and how they are attached to money. I am only interested in the fact that semiotic processes are involved in the interpretation of money and capital.

The Three Functions of Money
Money or currency has three main functions. It is used as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. The medium of exchange for money is the bills and coins. The unit of account is the denominations of bills and coins (the different numbers on them) and the store of value is whatever the market says the dollar is worth. Each function requires aspects that enable its use for that function. Therefore, a unit of account is any system which provides a unit of measurement to represent real value of any economic item. We use the Arabic natural number set for ours. A medium of exchange must be portable and faithfully store data. A store of value must maintain predictable value for future use and be able to be used as an exchange for goods and services.

Language as Currency
In order to understand how the functions of money and semiotics are comparable to psychological and thus cultural functions we need to consider language. The power of language is expressed through speaking and writing, but only as a potential. Writing and speaking are a medium to transfer power ? in this case ideas and meaning. This power is realized when another person interprets the data and comprehends it. Some sort of a transfer of power has just taken place without anything actually occurring in a material sense. Just as takes place with money, there is no material exchange of goods. In economics there is an exchange or transfer of currency for the goods and/or services. When we actually consume the goods and/or services is when we realize the power of the currency, or money in this case. In the case of language power has been transferred in the form of ideas and meaning, or semantics. That power is realized after the process of interpretation and translation has led to a comprehension of the meaning or idea. It is further realized by the person who now possesses that power either as a new idea, affect, experience, sensation, thought, blueprints, etc...

As mentioned a unit of account is any system which provides a unit of measurement to represent the real value of any item. A medium of exchange must be portable and faithfully store data. A store of value must maintain predictable value for future use and be able to be used as an exchange for goods and services.

If we wanted to make an analogy to the three functions of money we would say that Store of Value in language is ideas and meaning. Ideas and meaning store value (meaning creates value over time: it is how we typically determine what we call culture) and meaning is used as an ?exchange? for all the various experiences of feelings, sensations, thoughts, ideas, etc? Furthermore, the value of a word is ?predictable? and can be used as an exchange of ideas and meaning.

The Medium of Exchange is writing and speaking. This is how we convey the meaning of the symbols we call words. We do so through a portable and faithful storage and transfer of data we call language.

The Unit of Account is grammar, which is broken down into syntax and morphology. Grammar is a way for us to create rules around word creation and sentence structure so grammar is a unit of measurement; grammar determines the importance and meaning of each word in a sentence. Grammar is a system of rules which provide a way to ?measure? meaning by using symbols (words) to refer to concepts and things in the world. The meaning of a word can change depending upon the syntax and/or the morphology of the



Language

GRAMMAR

There are two parts to grammar; morphology and syntax.
Morphology
One part of grammar is called Morphology. It has to do with the internal economy of words. So a word like bookkeepers has four morphemes (book, keep, -er, -s) and is put together with morphology. English doesn't have nearly as much morphology as most European languages; Russian grammar, for instance, has much more morphology than syntax. Russian is a synthetic (inflected) language.

Syntax
The other part is called Syntax. It has to do with the external economy of words, including word order, agreement; like the sentence For me to call her sister would be a bad idea and its syntactic transform It would be a bad idea for me to call her sister. That's syntax. English grammar is mostly syntax. English is an analytic (uninflected) language.
- In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language, usually including word order.

In mathematics, syntax refers to the rules governing the behavior of mathematical systems, such as formal languages used in logic.
Semantics
Semantics pertains to the meaning of words and sentences. It is a branch of linguistics that studies meaning. Even if syntax and grammar are correct and according to rules, a sentence may have no meaning. In conversation, semantics is used to itself mean meaning of a concept or a word. Take a look at the following example. Semantics refers to the meaning which could be denotation, connotation, extension, or intention.
(From Wikipedia)

word. This means that the rules of grammar and the expression of the word, or its internal economy, can both change the meaning of a word.

Remember that semiotics is the study of meaning making involving symbols. Language deals with meaning making on a more system-wide scale, whereas semiotics is involved in a very discreet process. They are both involved with meaning interpretation, translation and creation. This means that language can not only be considered currency, as has been demonstrated, but it is also a potent carrier of meaning. Meaning will become important when we define ?power? as one of three currency characteristics.

In order to create an analogue ?cultural? currency we need to define parameters which have the necessary qualities to be considered for each function of our currency. These parameters need to be psychological in nature because culture is a social phenomenon and social reality necessarily involves psychology. We will need a medium, a unit of account and store of value in order to faithfully transport the power of meaning along our virtual lines of social current.


Medium Defined
I propose that beliefs are a medium of psychological reality. Beliefs are typically defined as a state of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing. It also includes something that is accepted to be true or held to be true as opinion. Consider that there can be no meaning without beliefs. Beliefs store ideas, sensations and experiences and are quite portable for meanings. Beliefs carry all sorts of meaning inside them. Beliefs are the ?sign vehicle? of meaning. They are like a picture that tells a story. The story is the various meanings in the picture. Our beliefs are what we use to make assessments about the world. If we believed radically different things than we do now then we would react in very different ways to the world based upon those beliefs. What we believe about ourselves and the world determines what we find important, meaningful, significant, desirable, avoidable or neutral in our perspective. Beliefs are full of meaning. Meanings are not necessarily full of beliefs. As semiotics has demonstrated meaning can come in very discreet bits of information such as a sign encapsulates.

Being that we are discussing social realities and therefore psychology I need to define what a person is since we are using a person?s beliefs as the medium. I define the concept of ?person? as being a person?s ?sphere of influence? and ?area of perception?. These mark our boundaries as a being in the world. It does not conceptually matter where and when such influence evolves or looks at any given moment, just that it does have a demarcation line. This conceptual space we call a ?person?. Which is the mind and body of the person in question. It contains that which inherently gives a person value and meaning. So our person has a sphere of reality in which they perceive and have agency. In this sphere all the meaning making, interpretation, etc?happen. This is where we apply our beliefs to the world around us. This is our Medium.


The 3 Functions of SocialCurrency

? Currency needs a Medium of exchange. Beliefs are a medium for meanings. Bit Coin is a potential medium for SocialCurrency. Language uses writing and speaking as a medium. Music uses sound.

? Currency needs a System/Unit of account in which to operate. In music there are 12 tones, in money various denominations and in language grammar. A person is considered a system.

? Currency has to refer to something with real value. It has no real power on its own. Its only a way to access Power. In economics this ability to preserve real value (in capital) into the future is called a store of value. A store of value is anything that retains predictable value (power) into the future and can be used as an exchange for goods and services. This would equate to meaning for concepts, ideas, feelings, experiences, sensations, etc... This would include semantics for language, affect for music, etc?

3 Functions Of Money 3 Aspects Of Language

Medium of Exchange Speaking or Writing

Unit of Account Grammar

Store of Value Semantics

Triadic Relational Theory

Representamen Medium or ?sign vehicle?
Interpretant The meaning intended
Object That which the sign refers to

System Defined
If we interpolate the meaning and purpose of a unit of account we could see it as a means of differentiating the values of things. It is just a simple system of creating hierarchy. With the U.S. dollar, our Arabic numeral system is our unit of account (using natural numbers) and can be defined as a system. The mathematics that results from the numeral system can certainly be defined as a system.

If we look at a definition of system we get:
A system is a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming an integrated whole. Every system is delineated by its spatial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described by its structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System
This is exactly what a human being is. We are a system. We could see our body as our medium, our brain as our unit of account and our potential labor as our store of value. This would be a physiological definition of a human being. But what we need is a unit of account that is an ethereal complicated process of belief systems and their meanings. So what is missing from this definition are cognitive realities. We need a more inclusive, psychologically friendly definition:

A system is a regularly interacting or interdependent group of things forming an integrated whole. Every system is delineated by its spatial, temporal and conceptual boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described by its structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning. This concept includes any ideas, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences, sensations, etc?

This is our Unit of Account. This is our System. It is contained within the medium just like a cell contains mitochondria. Mitochondrion is the factory inside of a cell which produces proteins and supplies the cell with energy as well. Our System is contained within the conceptual membrane of our medium just like the insides (the system) of a bacterium, for example, are within its cell wall. The cells biological ?System? and ?Medium? combined delivers power to target cells just as our conceptual system delivers power to its target, which is the person interpreting the meaning of the currency in question.


Power Defined
When considering a store of value we must consider what value is. It is a form of power. It is an aspect of power. When we speak of value in an economic sense we speak of goods and services. Goods and services are forms of power. Usefulness, the ability to sustain life and well being all have to be considered forms of power. Power is usually defined as the ability or capacity to do something. Since I am interested in social reality I need a psychological definition of power. What has power to the mind?

Meaning has power to a mind. It has the power to make us feel, believe, think, interpret and dictates a person?s intent and responses. We create either a dynamic or static relationship between things in our mind when we create meaning or ascertain the value of something. This is because we create either a static state or a hierarchy as a necessary component of creating meaning and/or value assessments. For example consider the value of money, cars, words, ideas, food and beliefs as compared to other things of same nature. There is necessarily either equality or a hierarchy to all things that we compare. We can even compare things of a different nature and make value judgments. We make value judgments about and between almost everything there is. This is a necessary part of navigating the world around us.

Value has meaning to us because what is valued grants us power ? the ability to do something we would not otherwise be able to do, feel, think, recall, etc?The lack of power grants us meaning for the exact opposite reason and such experiences can be some of the most powerful ones that we remember ? those times when we suffer trauma. For this reason meaning is a sort of exchange between feelings, sensations, experiences, thoughts, ideas, beliefs and values. It is also what powers our entire existence. Without meaning there would be no reason to get out of bed in the morning, make friends, avoid a tiger, feed yourself, think, etc? All living creatures have meaning associated with their psychologies because without meaning they would suffer the same fate as we do. Even an automaton that reacts to a stimulus can be said to have ascertained the meaning of the stimulus if the reaction was an appropriate one.

This is our Store of Value. If we want to draw a parallel to the semiotic triadic theory of Charles Peirce this is our interpretant. It is also the object. Both meaning and reality hold power. Therefore, the interpretant is that which the sign is meant to represent; the meaning contained in the sign and the object is what constitutes both real things in the world and/or virtual aspects of the world, such as ideas, thoughts and concepts. What is real is powerful in the world because it is what is inherently full of meaning. Because of this I interpolate from these two of the three elements of the triadic relation theory that a combination of these two terms into one constitutes a translation of terminology into terms of pure power. Meaning is power to a mind. This is our Power.

There is an interesting analog between electrical currency and our SocialCurrency in that they both require a medium to transport value, or power. The ?value? of electricity can fluctuate with the flow of current and the voltage. Voltage is potential energy. Current indicates the intensity or flow of electrons through the wire. We calculate voltage times current to compute the power output, which we call wattage. This is how we express value or power in electrical terms. We call it watts. The medium is a wire and the system is the laws of physics; Maxwell?s equations and Quantum mechanics to be precise. This is just an analog, but just as is the case with biological entities, I find it conceptually interesting that nature has taken these forms and that SocialCurrency seems to mimic natural functions of currency and information storage. These are analogies only.


SocialCurrency


Now that we have discussed the formulation and creation of currency and its working elements lets investigate some possible applications of currency creation. We will call our new currency SocialCurrency and refer to all instruments that are derived from its nature as Social Capital. Our SocialCurrency is something of virtual value. This means it is only a fantasy right now. We want it to have inherent currency value. So we do what
Bit Coin has done. We make our currency flow. Bit Coin is a pure fantasy that has taken flight due to the sheer audacity of its continued existence. It is literally backed by?nothing. Therefore there is nothing to invest trust in and nothing to deliver. The notoriety and rarity of the coin itself is what gives it value. It has an inherent value to the currency itself. It has inherent currency value. The notoriety is what gives this currency meaning. Remember, it has power because we say that it does! Its popularity has made it relevant. It is like the Kim Kardashian of currency. Not anymore though, cause mama?s got some real money backing her now! People buy and sell Bit Coin with good old U.S. dollars.

We recruit social media platforms as a means of advertising our currency. We require a good marketing campaign and an icon to represent SocialCurrency. The more eyes on our currency the more inherent currency value it gains and the more our market gains in notoriety. If we assume our social media campaign was a success our currency will now have a bit of inherent currency value from this alone. The more people who see our currency the more the currency itself has real marketing power and therefore even more inherent currency value. So if our currency gains visibility and notoreity then we have done a good job of loading up the currency itself with value.

I would love to see funding become available for social media platform inventions. I think that competition amongst different platforms would be a good thing and if they were designed to all cross talk then it would be all the better for our capital and for those companies once we get to market creation. One created specifically for interface with the Social Currency Market would be optimal.

Our currency still has no actual value associated with it and therefore no real power that it carries. We still have no Medium, System or defined Power for this currency either. Another reason Bit Coin is only so relevant is it has no defined Power to carry and no System to grant it meaning. Bit Coin is only a Medium in and of itself.



SCM
SocialCurrencyMarket


Creating something that has virtual value and praying it gets popular is a paltry way to create value although it did work for Bit Coin. To give Bit Coin credit, its notoriety is because of the value of the incredible algorithm which makes up Bit Coin itself. The value of Bit Coin as a medium is its ability to self generate and self regulate its currency. We want our currency to have actual value. A powerful way to accomplish that is to create a marketplace for our currency. We will call this marketplace the SocialCurrencyMarket or SCM. Our SocialCurrency will gain actual value when we create indexes and valuations of corporations based upon Standards of Ethic that will be tied to our currency. This will be explained below. Because ethics matter to people, and corporate behavior matters we are now offering something of real value to the public. We are giving them a way to ethically evaluate a local, regional national or international corporation based upon some known baselines. This may affect the way they invest. If the SCM becomes successful enough, the SocialCurrencyMarket may even come to effect public policy decisions.



A Sample SocialCurrencyMarket

Public Business Plan

Calling All Entrepreneurs!
This is how we create our System: in order to create this marketplace we require a multitude of professional and amateur entrepreneurs who would like to evalute, examine, register and collate into an indexing system the multitude of corporations on the market. This can be a Wikipedia type of project. I envision this effort being a literal army of people involved in creating pages just like people do on Wikipedia. The system needs to be designed with the database that will access it in mind from the beginning. I suggest using an opensource peer to peer platform like Linux for our database engine. We could call this platform WikiSocialCurrency and create other interfaces which could access our Wiki pages easily for us. We will also need to create a software program to authenticate contributions, citations and to pay people with.


The SCM Society

The Community of Entrepreneurs

The Community of Entrepreneurs is the body comprised of authors and various contributors to the creation of the SCM or an acknowledged author(s) of a creation utilized by the SCM and the Community of Entrepreneurs. The Community of Entrepreneurs is a democratic body based upon the egalitarian principle of one person one vote. Creations and authors who are deemed to have attempted to defraud SocialCurrencyMarket or SocialCurrency or the Community of Entrepreneurs principles of sovereignty, public service and democratic process will be removed from the Community of Entrepreneurs permanently. We can expect corporate America to try and edit our pages. We can only let verified editors continue to contribute. If someone maliciously deletes material or puts up effusive unverifiable or verifiably false information, they will be cited by the Community of Entrepreneurs or the Board of Entrepreneurs, which will be discussed below, if behavior continues they will be penalized and if violations continue they will finally be removed from the community. The Community of Entrepreneurs is the body that elects the Board of Entrepreneurs through private, accountable, verifiable means of voting.


The Board of Entrepreneurs

The Board of Entrepreneurs is the body that issues YouRockStock, a Social Capital instrument of the Community of Entrepreneurs. The Board also fixes the value of YouRockStock in terms of shares of SocialCurrency that the Capital Instrument represents. The Board of Entrepreneurs members cannot accrue YouRockStock while they serve on the Board of Entrepreneurs. Board members will be paid a stipend or a percentage of whatever is acquired by those working under their stewardship as a straight salary, whatever the Community of Entrepreneurs decides. If their compensation is a percentage then such a percentage should be arrived upon through an equitable algorithm that all members of the Community of Entrepreneurs can abide by. Anyone serving on the Board of Entrepreneurs does so as an acknowledged act of service. Members of the Board of Entrepreneurs cannot vote for their own pay, instead they bring the issue up for vote by the Community of Entrepreneurs, whose membership will eventually be comprised solely of owners of YouRockStock. The Board of Entrepreneurs must maintain proof of membership records. The Board should have limited powers extending to protection of the integrity of the Central Issuance Currency capital, including all of its derivatives and the sovereignty of SocialCurrency and SCM.



SCM By-Laws

YouRockStock
We pay the Community of Entrepreneurs by funding our project with startup money that is considered clean. We also pay our Community of Entrepreneurs by giving them a special form of stock that only a member of the Community of Entrepreneurs can obtain. This stock can be liquified into SocialCurrency. We?ll call it YouRockStock. There should be good growth and value to YouRockStock because our SocialCurrency is gaining value from: media exposure, which increases its inherent currency value; our Standards of Ethic is growing in scope, depth and relevance, which increases its actual value because it carries ethical assets with real value; and from our Mutual Funds which have given our stock actual value backed by real value in the form of capital assets. All of these factors indicate that SCM assets should gain real dollar value sooner rather than later. When our marketplace has enough peoples attention (i.e.- due to the marketing of corporate image) the SCM, or SocialCurrencyMarket will eventually show up on Wall Street, then YouRockStock capital will become potentially meaningful in terms of real dollars.

Dirty Money and SCM Sovereignty
If the Community of Entrepreneurs accepts outside funding or gifts in the form of money, capital, goods and/or services or anything else of real or intellectual value, such gifts will be considered a Public Grant. Otherwise it is dirty money and is unacceptable. The charter agreement amongst those Community of Entrepreneurs is that members and entities representing any interests of the Community of Entrepreneurs will only take outside funding that is a Public Grant or else they forfeit all of their interests, rights, currency and earnings in SocialCurrency. A Public Grant consists of grants (no loans accepted) which are in the trust of the Board of Entrepreneurs for the explicit use of developing and expanding the SCM System. Developing and expanding the SCM System includes the powers of allocation and distribution of said funds to the Community of Entrepreneurs members. This agreement should include a breach of contract clause which would allow the Community of Entrepreneurs, represented by the Board of Entrepreneurs to come after potential offender(s) and sue them in court as well.

The Board of Entrepreneurs and the Community of Entrepreneurs retain the right to create, develop and formulate whatever bodies they deem necessary for the management of the SCM, SocialCurrency and its derivatives. The only way our market loses its sovereignty now is if our Board gets greedy and gets bought up. Therefore we hold elections to the Board every year and make it beyond the power of the Board to dissolve, sell any part of or exchange title of ownership of the institution of SocialCurrency or the SCM. Term limits can only be changed by the Community of Entrepreneurs. The corporate charter should make it explicit that the creations of SCM and SocialCurrency are in the public domain.


Mandatory Liquidization Clause
When the Community of Entrepreneurs begin spending their capital they will flood the system with liquid SocialCurrency. This means the Board of Entrepreneurs will need to make a mandatory liquidation of capital assets clause in their charter that indicates how, how much and when the Community of Entrepreneurs will all collectively release their capital to the market and how much they will collectively and individually be able to save. If the Community of Entrepreneurs don?t spend and just hoard then there will be no money in the System and therefore no way for the System to operate. If we run out of liquid capital in the form of say, Bit Coins, then we can still always trade in Social Capital instruments but the system needs something to initially ?prime? it. If we adopt Bit Coins then this problem is solved.


The Standards of Ethic
The Crucial First and Last Step

One of the first projects we would need to begin working on is defining of our Standards of Ethic. This will be the guts of our System. My hope is to bring together a peer reviewed society from a multitude of disciplines. This would be optimal in acquiring brilliant minds and vetting out the best ideas. This will be a comprehensive study of ethics. This is needed in order to consider the plethora of intertwined disciplines which must touch upon the issue of corporate ethical behavior which our Standards of Ethic needs to address. So this will be a monumental two step process 1) create a Standards of Ethic which will define our System and 2) create a database of WikiSocialCurrency pages which will define our Power.

When we create the Standards of Ethic utilizing the best peer reviewed sources we can find on subjects that are full of subjective potential and systemic fluidity as ethics and economics, we do the very best to ensure an equitable baseline for the sovereigns of the union, e.g.-as workers or as local and/or regional community members, in regards to respective firms and industries in question. Social Power Theory, utilizing a sovereignty power system, clarifies the relationship of power to ethics in an ethically nuetral, functional capacity. The combination of these two systems, an entrepreneurial peer system of review and Social Power Theory, should assist pre-existing sources in finding a standard of rating and credibility that promotes justice around egalitarian principles regarding power and its ethical applications in modern business.

The good news is that there is so much poor corporate social value out there that once the Standards of Ethic is done, we just need to attach value to those corporations which are desireable, valuable indexes in our marketplace to begin with. We rate the big industry good guys first. Or we could begin rating a local or regional market. We move out from there and effectively build an Atlas of American businesses.

These businesses might help fund our efforts since we will be giving them favorable marketing. This is also a way to fund our entrepreneurs efforts as long as the money isn?t considered dirty, which we will define later. The more we build the Standards of Ethic, the more we become relevant, the more we attract funds, the more we get paid, so we build the Standards of Ethic more, which makes us more relevant, which attracts more funds, etc?

When our definition is completed and applied to our WikiSocialCurrency indexing system these Standards of Ethic will be what our currency refers to and what gives our currency real power. We now have our Power. Our currency now has actual value because it is carrying real power now. Meaning has Power to a mind. Just like an electrical wire carries a supply of current with real power and dollars carry real power our currency now is lit up with real Power now! Now we have a System and Power but we still need a Medium. Without a medium there is no way to deliver that power. In its present state our project is still no more valuable than Bit Coin. Speaking of which?


Our Medium ? Bit Coin

It is funny that no one is really using Bit Coin for any real purpose yet ? it is just a vehicle sitting out there for someone to attach value and meaning to it. I suggest the Community of Entrepreneurs commandeer it for our purposes. An algorithm like Bit Coin would work very well and could act as our currency creation and delivery method and would be our Medium for our Currency. When we attach our meaning (Standards of Ethic) to Bit Coin we will eventually make it SocialCurrency. It will eventually just become such by cultural assumption. If this sounds fantastic to you, remember that currency carries real power because we all say that it does! If we relate Bit Coin to our SocialCurrency icon we will have recruited Bit Coin for our services and Bit Coin will finally have some teeth and meaning to it! Those who own Bit Coin right now will gain instant value and can look forward to eventually having a market place that gives their coin some potential real meaning in terms of ethical value as well as a substantial increase in real dollar value. All for doing?nothing. I don?t see this as being anything but an opportunity for everyone involved. This would become our Medium. Now we have a Medium and a System to deliver our Power with!

Central Issuance Currency
Bit Coin will become our Central Issuance Currency. Central Issuance Currency is the base currency upon which the market compares all other assets. For example, since our Central Issuance Currency is Bit Coin then Bit Coin carries ultimate meaning in the SocialCurrencyMarket or SCM, being that all capital instruments and market values are compared to the value of Bit Coin. This is the same as saying the U.S. Dollar is the main currency on Wall Street and all other valuations of the market are compared to the value of the dollar. This is true for Wall Street because Wall Street values all changes in market value based upon a currency. That currency is the U.S. dollar. It is possible that other SCM mediums and Social Capital Instruments may supercede Bit Coin in significance as the SCM grows in significance.

A Finite Currency
A currency like Bit Coin is perfect for our application purposes for a second reason; it is a finite currency making it a rare resource. One day Bit Coin will stop creating more coins. This is the way the algorithm is designed. Our Central Issuance Currency cannot be an endlessly printed medium. It must be limited because the body of people working on the System will also be limited in scope and need. We need a specialized, limited Central Issuance Currency for a group of specialized, limited personnel. We don?t want a Medium that can be abused by over circulation of the Medium.

A Divisible Currency
Another great thing about Bit Coin is that it is divisible by eight digits! That means as purchases are made in fractions of a ?Bit Coin? the value of Bit Coin goes up. This means the supply of whole Bit Coins goes down though. This doesn?t matter because we ?create? more currency through division. We keep using smaller and smaller units as the value of the coin goes up. We can apply names to divisable units of Bit Coin. For example, we could say that anything that is .10 or greater in Bit Coin Value is a denomination of hundreds of SocialCurrency units. This would make our base denomination .001. The base denomination will change as our market gains in meaning, notoriety and popularity.

Now our SocialCurrency has Power, a System and a Medium! We are now locked and loaded and ready to deliver Power to a target. Our target will be the American people?s conscience. This is our target because we are in effect dealing in morality. We have now used the power of currency to put our money where our morals are.


Social Capital

Mutual Funds
In order for our SocialCurrency to have more leverage we need to tie it to a more leverageable asset. We want it to be associated to something with real capital value: capital assets. Creation of mutual funds based upon a portfolio of SocialCurrencyMarket (SCM) evaluated assets with high SocialCurrency and strong real market value is one way to conflate another currency to ours and tie real capital assets to our currency. We might have a mutual fund that is all the grocery outlets in the U.S. that have been in business for over ten years with confirmable positive capital assets ratings (easier said than done!) and that rate high on the SCM, preferably for several different unique Social Currencies, including the Central Issuance Currency ? our SocialCurrency, or Bit Coin for example. The above is just one example of a Social Capital instrument (Mutual Fund) which can be created in order to invent real value and attach it to our SocialCurrency and its Capital derivatives including YouRockStock.

Portfolio Creation
We need to make sure our portfolio is performing well so that our currencies? real value grows over time and doesn?t fluctuate too much. This is where financial experts come in to select the businesses that will comprise these types of instruments. Perhaps we find brilliant, experienced minds that wish to lend us time and help us create a few brilliant mutual funds or vet some assets for our use? Or perhaps we can get financial businesses to lend resources? Creation of a solid portfolio would enhance the real value of our various social currencies by creating a real world, solid asset backing. Now our Central Issuance Currency ? SocialCurrency (Bit Coin), would have a real value foundation and so would the entries in WikiSocialCurrency that were part of a portfolio. These entries would now be based not only upon ethical responses but real world business assets. There would be additional consequences to the business evaluations associated with the SocialCurrencyMarket (SCM): consequences in terms of public opinion, visibility and overall market value in an ever expanding and therefore relevant market (SCM).

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing!
Creating our Mutual Fund portfolio is one thing, making them marketable and saleable is another matter. This is where we need a great sales and marketing team. Although the presence and relevance of the SCM will itself dictate, in large part, the success or failure of a marketing campaign we will want to use all marketing resources available to us to enhance this effort. Associating these businesses to a set of ethics that a large swath of the population can approve of and enabling that population with easy access to credible ethical and fiscal information combined with the opportunity to directly invest in those businesses will be the key selling points of our campaign. If we cannot accomplish the quality goals indicated above or attract a good amount of funding through this source then we will have to try another, innovative strategy or improve the Standards of Ethics and wait for the SCM to gain in noteriety.

Unique Social Capital Instruments
SocialCurrency (Bit Coin) will be enhanced by the creation of multiple capital instruments. These instruments could in turn have their own ?coin? or derivative SocialCurrency instruments based upon a different set of bottom lines culled from the Standards of Ethic. We could have an instrument for worker satisfaction, exploitation index, community involvement, environmental record, plurality of employee representation, corporate criminal record, etc?all tied to our Bit Coin SocialCurrency.

The creation of alternate coin and therefore multiple Standards of Ethics of differing standards of ethical bottom lines will be essential in creating a conversation and milieu around our SocialCurrency. Offering the public multiple insightful products that define and contrast different perspectives that the market has to offer will enhance the useability and viability of the SCM. This mystique will be everything. There should be, under the surface, no question as to what is the cause of such mystique ? reliability must be the cause. Our Standards of Ethics is our main product, our brand and image, our greatest marketing tool and the substance of the entire endeavor of the SCM and SocialCurrency.


Sustainable Success

The Standards of Ethic and Success of the SCM
If we have created a good foundation, we can begin capturing more and more of the market. The unique Power which we are carrying with our SocialCurrency is the power of the meaning that our Standards of Ethic represents to the public. In other words, if people care about corporate behavior enough and we have done a good enough job of creating a fair and therefore meaningful Standards of Ethic then we can expect to grow. As I mentioned in the beginning, everything will come down to how meaningful our Standards of Ethics are to the general public. As we mature and create mutual funds the market will simultaneously target investors in particular. This means we will require a team of business analysts. We may wish to team up with various investment firms who would be willing to partner with the SCM on a pro bono basis or a mutually beneficial basis. No breach of sovereignty by the Board of Entrepreneurs to the Community of Entrepreneurs should be allowed. Refer to the section on Dirty Money.

A New Fort Knox? Or A Road To Oppression?
Another way to back our currency with another currency which represents capital assets is to create a sort of ?Federal Fund? or main bank, sell shares of SocialCurrency to the public and hold real dollars in a vault. Of course this scenario invites either massive corruption or else massive accountability measures to ensure our capital stays safe and in the public domain. The upside is that we would now have real dollar backing to SocialCurrency. We would need a real world Fort Knox or something for this though. This would also make the value of SocialCurrency fluctuate with the value of the U.S. dollar. We could alleviate this somewhat by buying gold with our dollars. That requires more than just imagination to protect. It requires muscle. The securing of real world assets is ultimately based upon martial power. We cannot allow the state to have any control whatsoever over SocialCurrency. And backing it with federal gold would be just such an action. This gives the state power over a Standards of Truth process. That is unacceptable to have in the hands of the state. Our Standards of Ethic project is an open sourced public project of peer reviewed professionals and must remain independent.

The Path To A Moral Wall Street?
Since our market will trade in ethics in the form of Social Currencies and various Social Capital assets that will trade in cross market platforms, we can capture real capital and bring it under the influence of social mores. Eventually our market could show up on Wall Street as a regular index. Who knows, society may have a ?Wall Street Revolution? and demand Social Capital take a prominent role in the overall market valuation structure of Wall Street itself! This may be the way we cut the balls off the bull! Or cut the bull#%@! out of Wall Street.
MCM
MediaCurrencyMarket


The Fourth Estate
The media is considered the ?Fourth Estate? of the government ? an unofficial arm of the democratic state because the media is a critical function of a free society (the issue at root of having a free, plural and fair media is maintaining a current, ongoing Standard of Truth). This is because without good information the public is in the dark and therefore has lost agency in decision making even if the public itself remains unaware of this fact. This is deadly to a democracy. This is our state of affairs. A form of public assessment and ethical, direct input into media operations would alleviate some of the appalling apathy on the part of the mainstream autocratic media to address societies needs. The creation of a new type of currency and marketplace should help with this problem by providing a platform for the public to have direct input to the media and each other.


MediaCurrency

Another way to back currency is through government fiat capital*. This is how we will provide the public with liquid access to media decision making. Involving state power is safe to do in this instance because the government is not involved with a Standards of Truth process here. The MCM is a communication platform device, not an information processing source.

The government will distribute a special type of Social Capital: MediaCurrency. The public would effectively vote on thematic media material; programs, issues, channels, stations, etc?by spending their specialized, government issued MediaCurrency. The utilization of emojees for more specific expression enables even more specific market analysis of public sentiments. The MCM should be designed to enable easy use of emojees as attached values of MediaCurrency.

Logistics of MediaCurrency
MediaCurrency would be a precious item and would be a specific type of SocialCurrency created for a special purpose. There would only be allocated a certain amount a year per citizen. Issuance of MediaCurrency may be deemed to be necessary more often than once a year. The issuance of MediaCurrency twice a year will enable people more levity in public expressiveness but reduces the accuracy of the currency as an indicator of public passion. Every citizen gets the same amount. An algorithm that authenticates

*I want to note that this exercise in creating the MCM and MediaCurrency can be done as a opensource public platform as well.


identity but retains anonymity will be critical to securing privacy. Something secure like PayPal should work.

Consumer Spending Strategies
MediaCurrency will serve as a sort of panic button to get attention on issues or concerns as well as highlight what is desirable or exciting as a persistent trend. You could spend your MediaCurrency all in one place or spread it around. The consumer would need to be prudent in their expenditure of MediaCurrency. This would be a limited resource by its nature. That will be part of what gives MediaCurrency power. The rarity of the currency equates to sincerity of use by the public. We want people to mean it when they use MediaCurrency. The public should spend MediaCurrency wisely because they will learn that it has real power. It is our direct voice to the media market and to each other. Minority channels with passionate viewers can spend all their capital in one place if they choose and really bolster the stations MediaCurrencyMarket value. This would be a desperation move. This should not replace other SocialCurrency instruments compatible for use with the MCM that would allow an ongoing response to media. The creation of the MCM presents huge opportunities for new SocialCurrency capital instruments and currency creation as they become part of an expanding, entrepreneurial environment defined by the MCM and its relationship to other markets.

Purchasing MediaCurrency?
If the public decides by a persistent referendum, that it is prudent we could let people spend money to buy assets in our marketplace (MCM) that they can use to bolster their MediaCurrency consumer presence. We would use the funds for public service programs. The maximum purchase should be an affordable fraction of whatever an average middle class person earned last year. This kind of currency is direct influence and money should be very limited in its ability to purchase here, if allowed at all. This would give people with a desperate urge a last minute chance if they had already spent their MediaCurrency. It would also give minorities a bit more umph to bring the value up on their issues, channels, etc?


YouSuckBucks

There is a need for another instrument in our MCM. We need a way for people to directly voice their displeasure at the media. So we need to create another kind of currency. We?ll call this YouSuckBucks. YouSuckBucks is a way to make the real value of a program plummet based upon currency value to per person ratios. YouSuckBucks is government issued MediaCurrency. Initial distributions of YouSuckBucks should be limited to maintain the integrity of YouSuckBucks as an accurate indicator of public opinion. I have two proposed ways to distribute additional YouSuckBucks to the public:

1) The first method is to limit the amount of currency per citizen, so that it reflects a certain amount of influence equal to everyone else regardless of capital spent (as in one person one vote). This should be achieved by strict government issuance of YouSuckBucks.

2) You can buy all the YouSuckBucks you want. YouSuckBucks would be cheap and available to the public. If you got the passion, let ?em know what you think! Public broadcasting loves your passion! All purchases of YouSuckBucks only by authorized personnel. This means you have to be a citizen of the U.S. to purchase YouSuckBucks. This type of system allows the wealthy or zealous to plummet values of programs, with a per person rating governing the system to keep dollar valuations in check, but this system also sends lots of dollars to public programming. This effectively weakens the strength of YouSuckBucks as a market indicator of negative public concern. It would take an enormous amount of YouSuckBucks to trigger a Hot Button Vote (discussed later) or cause the real value to plummet significantly in this scenario.

Ratings appearing on the MCM would be based upon per person factors in order to stress their importance. If enough people spend YouSuckBucks on a theme: a program, network, station or issue; it will show up on the MCM as a negative trend. The program, network or station will get the message and so will advertisers. An issue will garner public attention. We could even attach other currencies to our YouSuckBucks like an emojee to give it a directed message. The MCM could be designed to accommodate certain general ?emojee? types of expressions. Then you could really get more specific with how you wanted to ?express yourself?. YouSuckBucks should come with the provision of commiting a portion of your money to the public broadcasting program of your choice. Once again we could use something like PayPal to facilitate this program.



The MediaCurrency Market (MCM)

Passion, Interest Trends on the MCM
What drives our currency is its scarcity, government sponsored nature and the fact that it will have a marketplace. We create a market for our new currencies and give it a name like MCM or MediaCurrencyMarket. Citizen MediaCurrency spending would show up as increased thematic values: as corporate, channel, issue or program values in our marketplace. The market would reflect media capital ?spending? trends. This is instant visibility and marketing information. The more capital around an issue, outfit, program, channel, etc?the more valuation. This means that issues can show up on the MCM. Things that the media didn?t cover like Standing Rock would have shown up on the MCM as a ?passion trend?, as involved people began to spend their saved Media Capital on this emergency. As a consumer this means we would all have to learn to spend our Media Capital wisely because we will learn that it has real power. It is our direct voice to the media market and each other. I think that media networks will both love and hate this idea; it will both regulate them and it creates an amazing market analysis tool.

General Suggested Thematic Categories
Market indices can be created by the public on a simple posting sight like Reddit. This posting sight would preferably be an opensource creation in order to optimize its useability and applicablility. General Suggested Thematic Categories will be created in order to catalyze, organize and collate discussions. Use of a medium such as Twitter might work well to track trends (# a theme and trolling for popularity before spending actual MediaCurrency might be a good general strategy as a consumer, in getting value for your MediaCurrency). Creation of a new social media platform for express use with the MCM is recommended but not necessary. This tool will allow people to respond to one another in real time regarding themes that show up on the MCM.

Subsidies
Market indices that indicate lower viewer traffic (these rates would need to be determined) but an ongoing high passion rating due to sustained high MCM valuation would receive subsidies, if these were corporate entities. This would otherwise alert the public to passionate interest in a trending issue as indicators rise. This is how we give voice to minority viewpoints.

Fee Rates and MCM Valuation
Use fee rates to programs and corporations would apply based upon valuations as well as attached valuations based upon other currencies such as SocialCurrency. There could even be a threshold of devaluation that could provoke a vote by the general public to pull the lease from a corporation. Perhaps utilizing a Hot Button Media Voting* system to determine this would be equitable. In order for the government to adopt SocialCurrency as a part of the fee rate system it would only be fair to business if such currency were a 1) transparent well known Standards of Ethic and 2) a plurality of the population had demanded such Standards of Ethic be included as part of valuation by Federal law.

MediaCurrency Integrity
MediaCurrency should never be allowed to conflate with other currencies. It must be its own system with its own integrity. MediaCurrency itself is a holy thing and even considering purchasing it with money is playing with fire. It must retain its own integrity and remain independent of other currencies. Maintaining currency integrity means that high MCM valuation will be a reflection of real public interest in a program, theme, issue, channel, etc?and low MCM valuations in terms of YouSuckBucks ratings, will likewise be a reflection of real public passion. Emojee ratings should likewise be fluid, yet easily codified in order to accurately reflect public opinion.

Unique Social Currencies may be tied to the value of the corporations that appear on the MCM and this would reflect in our marketplace. Unique Social Currencies can and should be tied to traditional market currencies where possible. As long as no values are tied to MediaCurrency itself this type of currency is acceptable.


MCM Interfaces
Due to the sheer volume of information taken into consideration by the market, the MCM will need an interface for easy public consumption. User accessability, management features and even personal strategy planners would be included in an MCM interface. Private corporations would provide services which organize channel searches and theme selection. There would need to be some sort of non-proprietary software like a Linux type of creation to serve as the core of this system. This core would be the management system of a product. This is how we create a standardized user platform that can be personalized. There would be all sorts of MCM interfaces available for purchase. Some MCM interfaces would be a collection of channels around an issue, trend or themes others may be more utilitarian and analytical in nature. You could have a progessive, liberal, conservative, UFO lovers, animal lovers, etc?channel with all sorts of those kinds of voices featured on that channel. The viewer would have a selection of well produced and marketed theme selection and search engine services available to them. Consumers would purchase the interface(s) that fit their preferences.




Hot Button Media Voting

The public airways should be about public access, public protection, public rights as well as public entitlements to natural resources; namely the limited resources of the radio and television bandwidths. Corporations are using the public airways so they need to pay us a lease fee for such use. It?s only fair. We own it, we get to charge them for it?s use. We can charge whatever we like as well. If we don?t like corporate news or entertainment, we can let them know by charging them up the wazoo for their lease.

Any media outlet operating on the public airways should be subject to direct public opinion. One way to accomplish this is to allow citizens to participate in polling and voting on their media programs. The process itself would be connected to a Hot Button Media Voting system which would charge the corporate media for their fees every year. The fees must be potentially substantial or there is no teeth to the system. If the public is unhappy we need to be able to make them really feel it where it counts ? in their pocket books!

Polling for Prizes!
Each quarter people could poll on their favorite shows and/or stations. There could be coupons and prizes (a new car or a vacation!) for people when they poll and vote. Make it fun, rewarding and easy. Let private business advertise and sponsor the event. They just don?t get to poll or vote. There would be an audience threshold (minimum # of viewers, avg. polling #?s from the year, previous year) that would be required before a triggering event could happen. A triggering event would be when a simple majority of negative opinions occurs. This would trigger a vote on the channel or program in question. There would be a progressive taxation algorithm already set up that matches voting results. The voting results would decide what fees the corporation would pay. Results are averaged out over the year to determine the final fee amount. The funds go to pay for public broadcasting. We could make it easy to vote using your TV controller or your smartphone. There would need to be authentication and security software and protocols set up for this system, obviously. This vote would be one per person per channel. You could vote up or down on a station but you only get to vote once per channel. There would be civil penalties for voting twice.


God and Spirituality
No Theory of Social Power would be complete without a recognition of the final possible ?social? power - that of spirituality. I want to address what may become a contentious issue arising out of the Theory of Social Power regarding the production of Standards of Truth and the tyranny of the authoritarian model of ?truth?. I can see secular people using this as a hammer against the religious community so I wish to take some time to defend the right to believe in religion. Something for agnostics and atheists to consider is that when it comes to issues of Standards of Truth they simply aren?t an issue if you are considering an authoritative source of truth or a non-falsifiable ideal, correct? Thus if something is All-knowing it is an authoritative source, logically speaking. Therefore, let?s explore this idea of God to see whether this idea is acceptable from a logical perspective when it comes to spiritual matters (those things which are not quantifiable, falsifiable) and whether it is relevant from a logical perspective when we consider such things that science and reason cannot touch.
I should say up front that I don?t believe in religion and try my best to be agnostic although I do believe that there is more to reality than meets the eye. I have had uncanny experiences in my life, some of which had to do with writing this paper. I chalk these up to ?spiritual? experiences or synchronicity/creativity. I believe in either version from time to time but I like the spiritual answer ? it suggests there is a soul, the God idea (as defined below), spirituality, that I am somehow important, I will not die when I die, etc... I may believe in God depending upon how God is defined. Spinoza?s God is probably the closest thing to what I can accept. You could say that I want to believe in God, but force myself to destroy any religious imprinting I find within as much as is possible. I?ve just found that is the only way for me to stay clear in thought. That is my bias on the issue.

Does God Or A Soul Exist?
There is an uncanny experiment that is very relevant to the conversation about God called the Casmir Effect. This is an experiment where two plates of metal are placed extremely close together but do not touch. The experiment is supposed to show that the quantum effects of probability (which are the probabilities of energies being present) will push the two plates together because there are more possible particles that can exist outside of the plates as can within them and so they are pushed ever so slightly towards one another. This is because of the differences in potential energy between the plates as opposed to the potential energy outside of the plates. This experiment has been verified many times and is an accepted part of scientific literature.

Virtual Reality
Realize what I just said. Notice the words possible, probabilities, potential and probability used a bunch up there? This is because there is nothing actually taking place! These are just probabilities that something might take place! This is the weirdness of quantum physics happening. Stephen Hawking said that these are virtual particles that push the plates together. [20] Well if this is true then I can say philosophically that virtual reality potentially has a real effect upon existential reality, however infinitesimal (on the quantum level, in this case). So if this is true then we could say that if there was a significant virtual existence out there it might have a significant effect upon us, correct?

Infinity
Well then get this: if virtual reality includes the idea of infinity then perhaps that is in itself significant? What if there is an absolutely infinite virtual reality out there? This virtual existence might be an emanation, outlier or aspect of the absolute reality of what many people call God (an absolutely infinite entity). This virtual aspect of God is a mere representation; the real entity is unknowable, untouchable, unattainable?(I am now going into Plato?s Cave). Or the virtual reality is the entire reality, in which case we might be contacting something that seems absolutely infinite but is actually more like an empty shell, yet we might never detect the difference?

?Touching? Infinity
Perhaps understanding this virtual reality has an effect upon a cognitive reality (a mind/brain, in this case) such that the understanding itself is like being in ?contact? with the absolute reality via the virtual existence. ?Touching God? could mean that the animal in question (homo-sapiens) has evolved into something that is now sensitive to the influences of this virtual reality. This might be a cognitive difference between us and animals or perhaps animals have this sensitivity as well but it is just more sensitive or sophisticated in us, or less sensitive and/or sophisticated in us? Perhaps we will find a part of the brain involved with ?spiritual? functions someday? Perhaps spirituality has to do with creativity? Is creativity about having a relationship to an infinite virtual reality? Do we access some random/spontaneous field of infinite possibilities and quantum tunnel towards a solution in hyperspace? What I am saying in plain English is what if understanding infinity is suggestion of a soul and that our soul is that which is associated with the infinite? Or at least a suggestion that we have some aspect of infinity, at least cognitively, otherwise how else could we understand the concept of infinity itself? Do we contact ?God? by knowing infinity? In other words does a part of our mind ?touch? a virtual God because we understand the concept of infinity itself? A computer can?t understand infinity. When computers run into infinity this is called a fatal error. Not good. When scientists fail in their equations it is often because an infinity sign is the result. You can?t compute infinity. It isn?t a number. It is a concept.

Only through mathematical concepts do we know of the concept of infinity as an aspect of reality (e.g.-light is infinite in regards to time). The fact that we can understand this idea makes no evolutionary sense whatsoever. This can?t ever have anything to do with our survival so it must be an evolutionary artifact of being able to do math in our brains in order to have 3D vision. Our brains are constantly computing distances and our own position in space. This is the only reason I can think of as to why we developed mathematics and can understand this concept.

A Personal God
I want to address the idea of a personal God and limitations to the God idea in general when it comes to applying it to physical or existential reality as any kind of personal entity. Think of a personality as a kind of cognitive singularity, unless you have multiple personalities? In order for there to be able to be a God of this sort in the physical universe we would need to prove that the universe as a whole can be considered a unit, at least. Well, hold onto your pants because this has been done?

An Interconnected Universe
Interconnectedness was predicted to exist on the quantum level due to Bell?s Inequality Theorem. Experiments that verified this theory proved that the entire universe is connected on the quantum level. This is part of scientific literature and will be a part of whatever quantum physics philosophy ends up being correct out of the many viable, competing ones that exist today. So we can say philosophically that everything is actually connected to everything else! Therefore we can say that the universe can be considered a whole thing, a single unit. Interestingly, the universe was considered a singularity at the beginning of time itself! At the inception of the Big Bang the universe was an infinitely dense and hot substance. Maybe Spinoza was onto something? If this singularity is cognitively infinite then it would have a personality, at least (among whatever attributes superceding having a personality might be). In other words, a personality is a limiting concept by its nature. An infinite cognitive entity would be beyond any concept of personality because it is infinite in cognitive dimensions. But it certainly could talk to us if it wanted to. The problem is why it would want to. If it has wants. Wants are probably not relevant to an infinite God. That?s a limiting idea. Religion has much to say on this. I will leave it to them.

Proof of God?
Please understand that this is NOT proof of God. You cannot prove God. Ever. It is the most comprehensive, grandest, wildest philosophical idea you will ever encounter. This is called a non-falsifiable ideal because it cannot be proven to be untrue and therefore it cannot be confirmed to be true either. The God idea is the definition of non-falsifiable. This is why religion tells us we must have faith when we think of God. You can?t ever prove there is a God. Let?s look at it like math so we can understand why there is no proof of the existence (or the non-existence!) of God and never can be in all of time, under any condition whatsoever for a limited creature such as ourselves.

The Math of God
If God is infinite in all aspects and is everything there is and possibly a bit more we could say that God was infinity plus (any operator, equation, or theorem will do) the universe. If the universe is truly infinite then we can definitely say that God is infinite in this respect as well. Thus we could say that God (infinity) created (any operator, equation or theorem will do) the entire universe (infinity). If the universe is not infinite then we need God to be independent of the universe itself, otherwise God is infinite in any aspect in which we find the same to be true about the known universe.

This is a version of Spinoza?s God, which basically considers everything to be a ?substance? of God, merely expressed in different modes of existence. Spinoza?s God can only really be known through reality itself, and therefore things that investigate what reality is. This is what science does. It investigates reality. It also happens to be the most reliable way, by far. So, one reliable avenue in which to know Spinoza?s God is through science.

If God is somehow totally separate from universe, then this is not our God. This is a cheap copy, an articulation of the infinite God beneath. This is not the infinity plus infinity God. Only the infinity plus infinity God will do! Only a God which also contains the entire universe can be the real infinity plus infinity God. In other words the infinite God will be absolutely infinite in all regards.

A Monotheistic God
Any God that ends up being infinite in all aspects will be the same God. This is because an absolute infinity God is ultimately, homogeneous in nature, even if it is variable in expression. This is what Spinoza was trying to get at with his descriptions of God and discussions of God as a sort of ?substance?. So the infinity plus infinity God is the same God as an absolutely infinite God. There really can only be one absolutely infinite God because there can be only one thing in existence that is truly infinite in all its aspects ? the monotheistic God. That much is true. Think of the ?substance? of absolute infinity as a kind of blob?the same everywhere you look, whenever you look, however you look, etc? This infinite God might actually take on many forms though?taking on a polytheistic look to it but in actuality being a unified reality.

A World Full of Grace
Consider that both evolution and spirituality might co-exist! We may live in a superposition of states: one state of reality is random and brutal and the other is full of grace (or something with harps and clouds?just kidding). This is possible because of the reality of quantum physics, once again. To understand what a superposition of states is imagine yourself in a bathtub and you splash water with one hand then the other. What happens to the ripples of water? They intersect and pass through one another. They are superposed on top of one another. This possibility exists on the quantum level as well. Different realities existing at the same time in a superposed state seem to be a real thing depending upon how you interpret quantum mechanics. Thus we could be in both a state of randomness and grace at the same time. It could be. It?s a possibility. An extremely wild one, but it is within the realm of possibility. Now I just need some good looking math to go along with it and I?m good! Sorry string and M-theorists?bad joke. Thus we could be living in a world where grace does happen as a superposed reality.


Prayers, Curses
Does this mean that prayers work? Can grace be weaponized? Does this mean that curses work? I would like to believe that because there is no such thing as zero energy in a vacuum (due to Planck?s constant) that also indicates that you cannot have a negative randomization of reality as you could a positive one. Matter seems to come in positive quantities, at least as far as initiation of process is concerned. In complete nothingness, particles pop into existence before they pop out again. Conservation of energy is a basic law of our universe as well ? nothing is actually ever destroyed in our universe. Only anti-matter seems to be a truly negative expression of matter in our reality ? it destroys everything it touches. Even in these instances though, there is conservation of energy. Even the concept of zero is a referential ?number?, if you think about it. Zero must refer to something of real value otherwise zero, as a concept, has no meaning. The universe ergo, seems to be full of ?something?, even where there is nothing. Not necessarily the other way around. Truth has power but bad information doesn?t to the mind. Falsehood, in the form of a lie, arguably does have power, but that depends upon manipulation of information and facts surrounding that information, not the information itself. This doesn?t mean there can?t be curses if there are blessings, necessarily. It suggests that an overall negative random quantity doesn?t seem to exist in reality. Thus the likelihood of curses being a reality to blessings being one seems to be less, if not impossible, in our universe. But then again they are both extremely remote possibilities (if either are even considered possible!) to the rational mind. These are all non-falsifiable ideals, which mean none of this has any grounding in objective reality.

A Positive Universe ? Our Universe
If we assume the attributes of POWER, TRUTH and JUSTICE to be present in one being then we must equate this being to a divine being (absolute expression) or a king (iconic expression). There is no other option. This implies that only a divinity in the universe can exist (God) and that the universe is necessarily absent a malicious ?absolute? agent (the devil). The only ?malicious? agent that can exist in our universe is a partial version or the icon of absolute authority ? the mortal king. There is no other option. This agent must be absolute in power only; any other attribute will cause our agent to become the all-knowing authority of true justice ? God. Either absolute truth or absolute justice both deal with an all-knowing, infallible being. There can only be one agent of true authority if such an absolutely infinite thing (God) exists. In fact, because of Heisenberg?s Uncertainty Principle even power is a quantity integrally tied into truth at the edges of reality where things become fuzzy. An absolute power must ultimately agree with absolute truth because, the more we make an exacting measurement upon intensity (power) the less we know about position (truth), out to the Planck limits and vice versa. At the Planck limits truth and power become mixed and unclear quantities. Therefore, one must be absolute in all three attributes at once or none at all. There is no third option. This makes ?the devil? a falsifiable ideal - logically impossible in our universe, if defined as any sort of nemesis to God (the absolutely infinite). This suggests that we live in a positive sort of universe where conservation of energy is a law of nature. This turns out to be true in that no information is ever destroyed in this reality. That is what Stephen Hawking discovered and now black hole radiation is named after him because of this discovery; Hawking radiation.

A Mortal Nemesis
Being that the realization of justice requires both truth and power we can also see that the combination of power and truth into one martial entity results in either oppression or divinity, there is no third option. Therefore we can see that since there cannot exist a ?devil? that this iconic figure was likely a euphemism for the power and authority of the despot, who parades as the representative of God on earth but is a mere icon with no legitimate substance. Such leaders were common in Christ?s time. So in this sense ?devil? can be seen as that ?unholy? union of fallible, produced ?truth? with martial power. The Bible says that Satan is the father of all lies. Does this not speak of a relationship between truth and power? Autocrats have no legitimacy of truth; they only possess the authority of raw power and thus corruption leads to lying, obfuscation of facts, disregard for evidence and ultimately perversion of truth is the result. History is my judge. Without an adherence to the truth, martial power can only exact an abusive, arbitrary justice. This use of viscerally charged iconic imagery (the devil) tells me what Christ thought about state despots, their ?truth? and their power.

An Infinite Agenda
Who knows what agenda a truly infinite being might have, if such a concept is even relevant to an infinite being! There is no way to leverage any argument for or against this idea about an unlimited being having an agenda. There are simply no concepts that can be applied faithfully to any aspect of the infinity plus infinity God (other than there can only be one in all of existence). It?s infinite in description everywhere, anywhere, in everyway and anyway you look at it.



The Elusive God
Equations for God
In order to illustrate the ridiculous nature of proving whether there is a God or not, I will rely upon the common definition of the God idea and assume that God is infinite in all aspects. I will also assume that the universe is endless (it will somehow rebirth or go on forever in some state) and is therefore infinite in all its aspects in regards to temporal states (notice that I said temporal not cognitive). If we include all infinite cognitive states we come up with the traditional idea of God. This God is an unknowable, all powerful and all knowing, personal entity that pre-existed the universe it created. The infinity plus infinity God created everything and therefore existed before everything. God (infinity) created (any operator, equation or theorem will do) everything there ever can be (infinity).


God in Hilbert Space
Another way to put this in mathematical language is that a God that pre-existed all of creation would be at least infinite in all conceivable aspects, if the universe itself is infinite. This God would be something that consists of at least all the possibilities of Hilbert Space. Hilbert Space is an infinite dimensional space created to do complex math, particularly for quantum physics. You can never prove or disprove the God Theorem or we could call it the Absolutely Infinite Object Theorem ? which would be any object in Hilbert Space which is absolutely infinite. It is impossible because of the nature of the question itself.

Evidence of God?
No amount of evidence, of any character, can ever violate this. At least not for a reality that is limited in any way (in other words, the only way to violate this is perhaps if you are God). A limited reality, one that is not completely infinite in all its aspects will never be able to use evidence as leverage in any meaningful way for or against this concept or any of its attributes. The concept itself is way too wild. It is beyond the scope of any consideration that evidence can bring to the issue. Yet evidence and reason are all we have! This is the dilemma of being human.

The Agnostic Point of View
This means that despite atheists being in the best possible position regarding what reality is actually like due to the fact that they come from a place of best evidence, when it comes to this question about God all bets are off due to the nature of the question itself. If anyone doesn?t believe me then please try and disprove or prove that something that is at least all the possibilities in Hilbert Space either necessarily does or even might exist or might not or doesn?t exist. You can?t even provide a probability for such a thing. At least you can?t do it with a straight face and an honest mind. That is why I try my best to be agnostic. Because if I am intellectually honest with myself the answer is: I don?t really know. And neither do you. I can believe what I like, but I don?t know anything when it comes to spirituality, soul, grace, prayer, God, etc?.


Uncanny Inspiration
I think that, in light of all of these revelations my own story in regards to the creation of this paper needs to be told. I was in the process of reading ?Shadows of the Mind? by Roger Penrose when I had what can only be described as a couple of ?Einstein? moments. What I mean by this is that I had a similar experience to what Einstein had when he saw a beam of light speeding alongside a moving train and imagined the parameters which he would later on, over a decade later, learn the mathematics and scientific literature to prove was correct. The question that most people fail to ask or just mootly assume is true without any introspection is; how in the @#$!%ing hell did Einstein know that his vision was true?! He followed that vision to its conclusion and proved it to be true?on faith! Let us be honest here. It cannot be anything else. He did not possess the knowledge he needed to know that his vision was true. Therefore he acted on faith alone! I did the same and had the same type of experience. I still cannot explain it. I chalk it up to being a part of the creative process.

When I was reading ?Shadows of the Mind?, a book which speculates whether or not quantum processes are occuring in our brain, a phrase came to my mind. It said, ?Science and democracy are intimately related.? Being that I was trying to create science fiction (this entire effort was due to my science fiction writing) I just thought this was a cool sci-fi ideal. Little did I know, until about a year and a half later when I finally decided to investigate the idea to see if it had any validity to it, that it would turn out to be true! But that was only half of it. On that same day another phrase came to my mind out of the ether, and I should say that both phrases had the ?ring of truth? to them. It was a feeling. That is all I can say. The phrase said, ?Democracy is a psychological reality?. This was surely just a sci-fi ideal, I thought, and it took nearly five years for me to understand what this meant. I didn?t even believe it to be true at the time. How does one square this? Why the hell was I thinking about democracy when I was reading about quantum physics? This still makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I don?t believe (I don?t consciously at least?). I am agnostic. I don?t know what to make of this except to say that perhaps my mind sees something, intuitively within Penrose?s work. He may be on to something. In light of considering the mathematical properties of this body of work, and the fact that quantum biology seems to be here to stay, I must say that I find myself more and more suspicious that my mind may intuitively see something there and that he may be correct.

Regardless as to whether or not I am to be believed, people still seem to believe Einstein?s story and thus you must all square yourselves with that. Either he was a liar and he has fooled us for all these years or he acted on faith. Deal with it. The world is stranger than fiction.




The Undiscovered Country

I believe that no other nation on the planet is as potentially promising as the U.S. when it comes to engaging in this social reality we call democracy. This is because we are a society based not on DNA but on ideas. We are also a celebrated cultural melting pot. If democracy is a psychological reality then any nation wishing to truly engage in the experiment will need to create a little cultural entropy in their Petri dish. We live in one of the best Petri dishes for experimenting with democracy that there is on Earth. For instance English politics and society may be great in general but England is full of Englishmen and is based upon English society and culture, as it should be. Englishmen cannot illuminate to the world the gift of democracy the way Americans can. The English can do a damn fine job of it but unless they become more plural in their representation of humanity and culture they will not be able to explore egalitarian ethics the way that we can.

I feel that our nation is institutionally, ethically, culturally and spiritually like an undiscovered country. It is as if we planted a colony upon the shores of a wonderful Eden, full of threat and promise; fearful of venturing further into the jungles, forests and wilds of this undiscovered continent. Are we too terrified of what we might find there? Are we willing to face the challenges which it will pose to that which every personality seeks most desperately to protect; our egos, sense of self and our worldview? Perhaps it is true that the most terrifying thing that a person can face is their self. Are we truly the land of the brave? Is this the great enterprise we had hoped for? Can we face ourselves and overcome our prejudices? Adventure and experiment will be required. We will have to be creative, innovative and seek out new solutions to old problems. We will have to make many self-corrections on institutional, cultural and personal levels. Democracy requires us to look at ourselves for it to function optimally.

If we see each other as allies this means that we allow ourselves to have empathetic association and ultimately the benefit of cooperating together rather than being in purely competitive stances. Greater cooperation is essential to good science and good democracy. Neither works very well without significant cooperation. Either we embrace a new moral system provided to us by our new knowledge, which enables superior cooperative efforts than the old despotic order could ever hope to marshall, or we continue to use old ways of thinking to toxic effect and destroy ourselves with our new technological capabilities. I find it interesting that science and its creations, including its attendant philosophies, have created this situation of offering us either self-destruction or salvation from an old dysfunctional order.


References

1. Ferris, Timothy. (2011). The Science of Liberty: democracy, reason, and the laws of nature. Harper Perennial.

2. Siegel, Dan (2012). The Developing Mind, Second Edition: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-4625-0390-2.

3. Batra, Ravi (2007). The new golden age: the coming revolution against political corruption and economic chaos. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781403975799.

4. Howe, Neil; Strauss, William (1997). The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America?s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-0046-1.

5. [1] Salamone, F. A. (1997). The Yanomami and their interpreters: Fierce people or fierce interpreters? Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
[2] Lee, R. B. (1988). Reflections on primitive communism. In T. Ingold, D. Riches, & J. Woodburn (Eds), Hunters and gatherers 1, 252-268 Oxford: Berg.
[3] Gray, P. (2009). Play as a foundation for hunter-gatherer social existence. American Journal of Play, 1, 476-522.
[4] Thomas, E. M. (2006). The old way. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. p 198-199.
6. Bronowski, Jacob. 1956, Science and Human Values. New York: Harper and Brothers.

7. Bronowski, J. (1965). Science and human values. New York: Harper and Row.

8. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/ May 2018
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-like-people May 2018
[3] https://nordic.businessinsider.com/photos-of-maximum-security-prisons-in-norway-and-the-us-reveal-the-extremes-of-prison-life-2017-11/ May 2018

9. See Ray (1993, 1995), Rummel ("Libertarianism and International Violence", "Libertarian Propositions on Violence Within and Between Nations: A Test Against Published Research Results", Power Kills), Russett (1993) and Weart (1994, 1998)

10. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-women-can-save-the-planet/ May 2018
[2] https://pulitzercenter.org/blog/ken-weiss-overpopulation-hunger-and-womens-rights May 2018

11. http://maxplanckneuroscience.org/cerebellum-meets-cerebrum/ May 2018

12. Faue, Elizabeth. (April 2017). Rethinking the American Labor Movement. Routledge.

13. [1] Wolff, Richard D. (May 2016). Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown. Haymarket Books.

[2] Wolff, Richard D. (October 2012). Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism. Haymarket Books.

14. Richard Wilkinson (2011). The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781608193417

15. http://fortune.com/2017/07/20/ceo-pay-ratio-2016/ May 2018

16. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-symptoms/art-20050987 May, 2018

17. Mullainathan, Sendhil. (November 2014). Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives. Picador.

18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotic_theory_of_Charles_Sanders_Peirce

19. 1906, EP 2:411 and CP 5.484. See ????????? in the Liddell & Scott Ancient Greek lexicon at the Perseus Digital Library.

20. Hawking, Stephen. (September 1998). A Brief History of Time. Bantam.







Bibliography


Batra, Ravi. (January 2009). The New Golden Age: A Revolution against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos. St. Martin's Griffin

Dawkins, Richard. (September 2015). The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. W. W. Norton & Company.

Dawkins, Richard. (August 2016). The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press.

Ferris, Timothy. (2011). The Science of Liberty: democracy, reason, and the laws of nature. Harper Perennial.

Foucault, Michel. (2010). The Foucault Reader. Vintage/Random House

Harris, Sam. (September 2011). The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. Free Press.

Howe, Neil; Strauss, William (1997). The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America?s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. New York: Broadway Books.

Israel, Jonathan I. (February 2013). Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790. Oxford University Press.

Keltner, Dacher. (October 2009). Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life. W. W. Norton & Company

Klein, Stefan. (October 2014). Survival of the Nicest: How Altruism Made Us Human and Why It Pays to Get Along. The Experiment.

Moghaddam, Fathali M. (12/15/2015). The Psychology Of Democracy. American Psychological Association.

Mullainathan, Sendhil. (November 2014). Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives. Picador.

Siegel, Dan (2012). The Developing Mind, Second Edition: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN 978-1-4625-0390-2.

Wilkinson, Richard. (May 2011). The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. Bloomsbury Press.

Wilson, David Sloan. (January 2015). Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others (Foundational Questions in Science). Yale University Press.

[Abhidevananda]

Post by Andrew Jones
Democracy As A Moral Reality
A fundamental shift in moral priorities has subtly as well as violently and steadily changed how a growing portion of the planet sees the world. It has come with philosophical, political and technological change. A deep psychological trauma to pre-existing cultural standards has occurred because of the philosophies and ethics which shape our culture and our lives; in particular the underlying philosophies of the intimately related enterprises of modern liberal democracy and science.

While I appreciate your ability to write or post lengthy tracts, sadly I
cannot match that with an ability to read them or even to discuss them
at length. The fact is that I disagree with so much that you seem to
take for granted. So, just to begin a discussion (as opposed to posting
propaganda), could you simply explain in which way you think "moral
priorities" have changed? Do people now prefer lying over truthfulness,
stealing and cheating over honesty, or hurting others over not hurting
them? Or do they simply give more value to non-theft as compared to
truthfulness than they used to?

As to your title, "Democracy as a Moral Reality", if you are talking
about a political system known as democracy, then I see your title as a
contradiction in terms. Political democracy ranges between amoral and
immoral, as I see it. It hardly becomes a "moral reality" when its
output (in the USA) is an autocrat who on a daily basis racks up a tally
of lies that would be hard for even the most accomplished prevaricator
to match.