"Intra-Dual" Design of Constitution for Political-ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY
Miguel
The Equitist Advocacy group has just published -- circa the May 5th,
2011 anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx -- a detailed NON-"New-Dark-
Ages" solution to the "Hell-On-Earth" horrors that are now
diarrhoeically deluging daily, globally, before our traumatized eyes:
the totalitarian, "HUMANOCIDAL" self-degeneration of the global
capitalist system.
An interesting aspect of this proposed solution is that it was
apparently derived via the Equitist Advocacy group's "special
solution" of the F.E.D. "Psycho-Historical Dialectical Equations" for
the meaning of the "self-reflexive function" of the Capitalist System,
and for the new "social relations of production ontology" which that
"self-reflexion" would be expected to "irrupt".
That is, the Equitists apparently solved for the meaning of this “self-
aufheben” self-transcending self-operation of the "Capital-
relation" [Marx] upon itself, in the F.E.D. Model of the “Meta-
Evolution” of the Human-Social Relations of Human-Social Relations
Self-Re-Production, that is, for the "Delta-K" term of its “K-squared”
component, clarified by a "simultaneous solution" for the probable
meaning of the "Delta-h" term of the “h-squared” component in the
F.E.D. "Dialectical Theory of Everything", "Dialectic of Nature" [as
Totality] Equation-Model of the Natural History of the Universe as a
whole.
For more on this solution of the F.E.D. “Psycho-Historical Dialectical
Equations”, see the fourth of the "[RE-]SOURCE" links listed below,
and --
http://www.dialectics.org/dialectics/Primer.html
http://www.dialectics.org/dialectics/Welcome.html
-- pages B-24+.
The text of the Equitists' latest, most-detailed specification of
their proposed solution, in the form of a major constitutional
amendment, or “sub-constitution”, is reproduced below.
It aims, to my reading, to explicate -- on the basis of the
dialectical human social science discoveries of Karl Marx -- the
solution to "The Dialectic of Capital", i.e., to the self-destructive
phase of the "Capital-relation" as predominate social relation of
human-society-self-production, in its "real subsumption" of all past,
previously-elaborated human-social relations of production.
It aims, to my reading, to describe a model solution to what the
Equitists see as the core "internal contradiction", or "self-
contradiction", of capital/capitalism/the Capital-relation.
Using the '#' sign -- the doubly-slashed, doubly-negated equals sign
-- as a sign for the relation of dialectical self-contradiction, that
core self-contradiction, or "self-duality", of the Capital-relation
can be expressed as --
'Self-Expanding [Capital-]Value # Self-Contracting [Capital-]Value
[due to "techno-depreciation"]'
-- in its dynamical [social-evolutionary] and 'meta-dynamical’ [social-
revolutionary] “interconnexion” with the related --
'Expanding Human-Social Reproduction # Contracting Human-Social
Reproduction' “intra-duality” of the capital-epoch.
[Per the Equitists, "techno-depreciation", "moral depreciation", or
"self-devaluation of capital-value" due to the higher productive force
embodied in each succeeding vintage of fixed capital plant and
equipment vis-a-vis its predecessor vintages, drives a secular decline
in prices and in the rate of profit on industrial capital [U.S.: post-
Civil-War to ~ 1913], until fiat-currency central banking, and managed
chronic inflation, disguise and socialize [shift to the working class]
losses otherwise due to techno-depreciation-induced write-offs on not-
yet-fully-amortized fixed capital, and until capitalist-core-ruling-
class-installed comprador dictatorships in the capitalist periphery,
suppress low-wage, competitive capitalist industrialization there –
industrialization that would OTHERWISE have used the latest/most
advanced fixed capital vintages, inducing techno-depreciation losses,
hence secularly, episodically falling profit rates, in core-ruling-
class-owned industries -- thus enfettering the growth of the
productive forces globally].
Their "Citizen Stewardship Equity Rights" version of Marxian
"Associationism", that is, of "Association(s) of Producers" as the
core of the new, leading, "democratic communist" human-social relation
of production, with its "real subsumption" of the Capital-relation, as
of the present survivals of all previously-elaborated, pre-Capital
human-social relations of production, is, to my reading, designed to
facilitate the universal innovative entrepreneurship of self-
organized, democratically self-governing collectives of citizens, as
potential "collective self-employers".
It proposes to do so by supplying what has heretofore been missing for
the manifestation of that innovative entrepreneurship to become
broadly possible, namely, collective access to collective-ends-
directed means of social production for the vast majority, i.e., for
we, the "modern proletarians" [who do not own any -- or any
substantial -- capital with which we might otherwise buy access to
such means of social production], the supply of which to us, e.g., via
the "Citizen Stewardship Equity" Right, would render us "proletarians"
no longer, establishing us in [a key aspect of] a new, subsuming,
successor social relation of production.
I suspect that the overall context of that solution-component -- the
"Citizen Stewardship Equity" social relation of production -- owes a
lot to David Schweickart's books "Against Capitalism", and "After
Capitalism".
Their "Democratic Ecological Management" solution-component, i.e.,
their "Citizen Externality Equity Rights" component, set out in
Sections 2 and 3, below, is a solution-approach that I have never
encountered the like of anywhere else. If the "Citizen Stewardship
Equity" Right carries forward the revolutionary tradition of workplace
"workers' councils" [at the point of production], then the "Citizen
Externality Equity" Right can be seen as carrying forward the
revolutionary tradition of point-of-residence/territorially-based
"community councils".
Their "Citizen Birthright Equity Rights" solution-component, set out
in Section 4, below, actualizes what the capitalist state can only pay
lip service to, and, then, only some of the time [and, it now seems,
no longer ever again]: that governments should be constituted for the
benefit of all citizens, not just for profit and power benefits to a
tiny minority of citizens who, in late capitalism, own the vast
preponderance of capital property, to the acceleratedly deepening
disadvantage of all other citizens; to the increasingly deadly
detriment of the vast majority.
Why should government taxes, that are, predominantly, deductions from
workers' wages and salaries [given the tax loopholes for big
capitalist corporations, engineered by legislators who are nothing but
those corporations' abject whores], go mainly to corporate welfare, to
"defense" spending -- i.e., to rapacious invasions of other peoples'
countries, and to deliberate "collateral damage" stealth genocides
against their citizens, thus recruiting more enemies who wish to
avenge their tortured, raped, and murdered relatives, thereby
"justifying" keeping these unnecessary, contrived wars going, to fight
those newly-manufactured enemies -- and to bailouts of the big
corporations who engineer "Designer Depressions", leaving the worker-
taxpayers holding the vast debts that these corporations create in
that process, while anything that may ever benefit the vast majority
of working families -- Medicare, Social Security, Education grants,
etc. -- are all repealed "because" those 'governmentized' corporate
debts have left too little tax revenues [stolen wages, taken back "in
stealth" by the bourgeoisie, i.e., by a government controlled by the
bourgeoisie] for anything else?
The Equitists apparently believe that benefits to each and every
citizen, equitably administered by new, popularly controlled
governmental institutions, e.g., starting with their Citizen
Birthright Equity Social Trust Funds -- should have first priority.
I find a lot to quibble with in the details of their solution-text,
below, but its very capability to "out" such quibbles may be one of
its greatest services.
Some [RE-]SOURCES:
http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/Equitism-entry.htm
http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/AmendmentCoverLetter/AmendmentCoverLetter.rtf
http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/AmendmentXXVIII/AmendmentXXVIII.pdf
http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/Theory/PoliticalEconomicDemocracy/PoliticalEconomicDemocracy.htm
Regards,
Miguel
Proposed Amendment XXVIII to the U. S. Constitution,
Draft #6, 05 May 2011:
Constitutional Establishment of the Equitarian Reform
Section 1. [Stockholder Equity Rights and Constraints] All Enterprises
under Joint-Stock ownership, and operating within the sovereign
territory of the United States of America, shall be operated in accord
with the principles of Capital Equity and of Stockholder Democracy.
Sub-Section 1.a [Stockholder Referenda] Contributors of money, or of
other capital property, for the purchase of shares of the common stock
of a Joint-Stock Enterprise, shall have the constitutional right to
nominate, elect, and recall/replace Directors to the Board of
Directors of that Enterprise, to promulgate and to vote upon owner
resolutions, and to vote upon other important matters, including
compensation, for Directors, and for Senior Management, and donations
of Enterprise funds to political candidates, and/or to political
causes, on the basis of one vote per share of common stock owned. All
such matters shall be decided by majority vote of the owners of record
of the common stock, except for political donations. Motions for the
latter shall require at least a three-quarters favorable majority vote
of the owners of record to carry. The results of such owner referenda
shall be binding upon Enterprise Management, who shall be civilly and
criminally liable for violations thereof.
Sub-Section 1.b [Tribunals for Stockholder Equity] Congress shall
provide, by statute, for a system of federal circuit courts, the
Tribunals for Stockholder Equity. The specific function of these
Tribunals shall be with regard to Stockholder Equity Rights and
Constraints: to adjudicate actions, brought by one or more Citizens,
alleging that the Management, or one or more Directors, of a Joint
Stock Enterprise have acted in violation of Stockholder Equity Rights
and Constraints.
Sub-Section 1.c [Countervailing Citizen Rights] Citizens are
empowered, by constitutional right, hereby granted, to organize and
enact, using their own resources, Boycotts of the products and/or of
the services offered for sale by Joint Stock Enterprises that said
Citizens deem to have intervened in the Legislative, and/or Judicial,
and/or Executive, and/or Economic-Democratic processes of the United
States of America as a whole, or in that of any Region, State, County,
or Municipality thereof, in a manner or manners that they, in their
own individual, and/or collective, judgment, deem to be inimical to
the General Welfare.
Section 2. [Citizen Externality Equity Rights and Constraints]
Citizens who suffer the infliction of External Costs upon themselves,
in their places of residence, by a local operating unit of an
Enterprise, shall acquire thereby Externality Equity in said
Enterprise, as a Collective Property, Social Property constitutional
Right.
Sub-Section 2.a [Election and Recall/Replacement of Public Directors]
This Property Right shall be exercised as a voting right in the
nomination, annual election, and potential recall/replacement, of
Public Directors, to an Enterprise Board of Public Directors,
constituted as a Second House of the co-management committee of each
such local operating unit. Each local operating unit Public Director
nominee, to be nominated, must reside in the geographical area of the
Electorate of that unit, and, to be elected, must receive a majority
of the votes of the Electorate for that unit. The apportionment of
Public Board Electorate geographical areas, and the determination of
the number of Citizens of local operating unit Electorates to be
represented per Public Director, shall be re-determined annually by
majority vote of the Citizen-elected County legislative body within
whose jurisdiction the local operating units reside. Public Boards
shall consist of odd numbers of Public Directors to preclude tie
votes. Each Public Board Director shall be subject to special
elections for Recall/Replacement, by petition of 5% or greater of
their Electorate, and shall be replaced if a majority of their voting
Electorate so votes, by the Replacement Candidate receiving the
largest plurality of votes.
Sub-Section 2.b [Mitigation of External Costs and Optimization of
External Benefits] Each co-management committee Second House is hereby
constitutionally empowered to co-manage the Externalities Budget of
the Annual Operating Plan of its Enterprise local operating unit, in
mutual cooperation with the First House of that unit's co-management
committee. The Second House shall negotiate with the First House
thereof for the mitigation of the External Cost burdens generated by
that unit, for the optimization of any External Benefits generated by
that unit, and regarding the rate of taxation for the External Cost
generation still permitted to that unit. The Negotiating Position(s)
of each Public Board shall be framed and modified by that Board by
majority vote of its Directors.
Sub-Section 2.c [Funding of Public Board Operations] The Permitted-
Externalities Taxes shall, in part, fund the special operations of
their Public Board regarding the remediation of those specific
External Costs. General operations of Public Boards shall be funded by
a Potential External Costs Tax, paid by each Enterprise local
operating unit, levied to offset the public hazard of Potential
External Costs Production created by its existence. Rates of local
operating units Potential External Costs taxation shall be re-
determined annually by majority vote of the Citizens-elected County
legislative body in which the local operating units reside, along with
rules for External Cost taxes assessment and Tax Credit determination
for External Benefits generated by said local operating units. Monthly
salary compensation of Public Directors from these funds shall be set
by the Citizen-elected legislative body of the County in which the
Electorates of said Public Directors reside.
Sub-Section 2.d [Externality Identification] Each Citizen member of
the local Externalities Electorate of a given Public Board shall have
plaintive standing to bring one or more complaints before that Board,
alleging External Costs suffered by that Citizen individually, by a
part of the Electorate to which that Citizen belongs, or by the
entirety of the Electorate to which that Citizen belongs, and alleging
that those External Costs are produced by one or more Enterprise local
operating unit or units co-governed by that Public Board. Confirmation
of said allegations by majority vote of that Public Board shall
empower it to Negotiate with the First House of its co-management
committee for that local operating unit, for preventive mitigation, or
for remedial taxation, or for a combination of both, regarding so-
confirmed External Costs Production.
Sub-Section 2.e [Tribunals for Externality Equity] Congress shall
provide, by statute, for a system of federal circuit courts, the
Tribunals for Externality Equity. The specific function of these
courts shall be to adjudicate cases where Externality Production and/
or Externality Taxation negotiations between the two Houses of the co-
management committee of a local operating unit have deadlocked. Such
cases may be brought by the First House of that co-management
committee, by its Second House, or by both Houses together.
Section 3. [Associations of Public Directors: Powers and Constraints]
The Citizen Externality Equity Public Directors of the local operating
unit level shall organize Associations of Public Directors at the
Municipal, County, State, and Regional levels, one Association per
Municipality, County, State, and Region, and one National Association
of Public Directors, and may also, given (re-)authorization by
majority favorable vote in an annual Public referendum, participate in
Continental and Global Associations of Public Directors.
Sub-Section 3.a [Associations of Public Directors: Purpose] All such
Associations shall be constituted for the purpose of coordinating
Policy, and of expressing the will of their Publics, regarding larger-
scale economic geography, and societal morphology, beyond the scale of
the Enterprise local operating unit, by means of Policy Resolutions.
Sub-Section 3.b [Associations of Public Directors: Election and
Replacement] Each Association Director of each such Association of
Public Directors shall be empowered to propose, and to vote upon,
proposed Policy Resolutions. Each shall be nominated for election by a
Citizen or Citizens residing within the geographical unit of
jurisdiction of the Association, and shall be annually elected or re-
elected, for up to ten consecutive terms, by majority vote of the
combined Public Directors Electorates of the geographical unit
represented, on a one Citizen, one vote basis. Each Association
Director shall be subject to special elections for Recall /
Replacement, by petition of 5% or greater of their Electorate, and
replaced if a majority of the Electorate voting so votes, by the
Replacement Candidate receiving the largest plurality of votes. Each
Association of Public Directors shall consist of an odd number of
Association Directors, to preclude deadlocks due to tie votes.
Sub-Section 3.c [Policy Resolution Compliance] Policy Resolutions
adopted by majority vote of Municipal, County, State, Regional,
National, Continental, and/or Global Public Directors Associations
shall be offered to all included lower-scale Associations of Public
Directors, and to all included local operating unit Boards of Public
Directors, on a non-binding, advisory basis, with respect to actions
in response required of included Associations and Boards of Public
Directors. Compliance or non-compliance with Policy Resolutions of a
higher scale of Association, by act of a lower scale of Association,
or by act of a local operating unit Public Board of Directors, shall
be on a voluntary basis, determined by majority vote of said
Association, or Board, of Public Directors.
Sub-Section 3.d [Funding of Association Operations] Operating expenses
of each Association of Public Directors shall be funded by dues paid
by all Public Boards of Directors included in the geographical unit
represented by that Association, in an amount re-determined annually
by majority vote of all included Public Board Directors. Monthly
salary compensation of the Association Directors of each Association
from these funds shall also be set annually by majority vote of all
Public Board Directors included in the geographical unit represented
by that Association.
Section 4. [Citizen Birthright Equity Rights and Constraints]
Congress shall endow, for every Citizen child born from the date of
ratification of this Amendment, a lifetime Social Trust Fund, equal,
in initial real value, to all other such individual Citizen Birthright
Equity Social Trust Funds, sufficient to support, in whole, or, at
least, in then-affordable part, as determined, and as re-determined
annually, by Congress, the expected lifetime healthcare, education,
work-life career, unemployment insurance, home purchase, retirement
pension, and other social-baseline life necessities of that Citizen,
and such that part of those funds, as allotted by Congress, may be
applied, by court order, to pay reparations in the event of one or
more criminal convictions of that Citizen.
Sub-Section 4.a [Social Trust Funds: Abuse/Moral Hazard Mitigation]
Each Citizen's disposition rights over the Social Trust Fund assigned
to that Citizen shall be constrained so as to militate against its
misuse. Congress shall enact statutes governing the disposition of
Social Trust Fund assets. The national Electorate shall elect, to four
year terms, limited to three consecutive terms, in elections
coinciding with Presidential elections, eleven Commissioners to a
national Commission for Citizen Birthright Equity, which shall
promulgate, by majority vote, rules and regulations for the exercise
of Citizen Birthright Equity, and which shall manage a national Social
Trust Funds Administration. Said rules and regulations shall be
administered by said Social Trust Fund Administration, whose
operations shall be funded by Congress. Each Commissioner shall be
subject to special elections for Recall/Replacement, by petition of 1%
or greater of the national Electorate, and shall be replaced if a
majority of the Citizens voting so vote, by the Replacement Candidate
receiving the largest plurality of votes. The Citizen Birthright
Equity Social Trust Fund of each Citizen so endowed shall remain
Social Property unless or until its assets pass into the Personal
Property of that Citizen through their lawful expenditure.
Sub-Section 4.b [Social Trust Funds: Sources of Funding] Citizen
Birthright Equity Social Trust Funds shall be funded, in part, by a
portion of the proceeds of the Citizen Stewardship Equity Social
Property Rents, paid for the usufruct of Production Plant and
Equipment Social Property held in Stewardship by Citizen Stewardship
Equity Cooperative Enterprises of all kinds, as well as by general
Federal tax revenues, as budgeted annually by majority vote of the
Congress.
Sub-Section 4.c [Tribunals for Birthright Equity] Congress shall
provide, by statute, for a system of federal circuit courts, the
Tribunals for Birthright Equity. The specific function of these courts
shall be to adjudicate actions brought, by any Citizen, or Citizens-
class, disputing a decision or decisions regarding requested
disposition of Citizen Birthright Equity Social Trust Fund assets, by
the Social Trust Funds Administration.
Section 5. [Citizen Stewardship Equity Rights and Constraints] Each
adult Citizen is hereby empowered with a Citizen Stewardship Equity
constitutional Right to participate in initiating the formation of,
and in the democratic self-governance of, Associations of Producers,
in the form of Qualified Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative
Enterprises, whose Boards of Directors, and whose local operating unit
co-management committee First Houses (if any), shall be nominated,
elected, and potentially recalled and replaced, by majority vote of
their Citizen Steward Members, on a one Citizen, one vote basis.
Sub-Section 5.a [Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperatives:
Compensation of Citizen Stewards] Each Citizen Steward member of such
a Qualified Cooperative Enterprise shall have the right to contingent
annual compensation in the form of an equal share in the annual net
profits (if any) of that Cooperative Enterprise, and also to job-
performance-based monthly, semi-monthly, or weekly compensation, per
an hourly rate set by the Enterprise Board of Directors, and not
necessarily equal in value to that of other Citizen Steward Members
who perform under different job categories.
Sub-Section 5.b [Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperatives: Rules of
Democratic Self-Governance] The Board of Directors of each Qualified
Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise, and the First
Houses of each of its local operating unit co-management committees
(if any), shall consist of odd numbers of voting members, to avert tie
votes. The electoral base for the Board of Directors shall consist of
the totality of the Citizen Steward Members of the Cooperative
Enterprise as a whole, and, for the First House of the co-management
committee of each local operating unit (if more than one such exists),
shall consist of all of the Citizen Steward Members who regularly
perform full-time work in that local operating unit. Candidate Board
Directors, and candidate co-management committee First House voting
members, shall be nominated by the Citizen Stewards forming their
respective electoral bases, from among those respective electoral
bases. Such voting Members, including the Enterprise General Manager,
and the local operating unit General Manager (if any), who shall chair
their respective Boards or co-management committees, respectively,
shall be elected by said electoral base on a one Citizen Steward
Member, one vote basis, by majority vote of the respective electoral
base Citizen Steward Members, for each candidate voting Member, to the
limit of the number of voting members of the governing body to be so
elected. Each elected Board Member, or First House co-management
committee voting Member, shall be subject to special elections for
Recall/Replacement, by petition of 5% of their electoral base Citizen
Steward Members, and replaced if a majority of that electoral base
voting so votes, by the Replacement Candidate receiving the largest
plurality of votes. Congress shall, by statute, set forth the detailed
rules for Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise democratic
Self-Governance.
Sub-Section 5.c [Citizen Allocational Equity Rights Regarding Social
Property Assets] The Office shall allocate financial assets Social
Property to each Qualified Social Bank Citizen Stewardship Equity
Cooperative Enterprise in accord with an equal per capita availability
of such Social Property financial assets by State, pursuant to the
principle of Citizen Allocational Equity. If unequal per capita
allocations are permitted by majority vote in a referendum of all
voting-qualified Citizens of the United States of America, then such
allocations shall be permitted only on a temporary and remedial basis,
e.g., for the purpose of the remediation of the social consequences of
past allocational inequities. The terminal date of any referendum-
stipulated unequal geographical, per capita allocation of Social
Property asset-values shall be stipulated in the terms of any such
referendum presented to the voters. That terminal date shall be no
later than twenty years from the date of the last day of the voting on
that referendum. The principle of Citizen Allocational Equity includes
the constitutional Right, established hereby, for collectives of
Citizens, organized as candidate Citizen Stewardship Equity Producers'
Cooperative Enterprises, or as candidate Citizen Stewardship Equity
Social Bank Cooperative Enterprises (given that their By-Laws and
business launch plans/expansion plans meet Congressional, statutory
criteria, and meet Office regulatory criteria) to be granted access to
the quantities of Social Property financial assets requisite to
launch, or to expand, their operations. Any Citizen collective, which
is candidate for Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise
formation, shall have standing to bring suit in the Tribunals of
Allocational Equity against one or more Social Bank, and/or against
the Office of the Custodian of Social Property, if a majority of its
Members deem that either or both have violated the constitutional
Rights established for it by this Section. The principle of Citizen
Allocational Equity also includes prohibition of operation of any
Enterprise in any branch of product/service supply as State Property,
if any mixture of four or more Citizen Collectives, Qualified for
provision of Social Property to operate in that branch by one or more
Social Banks, or Joint-Stock Ventures, are extant as potential
mutually competing Citizen Stewardship Equity and/or Joint Stock
Enterprises.
Sub-Section 5.d [Tribunals for Stewardship and Allocational Equity]
Congress shall provide, by statute, for a system of federal circuit
courts, the Tribunals for Stewardship and Allocational Equity. The
specific function of these Tribunals with respect to upholding Citizen
Stewardship Equity Rights shall be to adjudicate legal actions
alleging violation of said Rights by any Actionable Party. The
specific function of these Tribunals with respect to upholding Citizen
Allocational Equity Rights shall be to adjudicate legal actions
brought by one or more Citizens alleging violation of said Rights by
one or more Social Banks, and/or by the Office of the Custodian of
Social Property.
Sub-Section 5.e [Office of the Custodian of Social Property] Congress
shall institute a national, Federal Office of the Custodian of Social
Property. The general function of this Office shall be to manage
Citizen Stewardship Equity Social Property assets, maintaining and
updating, as appropriate, an Office Standard Design for same for each
international standard product/service category, and endeavoring to
maintain a competitive market, served by multiple Citizen Stewardship
Equity Cooperative Enterprises and/or Joint Stock Enterprises, in the
markets for each such product/service category, as a matter of
Constitutional Public Policy. The special function of this Office
shall be to procure, via competitively-bid contract, from Qualified
Citizen Stewardship Equity Producers' Cooperative suppliers, or, but
only in the absence of competing such suppliers, to directly produce,
under its own management, and using its own Social Property production
assets, Standard Design Plant and Equipment Means of Production
assets, for each competing Citizen Stewardship Equity Producers'
Cooperative which Qualifies for Stewardship of said assets, and which
formally applies to the Office for Provision of such assets.
Sub-Section 5.f [Custodian of Social Property: Function, Election,
Compensation, and Recall] The national Electorate shall elect, to four
year terms, limited to three consecutive terms, in elections
coinciding with Federal Presidential elections, a national Custodian
of Social Property. This elected Officer shall oversee the
promulgation of regulations, and the implementation of Congressional
statutes, for the exercise of Citizen Stewardship Equity; shall
oversee the promulgation of Office Standard Designs for each
international standard product/service category, shall oversee the
updating of Office Standard Designs for which competitive
technological obsolescence, advances in safety features, and/or
advances in Social Best Practices otherwise, in this Officer's
judgment, or per injunction of a Tribunal for Stewardship and
Allocational Equity, calls for their updating, and shall manage all
national Social Property assets. The compensation of the Custodian of
Social Property shall be budgeted annually by Congress, and shall be
maintained in equality with that of the President of the United
States. The national Custodian of Social Property shall be subject to
special elections for Recall/Replacement, by petition of 1% or greater
of the national Electorate, and replaced if a majority of that
Electorate voting so votes, by the Replacement Candidate receiving the
largest plurality of votes.
Sub-Section 5.g [Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperatives: Stewardship
of Social Property] Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperatives, lawfully
granted usufruct of Means of Production Social Property assets, shall
not be construed as collectively or personally owning said assets.
Each Stewardship Cooperative Enterprise shall retain its Stewardship
Equity Rights of socially-productive disposition of said assets, while
remaining in good standing in regard to the statutes of Citizen
Stewardship Equity Self-Governance, of Solvency, and of use of such
assets, in compliance with their Provider-approved, Board-approved,
and local operating units co-management committees approved Annual
Operating Plans, and in accord with the statutes of Citizen
Externality Equity. Otherwise, Social Property asset Stewardship
Qualification may be revoked, by action of the Social Bank Cooperative
Enterprise which had been the direct Provider of Social Property
assets to the thus disqualifiable Citizen Stewardship Equity
Producers' Cooperative.
Sub-Section 5.h [Stewardship Cooperatives: [Self-]Provision of
[Non-]Standard Production Assets] Each Qualified Citizen Stewardship
Equity Producers' Cooperative shall have the right to procure Office
non-standard Means of Production from the Office, given the
endorsement of their Office non-standard Production Plant and
Equipment Designs by the Social Bank Stewardship Enterprise which is
the direct Provider of the Social Property component of its financing.
Each Citizen Stewardship Equity Producers' Cooperative shall have the
right to procure its own Production assets, Office Standard in Design,
or of its own, Office non-standard Design, directly, from Provisioners
other than the Office, such as from other Stewardship Equity
Producers' Cooperative Enterprises, or from Joint-Stock Enterprises,
by means of its own resources, only if approved by the Social Bank
Cooperative Enterprise that is the direct Provider of the Social
Property component of its financing. Assets so acquired shall be
deemed the Collective Property of the Stewards of the Stewardship
Equity Cooperative Enterprise so-acquiring, rather than as Social
Property, as their Private Property, or as their Personal Property.
Sub-Section 5.i [Stewardship Cooperatives: Social Rents in Return for
Use of Social Property] Each Stewardship Cooperative Enterprise,
receiving Provision of Means of Production, Social Property assets,
Office Standard, or non-standard, from the Office, shall remit a
monthly Social Property Rent to society, in return for the usufruct of
the Social Property held in Stewardship by it, proportionate to the
value of those Social assets, and paid via the Office. These Social
Property Rent revenues shall help to support Social Self-Investment in
the form of production of Means of Production Social Property, and in
the form of Public Infrastructure Social Property, as well as in the
form of the income of Social Bank Cooperative Enterprises, and in the
form of the funding of Citizen Birthright Equity Social Trust Funds.
Sub-Section 5.j [Gratis Replacement of Insured Cooperatives'
Obsolescent Social Property] The Office shall duly Re-Provision
Insured Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprises who
formally apply for this Service, if they hold, in Stewardship, assets
no longer of Office-Standard Design. The no longer Office-Standard
Plant and Equipment assets shall be replaced with new, Office-Standard
such assets, whenever the relevant Office's Standard Designs change,
given the return of the previous, now non-standard Provision to the
custody of the Office by that Cooperative. This Re-Provisioning
Service shall be provided at no added charge to such Cooperative
Enterprises. This Re-Provisioning Service shall be provided in return
for periodic premiums, paid to the Office, by such Cooperative
Enterprises, for Insurance against changes in Office Standard Designs
that result from technological/competitive obsolescence of the
previous Standard Designs, and/or from advances in safety features,
and/or from advances in national or international Social Best
Practices otherwise (Social Depreciation, Moral Depreciation, Non-
Physical Depreciation Insurance).
Sub-Section 5.k [Provision of Social Property Assets to Producers'
Cooperatives: Eligibility] Citizen Stewardship Equity Producers'
Cooperatives shall be Eligible for Provisioning and Re-Provisioning
Services, if Qualified for the granting, in Stewardship, of Office
Standard Design Social Property. Operations to determine such
Qualification shall be delegated, by the Office, to specialized,
competing, democratically self-governing Citizen Stewardship Equity
Cooperative Enterprises, certified by the Office, per Congressional
statutory criteria, and per Office rules and regulations, to be
Qualified to function as competing, self-governing Social Bank
Cooperatives. Each such Social Bank Cooperative Enterprise shall be
restricted, by the Office, by Charter, to operate within a specific
geographical locus. Each shall be granted Stewardship of Office
financial assets Social Property, allocated to it in accordance with
the principle of Citizen Allocational Equity, for use in the purchase
of Office-Standard-Design Production assets from the Office, for
transfer to the Stewardship of non-bank Stewardship Equity Producers'
Cooperatives under its credit administration. Each such Receiver of
Office-Standard Design Production Plant and Equipment Social Property
must be further Qualified for such Provision by means of the approval
of their Annual Operating Plans/Budgets by the Citizen Steward Members-
elected Board of Directors of that Social Bank Cooperative Enterprise
which is the direct Social Property Provider to said Citizen
Stewardship Equity Producers' Cooperative. The income of each Citizen
Stewardship Equity Social Bank Cooperative Enterprise shall be limited
to a percentage, re-determined annually by Congress, of the Social
Property Rent revenues actually received by the Office from the
Citizen Stewardship Equity Producer's Cooperatives who receive Social
Property in Stewardship via that Social Bank, under its credit
administration, and shall be remitted to that Social Bank in monthly
payments by the Office. A given month's Social Rent share payment to a
given Social Bank for a given Producers' Cooperative under its credit
administration shall be withheld in the event of a default of that
month's Social Rent payment by that Producers' Cooperative. Social
Rent share payments to a given Social Bank for a given Producers'
Cooperative under its credit administration shall cease permanently in
the event of the Insolvency of said Producers' Cooperative.
Sub-Section 5.l [Stewardship Equity Social Banks: Stewardship of
Financial Social Property] Each Citizen Stewardship Equity Social
Bank, lawfully allocated partial usufruct of Social Property financial
assets by the Office of the Custodian of Social Property, shall not be
conferred any ownership of said assets, on behalf of its Citizen-
Steward Members, either collectively, or personally. Each Citizen
Stewardship Equity Social Bank Cooperative Enterprise shall retain its
Stewardship Equity Rights of socially-productive disposition of said
financial assets, only while remaining in good standing in regard to
the statutes of Citizen Stewardship Equity Enterprise Self-Governance
and Solvency, as well as in regard to its co-promulgation and co-
administration of the Annual Operating Plans and Budgets of its
Providee Citizen Stewardship Equity Producers' Cooperatives, in accord
with the statutes governing Citizen Externality Equity Rights, and
Citizen Allocational Equity Rights, per its Charter. Otherwise, its
Stewardship Qualification Certification, and its Social Property
allocation, shall be revoked by the Office of the Custodian of Social
Property.
Sub-Section 5.m [Citizen Externality Equity Constraint of Citizen
Stewardship Equity Powers] Each member of the First House of the co-
management committee of each local operating unit of each Citizen
Stewardship Equity Cooperative, as a democratically self-governing
Enterprise, shall be nominated by, elected by, and potentially
recallable by, the Citizen-Stewards who are the collective self-
employees of that local operating unit, on a one self-employee, one
vote basis. The Second House of each such local operating co-
management committee shall be its Citizen Externality Equity Rights-
based, publicly-elected Board of Public Directors. If a Citizen
Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise consists of only a single
local operating unit, its employee-elected Board of Directors shall
constitute the First House of its co-management committee, and its
publicly-elected Citizen Externality Equity Board of Public Directors
shall constitute the Second House thereof.
Sub-Section 5.n [Tribunals for Social Productivity Advancement] Each
Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise, or any class
thereof, shall be empowered to petition the Office of the Custodian of
Social Property for an update of the Office Standard Design of
Production Plant and Equipment for one or more product/service
categories. Congress shall provide, by statute, for a system of
courts, the Tribunals for Social Productivity Advancement. The
specific function of these Tribunals shall be to adjudicate cases
wherein petitions to said Office for update of one or more Standard
Designs, for one or more standard product/service categories, are in
dispute among Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprises, or
wherein one or more Standard Design update decisions are in dispute
between the Office of the Custodian of Social Property and more than
one Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise.
Sub-Section 5.o [Stewardship Enterprise Insolvency] The insolvency of
a Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise shall require the
dissolution of that Enterprise, and, therefore, in likelihood, the
temporary unemployment of its former Citizen Steward Members, and, as
a result thereof, draws upon their Citizen Birthright Equity Social
Trust Funds for unemployment insurance payments during their periods
of unemployment. In the event of such Insolvency, the Social Property
held in Stewardship by that Cooperative Enterprise shall be returned
to the custody of the Office of the Custodian of Social Property. The
civil liability of an Insolvent Citizen Stewardship Cooperative
Enterprise to its creditors shall be limited to the value of the
totality of its collectively owned, non-Social-Property assets, and
shall not include any of the Personal Property assets, or any of the
Social Trust Fund assets, of its former Citizen Steward Members.
Sub-Section 5.p [Political Contributions by Citizen Stewardship Equity
Enterprises] Each Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise
may contribute to political candidates, and/or to political causes,
but only out of funds deducted from the net profits of that
Enterprise, and only by at least a three-quarters majority favorable
vote of its entire electoral base of Citizen Stewards.
Sub-Section 5.q [Countervailing Citizen Rights] Citizens are
empowered, by constitutional right, granted hereby, to organize and
enact, using their own resources, Boycotts of the products and/or of
the services offered for sale by one or more Citizen Stewardship
Equity Cooperative Enterprises that said Citizens believe to have
intervened in the Legislative, and/or Judicial, and/or Executive, and/
or Economic-Democratic processes of the United States of America as a
whole, or in that of any Region, State, County, or Municipality
thereof, in a manner or manners that they, in their own individual and/
or collective judgment, deem to be inimical to the General Welfare.
Section 6. [Constitution of the Tribunals Established under this
Amendment] The Citizen Equity Rights Tribunals established under this
Amendment -- the Tribunals for Stockholder Equity, the Tribunals for
Externality Equity, the Tribunals for Birthright Equity, the Tribunals
for Stewardship and Allocational Equity, the Tribunals for Social
Productivity Advancement, and the Appellate Court for Generalized
Equity – shall be governed by the following provisions, as elaborated
by Congress, and the Executive, in statute and regulation.
Sub-Section 6.a [General Function of Said Tribunals] The general
function of each court shall be to hear law suits brought by one or
more Citizens/other constitutional entities, alleging violation of the
Citizen Equity Rights of its jurisdiction.
Sub-Section 6.b [Actionable Parties] Parties against whom complaints
of violation of Citizen Equity Rights can be brought, in the Tribunal
of Jurisdiction for each such Right, shall include Congress, and one,
or more, of the following: The President, or agency of, the Federal
Executive Branch, State Government, County Government, Municipal
Government, Joint Stock Enterprise Board of Directors, Citizen
Stewardship Equity Cooperative Enterprise Board of Directors, House of
a local co-management committee of a Stewardship Equity Cooperative or
Joint Stock Enterprise, Public Director, Association Director, and/or
individual Citizen.
Sub-Section 6.c [Standing] Any one or more Citizens shall have
standing to bring legal action(s) before any of these courts.
Sub-Section 6.d [Jurisdictions of Tribunals] The jurisdiction of each
Tribunal established by this Amendment shall be restricted to the
upholding of the specific Citizen Equity Right or Rights chartered
herein to its protection, adjudicating actions brought before it
alleging violation of that Right, or of those Rights, by any one or
more of the Actionable Parties stipulated herein. Legal actions
alleging the violation of a Citizen Equity Right must originate in the
Tribunal of Jurisdiction for the Right or Rights whose violation is
alleged, and not in any other, or general, Federal, State, or
Municipal court, civil or criminal, of law or of equity, and may,
after adjudication in its Tribunal of Jurisdiction, be appealed solely
to the Appellate Court for Generalized Equity.
Sub-Section 6.e [Rights of Appeal to/from the Appellate Court for
Generalized Equity] Legal actions originated and decided in a Tribunal
of Jurisdiction for a given Citizen Equity Right may be appealed, by
the losing, or partially losing, Party or Parties of that action, to
the Appellate Court for Generalized Equity, if the grounds of appeal
set forth in statute by Congress are met by said appeal per the
Citizen Jury of said Appellate Court. Any appeal from any ruling of
the Appellate Court for Generalized Equity shall be solely to the
Supreme Court of the United States.
Sub-Section 6.f [Modes of Redress Provided via Tribunal Citizen Jury
Award to Prevailing Plaintiffs] Injunctive relief, payments of value
in compensation for civil damages, and sanctions against criminal
conduct (fines and/or imprisonment) in cases for which the specific
convicted violations of Citizen Equity Rights have been placed under
criminal penalty by Congress, in statute, shall be available for
imposition by Citizen Juries of the Tribunals for Citizen Equity
Rights, and/or by the Appellate Court for Generalized Equity.
Sub-Section 6.g [Functions of Justices] Each individual circuit court
for Citizen Equity Rights, and the Appellate Court for Generalized
Equity, shall be convened by a single advisory justice. Justices shall
serve as moderators of the court proceedings, and in an impartial
advisory and expert consultative capacity regarding relevant laws and
regulations history, precedent, and procedure, to plaintiffs, to
defendants, and to Citizen Juries, in the proceedings brought before
them, and shall have authority to require compliance, in the court
room, with legal procedure and judicial order, on the part of the
Parties to the legal action, and/or on that of their representatives.
Sub-Section 6.h [Constitution and Functions of Citizen Juries] Citizen
Juries shall serve in a deciding capacity with regard to the legal
actions brought before them. Citizen Juries shall decide the legal
actions brought before them by majority vote. Citizen Juries shall
consist of an odd number of Jurors, to help minimize the frequency of
Jury deadlock.
Sub-Section 6.i [Selection of Citizen Jurors Pools] All able-bodied
adult Citizens shall make themselves available to serve, on a standard
salary basis, and on a one month per year basis, in Citizen Jury Pools
from which the Citizen Jurors of the Citizen Equity Rights Tribunals,
and of the Appellate Court for Generalized Equity, shall be selected,
by random lot.
Sub-Section 6.j [Allocation of Costs of Adjudication] The losing party
in any legal action brought before a Citizen Equity Rights Tribunal or
before the Appellate Court for Generalized Equity -- or all parties to
any such action, in proportion set by its Citizen Jury, in the event
of a mixed decision -- shall pay the costs of that action, per general
court costs schedules set by the justices.
Sub-Section 6.k [Term Limits, Justices] Justices shall serve four year
terms, with a limit of three consecutive terms.
Sub-Section 6.l [Recall of Justices] Each justice of a Citizen Equity
Rights Tribunal, and of the Appellate Court for Generalized Equity, as
established by this Amendment, shall be subject to special elections
for Recall/Replacement, by petition of 1% or greater of the Federal
Electorate, and replaced if a majority of that Electorate voting so
votes, by the Replacement Candidate receiving the largest plurality of
votes.
Section 7. [Fourth Branch of Government: Countervailing Power Intent]
The new institutions established hereby -- the Tribunals for
Stockholder Equity, the Boards of Public Directors, the Associations
of Public Directors, the Tribunals for Externality Equity, the
Commission for Birthright Equity, the Social Trust Funds
Administration, the Tribunals for Birthright Equity, the competing and
democratically self-governing Citizen Stewardship Equity Cooperative
Enterprises, the Office of the Custodian of Social Property, the
Tribunals for Stewardship and Allocational Equity, the Tribunals for
Social Productivity Advancement, and the Appellate Court for
Generalized Equity -- shall together constitute the Economic-
Democratic Fourth Branch of social self-governance of the United
States of America, under the Constitution of the United States of
America. This Fourth Branch is hereby established explicitly with the
intention to benefit each Citizen, regardless of the scale of that
Citizen's Personal Property ownership, including, especially, by
countervailing against the lethal corruption of the democratic
processes of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches, by the
otherwise unchecked power of ownership-concentrated, oligopolized or
monopolized private economic wealth, to which the initially more
competitive private-capital based economy inexorably gives rise.
FINI