JEM is a radical alternative political system. If you wish to get involved please find me by following the Faran Morgan link in the menu above.
The three letters of the name stand for the 3 main elements of the system:
J = Jury Rule
E = Equal Power and Satisfaction
M = Micro-Communities
Let me explain these 3 elements in turn.
1. Jury Rule
Jury Rule is a system of Direct Democracy in which ordinary citizens govern the state, instead of politicians. Every citizen serves in such a jury for a total of one year in their lives from the age of 10 onward. When they serve they are randomly assigned a particular task, for example approving or otherwise a particular law, or having executive control over a particular geographic region.
2. Equal Power and Satisfaction
Equal power and satisfaction mean that every individual must remain equal to every other in terms of these two quantities. Power is defined as the control someone has over things that matter in people’s lives, including things that happen in their own life. Satisfaction is defined as the degree to which a person’s involuntary selfish wants are satisfied at a given time.
3. Micro-Communities
Under the JEM system, people will live and work in Micro-Communities of 100 people, which replace the private companies of our current society. Each Micro Community, or “Mike” for short, will normally be based around one industry, and where possible be at one contiguous location. Each Mike will be expected to maintain Equality of Power and Satisfaction between its members, while the State will make sure these equalities are maintained between Mikes.
Why would JEM be better than our current society?
Since the dawn of civilization, hierarchy and competition have made a mess of human life, in my view. The clearest example of this is that people are still dying of hunger and easily preventable disease, while money is wasted on weapons and unnecessary luxuries.
With the possible rise of dangerous A.I. hierarchy and competition become an even more pressing problem. Jury Rule and the Two Equalities just stated are intended to remove hierarchy and tame competition, leaving our future in the sane hands of ordinary people who aren't under pressure to outdo each other.
The reason for Micro-Communities is that they bring back a great thing that humans have lost: our tribe. This is the way humans have looked after one another for most of our time on earth. In contrast to the State and private companies in our current society, Mikes will know and care about their members. So Mikes will be perfect for small-scale decisions, administration and interpersonal support.
Structure of the State
Under JEM, the State is run by 2 sets of people: the Ruling Jurors, already mentioned and State Officials. As just stated, Jurors do the job that politicians do in our current society. Officials, on the other hand, replace the civil service, lawyers, prisons, army (if there is one), police, banking, regulation of the two equalities and any other pivotal state function. Everyone must serve as a Juror for a total of one year in their lifetime. Officials serve for 2 years at a time, can do so multiple times and no individual is compelled to do this work. Applicants who have served less time as Officials are always accepted ahead of those who have served more. After Jurors or Officials finish their stint they may return to their previous jobs. They are paid for their efforts by the State, via their Mikes. Officials are paid well enough that most people will request a 2 year stint at least once in their lifetime.
Moving Mikes
An individual is allowed to move from one Mike to another as long as the Mike they are joining has less than 120 people. Mikes are not allowed to deny membership to those who wish to join or to give worse treatment to those who have joined more recently. To make them less appealing, Mikes in sought-after locations would have to have worse-quality houses, less land and/or lower incomes.
Inter-Mike Working Limits
The State has a law which limits how much members of one Mike work with those of another. The logic behind this law is to create tight-knit Mikes without forcing families to split up to follow different careers or restricting children in their choice of activities.
Let us define a Long Worker as a person who works more hours than anyone else in their household. All other workers can be called Non-Long Workers. The Inter-Mike Limit Law says that the number of hours one Mike can work with other Mikes equals the number of hours worked by its Non-Long workers.
The simplest way for a Mike to comply with this is to ban its Long Workers from working with members of other Mikes, and let Non-Long Workers do what they like. However, the law allows Mikes to be more flexible than this. If for example there is a household whose members all want to work outside the Mike, their hours can be 'covered' by another household doing all their work within the Mike.
The work or studies of people aged below 18 won’t count towards these calculations. They can work outside the Mike without limitation. The same is true of Jurors and Officials
Regulation Of The Two Equalities
As mentioned earlier, the two equalities are maintained for individuals by the Mikes, and maintained for Mikes by a Jury-Ruled State. Any individual who believes they have less Power and/or Satisfaction than their fellow Mike members can take this complaint to the State. The State will send Equality Regulation Officials to investigate and if necessary enforce a plan to rectify the situation, such as transferring responsibilities or income to the individual making the complaint. Any Mike that thinks it has a below average level (per member) of either quantity can get transfers from other Mikes by essentially the same process.
Equality in Personal Lives
The scope of these equalisations extend to people’s personal lives, not just their jobs or official roles. So if, for example, someone has a lot of friends that they enjoy spending their free time with, this might be said to increase their Satisfaction, and probably their Power too, to the extent that their friends do what they tell them to do.
Isn't that Intrusive, Impractical, Cult-Like!!?
If equality rules extending to personal lives is a step too far then the rules could be altered so they don’t extend in this way. I personally think it’s more ethical that if someone has a lot of difficulty getting what they want in their personal life, society will try to compensate them, for example with a higher pay rate. Also there is danger that if you don’t equalise power in people’s personal lives, someone might be an informal leader, bringing in hierarchy by the back door.
Economy
Each Mike will receive an unconditional income from The State, which is enough to survive on, but not survive comfortably. On top of this each Mike will be paid for dissatisfaction it chooses to incur, for example from work done (consistent with the rule of Equal Satisfaction). This payment also comes from The State. Mikes are not allowed to get income from customers, other Mikes or individuals. Although Mikes will often take customers' money, for example if they run a shop, this money must be immediately surrendered to The State.
Mikes and individuals can accumulate savings. The state will tax wealth, however, at 10% per year for amounts above £30,000 per person. Inheritance tax will be set at 100%.
All land and property will ultimately be owned by the state, but most of the time be controlled by Mikes, and where Mikes choose it, by individuals.
Each Mike may do all, some, or none of its consumption collectively. If it does all, it will be like a communist collective, with no individual money or income.
Which goods and services get made, and at what prices they get sold, will mostly be decided by the Mikes providing and distributing them. However, The State may override any of these decisions if it wishes to. It is likely that most goods would be sold at the “clearing price” (the level at which goods leave the shelves at the same rate as the shelves are refilled). Goods can also be distributed without payment, for example loaned out by libraries, or given to individuals or Mikes deemed likely to make use of them. However, payment must remain the norm or the incentive to work will become too weak.
With Equal Satisfaction of Wants Guaranteed How is there any Incentive to Work?
I admit that the normal way to get people to do something is to give them more satisfaction if they do it than if they don't, which this system rules out. However, it seems likely to me that if there is no extra satisfaction for doing one thing versus another, people will do the thing that they think is the right thing to do. (Satisfaction, as stated at the beginning, doesn’t include the satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing, only satisfaction of selfish wants). The regulation of the equality of Satisfaction of individuals is normally left in the hands of the Mikes. If an individual does little work and lives on a generous unconditional income then members of that person’s Mike will probably judge that the person’s wants are more satisfied not working than working. They will then either increase the person’s pay rate for work or reduce their unconditional income so that the satisfaction of non-working and working are equal. Then the desire to do the right thing should lead the person to do more work.
Note here that all Mike members are doing in this case is enforcing the law of Equal Satisfaction. When they do this the incentive to work takes care of itself.
It might instead be claimed that even if people work under the JEM system, they won’t work productively. However, I believe this argument also fails. Imagine a worker who spends 40 hours a week digging holes and filling them in again. This person's Mike will assume that the reason they are doing this useless activity instead of digging holes for some purpose, is that they find the useless activity easier. It would be assumed that the worker doesn't like coordinating with others, following schedules, or something like this. In order to equalise Satisfaction the Mike would therefore pay this worker less than if they spent the same amount of time digging holes for a purpose. When the worker switches to doing useful work the Mike will know it has made the difference in pay between useful and useless work big enough.
Ruling Juries of a World State
As stated above, Ruling Jurors do the job that politicians do in our current society. There are 4 types of ruling jury. One type is called a Command Jury. Command Juries make any day-to-day decisions that need to be made. The other 3 types of ruling jury are called Proposal Juries, Comparison Juries and Approval Juries. These 3 types write and alter the laws, and are collectively called Lawmaking Juries.
Let us assume for simplicity’s sake that the whole world has gone over to the JEM system and has formed a single World State. People are expected to serve as a Ruling Juror at World level if the World State calls them. Each person is randomly assigned to serve either in a Command Jury or Lawmaking Juries, with an equal chance of each. Anyone assigned to Command Jury work will serve for one year at a random point in their lives (from age 10 onward). If they are assigned to Lawmaking Juries they will do a stint of 4 months on each of the 3 types of Lawmaking Juries at random points in their lives (also from age 10 onward).
As I have already said, the 3 types of Lawmaking Jury are called Proposal Juries, Comparison Juries and Approval Juries. Proposal Juries propose changes to the law, Comparison Juries rate these proposals, and Approval Juries vote for or against the most promising proposals, to approve them into law or otherwise.
Each week a new Lawmaking Jury of each type begins its 4 month stint. Jurors of a given Lawmaking Jury are evenly distributed all over the world. These juries don't have to meet as a body, but jurors can assemble in gatherings of any size they want, or work alone. Jurors can do their own research and consult people outside the jury, including those with a high level of knowledge.
Proposal Juries
At the end of their 4 months, anyone serving in a Proposal Jury can propose a change to world laws. Anyone who doesn’t wish to submit a proposal of their own may “second” a proposal of someone else in their Jury. A proposal may have any number of seconders.
Categorization of Proposals
At the end of each week every Lawmaking Juror is given 3 proposals from the Proposal Jury that has just finished its stint. The juror must simply identify the proposal of the 3 that they think is the odd-one-out topic-wise. From this, all proposals end up in a big list with proposals on similar topics following one-another.
Comparison Juries
This list is passed to the Comparison Jury that is just beginning its stint. Each Comparison Juror is given one proposal on the list and expected to rank it compared to proposals next to it on the list, between 5 and 50 of them (the juror decides how many to compare with). Adjacent proposals from the list are given to jurors living near one-another. Neighbouring jurors may also get identical proposals, as there are less proposals than jurors of each type. At the end of their time each juror submits their ranked list. From these lists a best proposal is determined.
Approval Juries
This best proposal is passed on to the Approval Jury just starting its stint. At the end of their 4 months each Approval Juror submits a simple Yes or No to this proposal. A majority of those that vote decides whether the proposal is passed into law or rejected.
Number of proposals at one time
The process just described takes a year. Every week a new such process begins. At any one time there are 52 different Lawmaking Juries running, 17 or 18 of each type. If we assume half of the proposals that reach Approval Juries pass, then the law will be changed 26 times a year, which is roughly the number of Acts of Parliament passed each year in the UK.
Command Juries
As stated above, Command Juries deal with any day-to-day decisions that The State might make. There are Command Juries at 5 different admin levels. Each admin region (except the lowest one) contains many regions of the level below. The following table shows the number of people in each of the 5 levels and the number in the Command Juries of each of these regions. The numbers in this table don’t have to be adhered to exactly, for example a 4th level region might have as many as 50 million people, and a 3rd level region might have as many as 600 million. These numbers are just the minimums.
The three letters of the name stand for the 3 main elements of the system:
J = Jury Rule
E = Equal Power and Satisfaction
M = Micro-Communities
Let me explain these 3 elements in turn.
1. Jury Rule
Jury Rule is a system of Direct Democracy in which ordinary citizens govern the state, instead of politicians. Every citizen serves in such a jury for a total of one year in their lives from the age of 10 onward. When they serve they are randomly assigned a particular task, for example approving or otherwise a particular law, or having executive control over a particular geographic region.
2. Equal Power and Satisfaction
Equal power and satisfaction mean that every individual must remain equal to every other in terms of these two quantities. Power is defined as the control someone has over things that matter in people’s lives, including things that happen in their own life. Satisfaction is defined as the degree to which a person’s involuntary selfish wants are satisfied at a given time.
3. Micro-Communities
Under the JEM system, people will live and work in Micro-Communities of 100 people, which replace the private companies of our current society. Each Micro Community, or “Mike” for short, will normally be based around one industry, and where possible be at one contiguous location. Each Mike will be expected to maintain Equality of Power and Satisfaction between its members, while the State will make sure these equalities are maintained between Mikes.
Why would JEM be better than our current society?
Since the dawn of civilization, hierarchy and competition have made a mess of human life, in my view. The clearest example of this is that people are still dying of hunger and easily preventable disease, while money is wasted on weapons and unnecessary luxuries.
With the possible rise of dangerous A.I. hierarchy and competition become an even more pressing problem. Jury Rule and the Two Equalities just stated are intended to remove hierarchy and tame competition, leaving our future in the sane hands of ordinary people who aren't under pressure to outdo each other.
The reason for Micro-Communities is that they bring back a great thing that humans have lost: our tribe. This is the way humans have looked after one another for most of our time on earth. In contrast to the State and private companies in our current society, Mikes will know and care about their members. So Mikes will be perfect for small-scale decisions, administration and interpersonal support.
Structure of the State
Under JEM, the State is run by 2 sets of people: the Ruling Jurors, already mentioned and State Officials. As just stated, Jurors do the job that politicians do in our current society. Officials, on the other hand, replace the civil service, lawyers, prisons, army (if there is one), police, banking, regulation of the two equalities and any other pivotal state function. Everyone must serve as a Juror for a total of one year in their lifetime. Officials serve for 2 years at a time, can do so multiple times and no individual is compelled to do this work. Applicants who have served less time as Officials are always accepted ahead of those who have served more. After Jurors or Officials finish their stint they may return to their previous jobs. They are paid for their efforts by the State, via their Mikes. Officials are paid well enough that most people will request a 2 year stint at least once in their lifetime.
Moving Mikes
An individual is allowed to move from one Mike to another as long as the Mike they are joining has less than 120 people. Mikes are not allowed to deny membership to those who wish to join or to give worse treatment to those who have joined more recently. To make them less appealing, Mikes in sought-after locations would have to have worse-quality houses, less land and/or lower incomes.
Inter-Mike Working Limits
The State has a law which limits how much members of one Mike work with those of another. The logic behind this law is to create tight-knit Mikes without forcing families to split up to follow different careers or restricting children in their choice of activities.
Let us define a Long Worker as a person who works more hours than anyone else in their household. All other workers can be called Non-Long Workers. The Inter-Mike Limit Law says that the number of hours one Mike can work with other Mikes equals the number of hours worked by its Non-Long workers.
The simplest way for a Mike to comply with this is to ban its Long Workers from working with members of other Mikes, and let Non-Long Workers do what they like. However, the law allows Mikes to be more flexible than this. If for example there is a household whose members all want to work outside the Mike, their hours can be 'covered' by another household doing all their work within the Mike.
The work or studies of people aged below 18 won’t count towards these calculations. They can work outside the Mike without limitation. The same is true of Jurors and Officials
Regulation Of The Two Equalities
As mentioned earlier, the two equalities are maintained for individuals by the Mikes, and maintained for Mikes by a Jury-Ruled State. Any individual who believes they have less Power and/or Satisfaction than their fellow Mike members can take this complaint to the State. The State will send Equality Regulation Officials to investigate and if necessary enforce a plan to rectify the situation, such as transferring responsibilities or income to the individual making the complaint. Any Mike that thinks it has a below average level (per member) of either quantity can get transfers from other Mikes by essentially the same process.
Equality in Personal Lives
The scope of these equalisations extend to people’s personal lives, not just their jobs or official roles. So if, for example, someone has a lot of friends that they enjoy spending their free time with, this might be said to increase their Satisfaction, and probably their Power too, to the extent that their friends do what they tell them to do.
Isn't that Intrusive, Impractical, Cult-Like!!?
If equality rules extending to personal lives is a step too far then the rules could be altered so they don’t extend in this way. I personally think it’s more ethical that if someone has a lot of difficulty getting what they want in their personal life, society will try to compensate them, for example with a higher pay rate. Also there is danger that if you don’t equalise power in people’s personal lives, someone might be an informal leader, bringing in hierarchy by the back door.
Economy
Each Mike will receive an unconditional income from The State, which is enough to survive on, but not survive comfortably. On top of this each Mike will be paid for dissatisfaction it chooses to incur, for example from work done (consistent with the rule of Equal Satisfaction). This payment also comes from The State. Mikes are not allowed to get income from customers, other Mikes or individuals. Although Mikes will often take customers' money, for example if they run a shop, this money must be immediately surrendered to The State.
Mikes and individuals can accumulate savings. The state will tax wealth, however, at 10% per year for amounts above £30,000 per person. Inheritance tax will be set at 100%.
All land and property will ultimately be owned by the state, but most of the time be controlled by Mikes, and where Mikes choose it, by individuals.
Each Mike may do all, some, or none of its consumption collectively. If it does all, it will be like a communist collective, with no individual money or income.
Which goods and services get made, and at what prices they get sold, will mostly be decided by the Mikes providing and distributing them. However, The State may override any of these decisions if it wishes to. It is likely that most goods would be sold at the “clearing price” (the level at which goods leave the shelves at the same rate as the shelves are refilled). Goods can also be distributed without payment, for example loaned out by libraries, or given to individuals or Mikes deemed likely to make use of them. However, payment must remain the norm or the incentive to work will become too weak.
With Equal Satisfaction of Wants Guaranteed How is there any Incentive to Work?
I admit that the normal way to get people to do something is to give them more satisfaction if they do it than if they don't, which this system rules out. However, it seems likely to me that if there is no extra satisfaction for doing one thing versus another, people will do the thing that they think is the right thing to do. (Satisfaction, as stated at the beginning, doesn’t include the satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing, only satisfaction of selfish wants). The regulation of the equality of Satisfaction of individuals is normally left in the hands of the Mikes. If an individual does little work and lives on a generous unconditional income then members of that person’s Mike will probably judge that the person’s wants are more satisfied not working than working. They will then either increase the person’s pay rate for work or reduce their unconditional income so that the satisfaction of non-working and working are equal. Then the desire to do the right thing should lead the person to do more work.
Note here that all Mike members are doing in this case is enforcing the law of Equal Satisfaction. When they do this the incentive to work takes care of itself.
It might instead be claimed that even if people work under the JEM system, they won’t work productively. However, I believe this argument also fails. Imagine a worker who spends 40 hours a week digging holes and filling them in again. This person's Mike will assume that the reason they are doing this useless activity instead of digging holes for some purpose, is that they find the useless activity easier. It would be assumed that the worker doesn't like coordinating with others, following schedules, or something like this. In order to equalise Satisfaction the Mike would therefore pay this worker less than if they spent the same amount of time digging holes for a purpose. When the worker switches to doing useful work the Mike will know it has made the difference in pay between useful and useless work big enough.
Ruling Juries of a World State
As stated above, Ruling Jurors do the job that politicians do in our current society. There are 4 types of ruling jury. One type is called a Command Jury. Command Juries make any day-to-day decisions that need to be made. The other 3 types of ruling jury are called Proposal Juries, Comparison Juries and Approval Juries. These 3 types write and alter the laws, and are collectively called Lawmaking Juries.
Let us assume for simplicity’s sake that the whole world has gone over to the JEM system and has formed a single World State. People are expected to serve as a Ruling Juror at World level if the World State calls them. Each person is randomly assigned to serve either in a Command Jury or Lawmaking Juries, with an equal chance of each. Anyone assigned to Command Jury work will serve for one year at a random point in their lives (from age 10 onward). If they are assigned to Lawmaking Juries they will do a stint of 4 months on each of the 3 types of Lawmaking Juries at random points in their lives (also from age 10 onward).
As I have already said, the 3 types of Lawmaking Jury are called Proposal Juries, Comparison Juries and Approval Juries. Proposal Juries propose changes to the law, Comparison Juries rate these proposals, and Approval Juries vote for or against the most promising proposals, to approve them into law or otherwise.
Each week a new Lawmaking Jury of each type begins its 4 month stint. Jurors of a given Lawmaking Jury are evenly distributed all over the world. These juries don't have to meet as a body, but jurors can assemble in gatherings of any size they want, or work alone. Jurors can do their own research and consult people outside the jury, including those with a high level of knowledge.
Proposal Juries
At the end of their 4 months, anyone serving in a Proposal Jury can propose a change to world laws. Anyone who doesn’t wish to submit a proposal of their own may “second” a proposal of someone else in their Jury. A proposal may have any number of seconders.
Categorization of Proposals
At the end of each week every Lawmaking Juror is given 3 proposals from the Proposal Jury that has just finished its stint. The juror must simply identify the proposal of the 3 that they think is the odd-one-out topic-wise. From this, all proposals end up in a big list with proposals on similar topics following one-another.
Comparison Juries
This list is passed to the Comparison Jury that is just beginning its stint. Each Comparison Juror is given one proposal on the list and expected to rank it compared to proposals next to it on the list, between 5 and 50 of them (the juror decides how many to compare with). Adjacent proposals from the list are given to jurors living near one-another. Neighbouring jurors may also get identical proposals, as there are less proposals than jurors of each type. At the end of their time each juror submits their ranked list. From these lists a best proposal is determined.
Approval Juries
This best proposal is passed on to the Approval Jury just starting its stint. At the end of their 4 months each Approval Juror submits a simple Yes or No to this proposal. A majority of those that vote decides whether the proposal is passed into law or rejected.
Number of proposals at one time
The process just described takes a year. Every week a new such process begins. At any one time there are 52 different Lawmaking Juries running, 17 or 18 of each type. If we assume half of the proposals that reach Approval Juries pass, then the law will be changed 26 times a year, which is roughly the number of Acts of Parliament passed each year in the UK.
Command Juries
As stated above, Command Juries deal with any day-to-day decisions that The State might make. There are Command Juries at 5 different admin levels. Each admin region (except the lowest one) contains many regions of the level below. The following table shows the number of people in each of the 5 levels and the number in the Command Juries of each of these regions. The numbers in this table don’t have to be adhered to exactly, for example a 4th level region might have as many as 50 million people, and a 3rd level region might have as many as 600 million. These numbers are just the minimums.
Substates
In addition to the local democracy just described, citizens of a particular geographic region can create their own semi-independent polity called a Substate, which can opt out of some laws.
World laws come in 2 types: Compulsory Laws and Optional Laws. Compulsory Laws apply to everyone in the world; Optional Laws only apply if one’s Substate has decided to adopt them. Substates cannot freely write laws of their own, just accept or otherwise Optional Laws set at world level, while obeying all Compulsory Laws that the world sets.
All proposals that Proposal Juries make must be specified as being Compulsory or Optional laws.
Substate Decision-Making
If a particular Substate has a population greater than 100,000 it will take the place of one of the administrative levels in the Command Jury table above. If the Substate’s population is lower than this it will become an extra, 6th level.
If a Substate’s population is over a million, its lawmaking system will be similar to the world’s, running parallel to it. For Substates smaller than this a different system will be used, that I call “We Rule”. Under We Rule each person chooses if and when they want to serve as part of the government, as with State Officials, described above. To avoid decisions being skewed towards the type of person who might be more likely to serve, votes will be weighted towards those who are underrepresented. So if people that serve tend to be left-wing then right-wingers will get greater voting power in their decisions. Likewise if they tend to be male, or young or intelligent etc.
Substate Borders
Anyone may propose a change to Substate borders. If 5% of the people who will change Substates under the proposal sign a petition, it goes to a referendum of the whole population of this area. A straight majority of those who vote will put the change into effect. A person is said to change Substates if either most of their fellow Substate citizens cease to be so after the change, or if after the change most of their fellow Substate citizens are people who weren’t fellow citizens before the change.
Education
Most Education would take place within one’s Mike. Each Mike would probably have a few people dedicated to minding and educating children. Older kids would be able to apprentice at the main occupation of the Mike. Also most Mikes might offer work experience to children and adults from other Mikes. These might run anywhere from an hour per week to full time.
As stated above, Inter-Mike Working Limits won’t apply to children. I believe that children should be free to pursue the activities that most interest them.
Transition to JEM
The transition to JEM would require most people to move houses, to be adjacent to people working in the same industry. The moves could all take place in one week, using temporarily commandeered vans, as furniture could be left with their properties in the first instance.
JEM can be rolled out across the world within 5 years. Once the process is complete, every adult human would have the right to move to any Mike across the world. The reason for the 5 year process is to manufacture mobile homes for those living in inadequate housing in many of the poor parts of the world. Without equalizing housing in this way, large numbers in the poor areas might immediately migrate to the rich areas, destabilizing the system. Over a longer time-frame permanent high quality homes can be built for everyone.
What to do with rich people’s money?
When the system transitions from our current one to JEM most of people’s savings will be zapped into oblivion (as taxing it would be inflationary, I imagine). Each person will be allowed to keep a maximum of 75 pence for each hour they have worked in their lives. This works out to be about £1,500 for each year they have worked full time. This would give those who have spent years building up a fortune a reasonable amount of money to enjoy while they mentally adjust to an equal world.
In addition to the local democracy just described, citizens of a particular geographic region can create their own semi-independent polity called a Substate, which can opt out of some laws.
World laws come in 2 types: Compulsory Laws and Optional Laws. Compulsory Laws apply to everyone in the world; Optional Laws only apply if one’s Substate has decided to adopt them. Substates cannot freely write laws of their own, just accept or otherwise Optional Laws set at world level, while obeying all Compulsory Laws that the world sets.
All proposals that Proposal Juries make must be specified as being Compulsory or Optional laws.
Substate Decision-Making
If a particular Substate has a population greater than 100,000 it will take the place of one of the administrative levels in the Command Jury table above. If the Substate’s population is lower than this it will become an extra, 6th level.
If a Substate’s population is over a million, its lawmaking system will be similar to the world’s, running parallel to it. For Substates smaller than this a different system will be used, that I call “We Rule”. Under We Rule each person chooses if and when they want to serve as part of the government, as with State Officials, described above. To avoid decisions being skewed towards the type of person who might be more likely to serve, votes will be weighted towards those who are underrepresented. So if people that serve tend to be left-wing then right-wingers will get greater voting power in their decisions. Likewise if they tend to be male, or young or intelligent etc.
Substate Borders
Anyone may propose a change to Substate borders. If 5% of the people who will change Substates under the proposal sign a petition, it goes to a referendum of the whole population of this area. A straight majority of those who vote will put the change into effect. A person is said to change Substates if either most of their fellow Substate citizens cease to be so after the change, or if after the change most of their fellow Substate citizens are people who weren’t fellow citizens before the change.
Education
Most Education would take place within one’s Mike. Each Mike would probably have a few people dedicated to minding and educating children. Older kids would be able to apprentice at the main occupation of the Mike. Also most Mikes might offer work experience to children and adults from other Mikes. These might run anywhere from an hour per week to full time.
As stated above, Inter-Mike Working Limits won’t apply to children. I believe that children should be free to pursue the activities that most interest them.
Transition to JEM
The transition to JEM would require most people to move houses, to be adjacent to people working in the same industry. The moves could all take place in one week, using temporarily commandeered vans, as furniture could be left with their properties in the first instance.
JEM can be rolled out across the world within 5 years. Once the process is complete, every adult human would have the right to move to any Mike across the world. The reason for the 5 year process is to manufacture mobile homes for those living in inadequate housing in many of the poor parts of the world. Without equalizing housing in this way, large numbers in the poor areas might immediately migrate to the rich areas, destabilizing the system. Over a longer time-frame permanent high quality homes can be built for everyone.
What to do with rich people’s money?
When the system transitions from our current one to JEM most of people’s savings will be zapped into oblivion (as taxing it would be inflationary, I imagine). Each person will be allowed to keep a maximum of 75 pence for each hour they have worked in their lives. This works out to be about £1,500 for each year they have worked full time. This would give those who have spent years building up a fortune a reasonable amount of money to enjoy while they mentally adjust to an equal world.