DRAFT MANIFESTO

This is a sincere attempt to formulate an ideal Political Manifesto for a community-based global society. It can however be properly understood only within the context of the entire book, and especially the particular chapter, of which it is a part.

Definitions

1. The words 'he' and 'his' herein signify either gender.
2. The needs of the working-age individual include those of his dependants.
3. S is each individual's proportional share of the habitable land of this planet.
4. L is the total area of habitable land on this planet.
5. P is the working-age population of this planet.
6. C is a factor to compensate for variations in land productivity.
7. Each individual's landshare S = C * L / P (S is C multiplied by L divided by P)

Rights of the Individual

1. Every human being has the right - wherever on Earth he may be - to life; liberty; privacy; freedom of movement, thought and expression; respect and personal security; plus equal and adequate means and opportunity for social inclusion.
2. Each human being born on this planet, upon reaching working age, shall inherit the right to the exclusive sustainable economic use of his share of its habitable land, which is called his landshare.
3. He may not dispossess himself of his landshare or exchange it for anything other than an equivalent landshare by free and unpressured mutual agreement with its owner.
4. No individual, group or authority may dispossess any individual of his landshare.
5. When people marry, their landshares may be combined into a single economic unit.
6. Each individual shall be given subsistence and expenses incurred in the execution of his social duties.
7. Each shall have the right to be judged in any dispute exclusively according to the clear reason and conscience of those appointed to judge him, half of whom shall be peers of his own immediate community.

Duties of the Individual

1. His actions towards others shall, according to his reason and conscience, strike the best balance between his and the others' declared wishes or best interests.
2. He shall use his land as his means of turning his labour into his needs of life. He shall also apply a fair share of his labour to the land of those of his community who are unable to work in order that their land may provide their needs.
3. He shall give a tenth of the naturally generated economic gain of his land to fund the subsistence and expenses of those performing social duties. In addition, he shall give his surplus when in a time of plenty to those who are in a time of need.
4. He shall make his knowledge and intellectual property freely available to all, and devote an appropriate proportion of his time to giving and receiving education.
5. He shall, when called upon in fair measure by the parties concerned, combine with peers to arbitrate in accordance with his reason and conscience in a dispute.
6. He shall apply his specialist skills and talents to providing products and services which he may exchange in a free market for those of others.
7. It is the duty of all freely to protect the life, land and possessions of each from the misdemeanours of mankind and from the ravages of nature.

Structure of Society

1. The first order of society is the family. It comprises one working-age couple + their children + such members of the retired generation as are appropriate and fairly agreed with other families with whom they have links.
2. The second order of society is the community. It comprises from 50 to 100 working-age individuals. An existing community which grows beyond 100 working-age individuals shall split into two, each of which shall contain at least 50. An existing community which falls below 50 working-age individuals shall accept excess individuals from, or merge with, another community.
3. The final order of society is the world. This is a complex dynamical system whose universal structural element is the community. Its entire operation is governed by an Inter-Community Protocol which defines how communities interact.

Duties of the Community

1. Each community shall organise and sustain an educational programme to impart both local and global knowledge and skills to each individual within it. For this purpose, all communities shall make all educational material freely available through a global communications network. The educational programme shall cover the full human life-span. It shall be flexible so that nobody is left behind or misses out through particular personal circumstances.
2. Each community shall organise and sustain a fair and equitable system of arbitration for resolving disputes between individuals within it. When reasonably called upon to do so, members of a community shall act as arbitrators between disputing individuals from two other separate communities.
3. Each community shall count its working-age population every 50 years and pass this value to those whose specialist duty it is to re-determine P, C and S over the planet's habitable surface. Each community shall then co-operate with its neighbouring communities to re-allocate landshares for the next generation.

Permissions and Prohibitions

1. Individuals may associate to share a common interest or co-operate in a common endeavour, but an association or co-operative so formed has no status as an entity separate from the individuals it comprises.
2. Disputes may only occur between individuals. An association or co-operative cannot enter into a dispute with an individual, association or co-operative.
3. Arbitrators may suspend one or more of an individual's rights in order to inhibit his wilful violation of one or more of another's rights, or in the event of his unjustifiable wilful neglect of one or more of his duties.
4. Equal resources must be provided to both individuals in a dispute with which to present their cases to their arbitrators. This provision must be made by each individual's respective community.