"Power always thinks it has a great Soul, and vast Views, beyond the Comprehension of the Weak." - Thomas Jefferson (on the corruptions of power)
If you ever wanted to know what the corruption of power looks like, then the years since 2020 have provided an adequate demonstration. The hubris, brow-beating, self-deception and charlatanism of the powerful have left the rest of us severely weakened economically, culturally and in our health and well-being.
With panocracy we want to introduce a way of running our affairs that uses the skills and talents of everyone to create a society that's less neurotic and much happier.
"Complex human societies need elites – rulers, administrators, thought leaders – to function well. We don’t want to get rid of them; the trick is to constrain them to act for the benefit of all." - Peter Turchin in End Times: Elites, Counter Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration
Here we're going to outline the way new laws are created and existing ones changed, how we will vote and what we think we'll need as an absolute minimum of institutions and agencies.
Anyone can make a proposal for a new law by filling in a standard form, either online or on paper. We call this a Request for Comments or RFC for short.
For example, someone might think that we should remove a sales tax on food. That someone doesn't have to be credentialed or elected or have any special skills to propose this.
This is a proposal that many people would perhaps be happy with but it has implications and consequences which must be clarified, debated and understood. For example, many people will want to know where the money is to come from to pay for the reduction. They may be unhappy that they'll have to pay more in taxes to cover the cost of this measure. The author of the proposal will have to answer that question. It may well be that other taxes will have to rise to offset this. Panocracy brings the issue out into the open where currently it would be hidden behind some political doubletalk.
Let's suppose that after a lot of debate, this proposal is put to the vote. Each vote is a referendum so we have a stream of referenda.
Voting requires a lot of effort on the part of the electorate and we want to reduce this as much as we can. We also want everyone to have their say and modern technology allows us to meet both these apparently conflicting requirements.
Everyone's vote is counted and if the proposal gets a majority it becomes approved and is implemented by an agency or agencies - or the people themselves. Most people will vote via a proxy - called an agent - who is required to cast your vote the way you would yourself. Some may wish to vote themselves but there will be a lot of votes
The following functions are necessary for the Panocracy. Each of them is the job of one or more panocratic institutions:
How these functions are implemented and managed is a matter for public debate via the RFC system but they will be required to operate under the scrutiny of the people.