DERIVATION OF EQUITARIAN POLITICAL-ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY --
Sociology of Mind Forum Participants,
The basic idea of the Equitist-Communist Reform/Revolution, as I understand it, is to sprout the "seed" of economic democracy already internal to the Capital-relationship, into a full-blown political-ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY, i.e., into Democratic Communism, via the four new species of equity rights, which are not limited to capital owners, as is the old, Capital equity right, but which are rights of all Citizens.
It is based, to my understanding, upon a dialectical "immanent critique" -- i.e., a critique based upon the internal logic of the object of critique itself, and, thus, in fact, a self-critique of that object -- of "Bourgeois Right" in general, and of Bourgeois economic "Right" -- "Capital Right" -- in particular.
"Capital Equity Right" -- "Stockholder Democracy" -- will, due to the immanent dynamical law of the capitalist political-economic system, the law of the consolidation, concentration, and centralization of Capital-ownership, eventuate in concentrating virtually all effective economic power in a tiny minority of human society, which will not only render the majority of human beings economically essentially powerless, but will also subvert the civil and political dimensions of "Bourgeois Right" -- civil liberties, representative democracy, equality before the law, the rule of law, etc. -- by enabling that tiny minority of concentrated Capital-owners to prostitute all three branches of political government, legislative, executive, and judicial, thus destroying constitutional checks and balances, and leading to a totalitarian, [state-]capitalist police state, featuring a total loss of Bourgeois "liberty".
Marx wrote about the "seed" of democratic communism within the
Capital-social-relation-of-production in some of his earliest notes toward an outline of his critique of capitalist political economy, that became the three volumes of Das Kapital, in these words --
"Capital is divided into four sections.
1. Capital en général [in Fr.] (This is the material of the first brochure).
2. Competition or the reciprocal action of the many capitals.
3. Credit, where capital appears as the general element in opposition to the many capitals.
4. Share capital as the most perfect form (assuming the character of
communism), together with all its contradictions."
[Marx to Engels; April 2, 1858; in MEW 29; page 312; reproduced in Rubel on Marx: Five Essays; Cambridge University Press (NY: 1981); page 216].
-- And, in some of his last notes on that critique, that became part of volume III of Das Kapital --
"The general remarks, which the credit system so far elicited from us, were the following: ...
III. Formation of stock companies. Thereby: ...
3) Transformation of the actually functioning capitalist into a mere manager, administrator of other people's capital, and of the owner of capital into a mere owner, a mere money-capitalist. Even if the dividends which they receive include the interest and the profit of enterprise, i.e., the total profit (for the salary of managers is, or should be, simply the wage of a specific type of skilled labour, whose price is regulated in the labour-market like that of any other labour), this total profit is henceforth received only in the form of interest, i.e., as mere compensation for owning capital that is now entirely divorced from the function in the actual process of reproduction, just as this function in the person of the manager is divorced from ownership of capital. ...
In stock companies the function is divorced from capital ownership, hence also labour is entirely divorced from ownership of means of production and surplus-labour.
This result of the ultimate development of capitalist production is a necessary transitional phase towards the reconversion of capital into the property of producers, although no longer as the private property of the individual producers, but rather as the property of associated producers, as outright social property.
On the other hand, the stock company is a transition toward the conversion of all functions in the reproduction process which still remain linked with capitalist property, into mere functions of the associated producers, into social functions.
This is the abolition of the capitalist mode of production within the capitalist mode of production itself, and hence a self-dissolving contradiction, which prima facie represents a mere phase of transition to a new form of production.
It manifests itself as such a contradiction in its effects.
It establishes a monopoly in certain spheres and thereby requires state interference.
It reproduces a new financial aristocracy, a new variety of parasites in the shape of promoters, speculators, and simply nominal directors; a whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation promoting, stock issuance, and stock speculation.
It is private production without the control of private property. ...
The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organization all the shortcomings of the prevailing system.
But the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them, if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour [The Equitists call this transitional hybrid form "workers' capital[ism]" — Miguel].
They show how a new mode of production naturally grows out of an old one, when the development of the material forces of production and of the corresponding forms of social production have reached a particular stage.
Without the factory system arising out of the capitalist mode of production there could have been no co-operative factories.
Nor could these have developed without the credit system arising out of the same mode of production.
The credit system is not only the principal basis for the gradual transformation of capitalist enterprises into capitalist stock companies, but equally offers the means for the gradual extension of co-operative enterprises on a more or less national scale. ...
The capitalist stock companies, as much as the co-operative factories, should be considered transitional forms from the capitalist mode of production to the associated one, with the only distinction that the antagonism is resolved negatively in the one, and positively in the other. ...
The credit system appears as the main lever of over-production and
over-speculation in commerce solely because the reproduction process, which is elastic by nature, is here forced to its extreme limits, and is so forced because a large part of the social capital is employed by people who do not own it, and who consequently tackle things quite differently than the owner, who anxiously weighs the limitations of his private capital in so far as he handles it himself.
This simply demonstrates the fact that the self-expansion of capital based on the contradictory nature of capitalist production permits an actual free development only up to a certain point, so that in fact it constitutes an immanent fetter and barrier to production, which is continually broken through by the credit system.
Hence, the credit system accelerates the material development of the productive forces and the establishment of the world-market.
It is the historical mission of the capitalist system of production to raise the material foundations of the new mode of production to a certain degree of perfection.
At the same time credit accelerates the violent eruption of this contradiction — crises — and thereby the elements of disintegration of the old mode of production.
The two characteristics immanent in the credit system are, on the one hand, to develop the incentive of capitalist production, enrichment through the exploitation of the labour of others, to the purest and most colossal form of gambling and swindling, and to reduce more and more the number of the few who exploit the social wealth; on the other hand, to constitute the form of transition to a new mode of production.
It is this ambiguous nature, which endows the principal spokesmen of credit from Law to Isaac Pereire with the pleasant character mixture of swindler and prophet."
[Karl Marx; Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (vol. III), '''The Shapes Taken-On by The Reproductions-Process of/by Capitals Overall''', Chapter XXVII, "The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production"; International Publishers Co., Inc. (NY: 1967); pages 435-441].
Regards,
Miguel
--- In sociologyofmind@yahoogroups.com, detonacciones <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> Sociology of Mind Group Participants,
>
> 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 diarrhoeally 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 Universe as a whole.
>
> For more on this solution of the Psycho-Historical Dialectical Equations, see the fourth of the "[RE-]SOURCE" links listed below, and --
>
> http://www.dialectics.org/dialectics/Primer_files/4_F.E.D.%20Intro.%20Letter,%20Supplement%20B-1,%20v.2_OCR.pdf
>
> 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-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 dialectical self-contradiction, that core self-contradiction, or "self-duality", of capital 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 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 of unamortized fixed capital, and until capitalist-core-installed comprador dictatorships in the capitalist periphery, suppressing low-wage competitive capitalist industrialization there, that would otherwise have used the latest/most advanced fixed capital vintages, fetter the growth of the productive forces].
>
> 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 past, previously-elaborated 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
>
> http://www.equitism.org/Equitism/Theory/PoliticalEconomicLawOfMotion/PoliticalEconomicLawOfMotion.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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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).
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> Sub-Section 6.c [Standing] Any one or more Citizens shall have standing to bring legal action(s) before any of these courts.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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> Sub-Section 6.k [Term Limits, Justices] Justices shall serve four year terms, with a limit of three consecutive terms.
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> 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.
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> 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.
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