To be clear, this is not a comprehensive implementation - this is just a basic outline.

Rights understood in terms of the individual

We begin with the concept of natural rights, and the non-aggression principle that derives the rest. You own yourself and your actions. Extending from this, you own your justly acquired property. No one has the right to force you to do anything you don’t want to do - unless in self-defense or prior-agreement. To boil it down to one principle, the initiation of force is always immoral. From this basic code, our goal is to design a new system of governance that operates on that principle, works for and respects the individual, and has the capability to transition from concept to reality naturally.

The Complexity of polycentric law

The best way to translate these principles into an efficient system of governance, is by designing it with respect to externalities. Polycentric law, otherwise known as voluntaryism, market-anarchy or anarcho-capitalism, does just this. It’s complexity is beneficial in that it is a system that respects individual rights and is based on friendly competition and cooperation. However, it is very complex and difficult to organize at first, which prevents it from becoming a reality. If we wish to see these ideas actualized, we must also design a system that can not only operate as an independent nation, but also as a transitory entity. In other words, it must also be characterized as an alternative organization existing within other systems, until it replaces them.

One of the problems we have stemming from the complexity issue, is not just the actual implementation of polycentric law but also that in such a system, there is no method for making collective decisions. Many would find this undesirable, but having a mechanism to make these decisions allows for calculated actions to be taken in the implementation of this system, and also act within (though without) the state paradigm. If we were to find a way to collect and direct funding without violating the non-aggression principle, actions necessary for dealing with foreign governments and generally operating in a state-dominated world would prevent many issues before they became serious problems. Further, the transitory collective decision-making necessary for bringing about this system would be an organized, market-driven development and implementation of this alternative.

So, with these issues in mind, how can we create a system that removes complexity, allows for collective decision-making, has decentralized ownership, exists everywhere and nowhere, relies on market principles rather than fallible human and democratic decisions, sustains itself, and does not violate the non-aggression principle in any way? The answer is in the blockchain.

BitNation

Bitnation claims to be a nation on a blockchain - without borders or bombs. They have created an Ethereum Dapp that will eventually provide polycentric law on the blockchain using a “liquid holacratic” structure for development. This is nothing short of revolutionary, but I do think it has some limitations arising from its use of Ethereum. For one, Ethereum doesn’t scale. If millions of users were start using Bitnation, the tps of Ethereum would leave the network running slow, especially with other Dapps being used on Ethereum. Secondly, Ethereum runs on fees, so the “Core Holons” would not be able to benefit from the use of rate-limited transactions (free txs invented by the Steem developers). Thirdly, the developers themselves have stated that each “Core Holon” can be thought of as its own blockchain. Wouldn’t having an actual blockchain be better than a synthetic one? If we were to use separate blockchains, we could have the same sort of structure, but we could innovate in areas that we couldn’t on Ethereum. I thought of this in parallel with the BitNation team, so in order to give my idea credibility, I need to differentiate it from theirs. It is different in many key aspects, but it is also have many similar ideas. I also don’t want to downplay their achievement in any way, as they have actually put this into code, whereas I’m just now getting around to writing a blog post on it.

To build a new BitNation

In designing this alternative system of governance, we must think big, and think outside the box. First, we decide what our blockchain provides as its service. What we desire, is an entire system of polycentric law - plug and play, easy to set up and use, both as an independent nation, and a competing service within other nations. We must also provide ways to connect every facet of the system quickly, automatically, and with incentives that encourage quality participation. Second, we must design the governance model of the blockchain itself. For this, we look to the blockchain experiments: TheDao, Bitshares, and the new chain on the block, Steem (I’m sorry, I had to). In these systems, the coins are not currency, but rather, are shares in the blockchain. The blockchain allows the shareholders to vote to direct funds from a central pool toward developers, other established roles, as well as project proposals that might increase the value of the system as a whole.

Minimize human error in the decision-making process

Steem has innovated in the blockchain space greatly, pioneering the era of the no-fee blockchain. Further, they have limited voting power to long-term holders that vest their stake, ensuring that only those that believe in the future of the system can make decisions. Bitshares had the original blockchain governance model, innovating in its use of liquid democracy and the separation of powers between workers, committee, and witnesses. TheDao, though practically the same if not less effective than Bitshares or Steem, may have something innovative on its horizon. They plan to use Augur, an ethereum-based decentralized prediction market, in their evaluation of worker proposals and protocol changes using Robin Hanson’s model of futarchy. Corporations use a form of democracy in their shareholder system, but in a futarchy, a prediction market for the profitability of different projects and representatives is used to make decisions. As Hanson outlines in his paper, prediction markets are the best information aggregator we know, whereas we see democracy as being one of the worst. Having the full information is important, and will most likely result in better, more efficient policies, projects, and representatives. Further, it reduces human involvement as much as possible, therefore making more impartial decisions.

The Futarchic DAO

So, in going for efficiency, and cutting out fallible humans as much as possible, I have combined many of the good aspects of these three systems. The blockchain’s governance operates as follows: The shareholders must agree to vest their stake for several years in order to participate in voting. Once a participating voter, they will be able to either vote on their own, or give their votes to a proxy who will vote for them (liquid democracy). The voters elect representatives to set parameters of a futarchy. The liquid democracy is granted a limited budget decided by the futarchy, but the futarchy is allotted a much higher percentage of this daily budget, and therefore makes most of the decisions. It will use the maximization of long-term share price as well as other factors to decide which proposal will be the most profitable at that time. The share price might as well act as a measure of GDP in the black market. To increase the population of the user base, the futarchy needs to innovate by increasing quality, making things cheaper, and supplying services that people want and will use at the time. The futarchy and the liquid democracy branches can hire developers to improve the system, advertisers, ambassadors, and people for outreach programs. The futarchy also chooses the futarchy's own dispute resolution insurance plan, assuring that the blockchain will never be above the law. The more controversial possibilities include contracting private military corporations, assassins, hackers, or revolutionaries. These more hardcore possibilities would most likely only occur when zerocash or some other cryptocurrency perfects anonymity in the future, and we may not even need them to replace some governments.

A platform for polycentric law

Through the futarchy, the blockchain will hire developers to build the platform for polycentric-law under the philosophy of designing perfectly-competitive markets, rather than the lazier, simple private-ownership approach. In addition, as the platform must be open and transparent, each insurance company (which will now be referred to as DRO’s, or Dispute Resolution Organizations) will be able to write their own smart-contracts defining the terms of interaction for each competing DRO they run into. This is law written in code, using algorithms to place a dollar value for each side that determine automatically whose version of dispute resolution and law will be used in a given situation. We can provide access to a library of open-source law on the blockchain, with ratings and descriptions of each. People will be able to drop or buy individual laws from DRO’s as well, increasing the personalization and sovereignty of the individual. The DRO’s set prices for the different laws they cover. We can combat the complexity by providing educational tools, tutorials, and by creating an easy and intuitive user experience that anyone can pick up and start using right from the get-go. Everything should be as automated as possible to reduce costs and for simplicity. To make things simpler for the average user, nearly all of the most basic interactions with the blockchain will be rate-limited free transactions.

Organization of the platform

We start by allowing DRO's to design and host their organizational structures on the blockchain, writing contracts defining their company procedures, and then their interactions with other DRO’s. There would be standardized, optimized organizational structures built into the blockchain that DRO’s can choose from to build their organization. Next, a bounty ledger will be created for DRO’s to use for enforcing the law. Eventually, a market for neighborhood-watch associations, police departments, and vigilantes will be developed into an uber-like network. The DRO’s will pay these organizations through this network, creating a perfectly-competitive market for the enforcement of law. Likely people will be white-listed by insurance companies that either verify or train their officers to enforce the prevalent laws of the region. These companies will whitelist individual accounts, companies, or non-profit organizations deemed fit for police-work. The DRO's would then subscribe to and negotiate with different security insurance networks on a monthly fee, that pays for protection by neighborhood-watch associations and community police. Next, the market for judges must be designed. A judge would have every decision they’ve ever made publicly accessible to every DRO. Judges would outline their principles, skills, areas of expertise, and then provide proof of it in their past decisions. They would then be contracted by DRO’s to adjudicate.

Shareholder profit

As more people use the platform, more shares are needed for the new customers to buy their base-level ownership of shares, more fees are paid, and more shares are locked up, decreasing the supply of liquid shares. This increases the value of the system. The fee-pool and inflation, as long as the increase in share price is more per year than the inflation, can also fund open blockchain services such as bitnation’s ID cards, birth certificates, marriage certificates, services such as a global property registry, an algorithmic probability-based map of laws that you might run into throughout different areas and communities (similar to cargo-ship insurance), border-security with neighboring states, military operations for wars or revolutions, donations and aid, advertising, educational videos, radio, and literature. We can extend this to whatever else people deem necessary to convince others to use this black market alternative.

Stable-currency

A second currency, set to the price of any preferred medium of exchange such as gold, the dollar, a basket-currency, or bitcoin would allow for trading to happen on the platform itself, keeping the price-mechanism of the system independent from exchanges and therefore independent of government control. This would be the currency that people use to pay their DRO’s, and would be backed by the blockchain’s value.

Is it a government?

There is the concern that the futarchy would just become another government. However, the collective decision-making branch is not all-powerful, as it will have to hire its own DRO in order to operate. This ensures that the futarchy has no more power than any other organization, and that it remains peaceful and non-aggressive. The futarchy, thus, must operate within the law or be litigated on their own platform. Likely those responsible for the litigation will be terminated immediately by the shareholders/futarchy, and someone else will be chosen to take their role. There is some concern that there will be only one futarchy operating in an area, but since for the most part the whole chain is run by markets that tend to give consumers what they want, this may not be much of an issue. Additionally, it is possible to create a central chain that atomically communicates with all of these blockchains. This allows for competition in efficient blockchain solutions while minimizing the inefficiency of atomic cross-chain transactions. If the main chain, for example, decided to make the startup cost for a new DRO very expensive to drive out competition, a side chain could be set up that does this at actual cost to the blockchain, and a proxy DRO could be used as an intermediary between the DRO’s on the separate chains. This central sidechain option keeps the fees low, and keeps the DAOs from becoming too centralized, maintaining competition between blockchains for DRO’s and consumers. It’s possible that due to competition and forking, fees will be nearly at-cost and nearly everything will have rate-limited transactions as a default.

We live in a world of states- we need backwards compatibility

What makes Agoracracy unique, is that it not only has a method to improve upon the existing theories and processes, but it also provides a roadmap for getting to the ideal of a voluntary society. It is borderless (It can fund borders for an agoracratic nation, but it cannot, however, control whether people use it or not outside this border within other governments), it has the ability to raise funds, organize and attract people to the platform, to act within the current nation-state paradigm, while allowing for specialization and expertise in revolutionary activity to be incentivized - whether it be peaceful or not (for example, fighting off a state forces would not be considered peaceful). Many in the first-world nations, especially the libertarians, anarchists, and cryptocurrency users, seeing opportunity in this experiment, might be willing to invest in the establishment of a new system in the poorest and most oppressed areas of the world, compensating those who risk their lives for the greatest experiment in liberation the world has ever known. Those who step up and act would not only get the satisfaction of living in a free world, but they would be paid to bring this satisfaction about to share with others.

What will it look like at first?

In the beginning, we will largely see for-profits and mutual aid societies running the system of polycentric law. For-profit DRO’s will provide will subscribe to verification networks, who train hackers to act as internet police. The mutual aid societies will subscribe to nonprofit verification/training networks, training nonprofit vigilante-like neighborhood-watch associations. However, as usage grows, companies will spring up and begin to compete, finding more efficient ways to operate with and against these democratic volunteer-based nonprofits. This is a sign of maturity of the system, and should be welcomed. Eventually, the black market will have to give into it as people start to put bounties on people’s heads for crimes. Criminals will need to subscribe to this system if they want to remove this bounty and operate within the black market. The governments will receive less in taxes, companies will become more specialized, and more people will therefore be willing and able to buy better, and more effective protection plans. Further, criminals would be forced into using these services if they wanted to participate in black market activity, making black markets much safer for all involved.

The purpose and role of agoracracy

Agoracracy sees our world’s governments in a rational way, to hopefully establish liberty within our lifetimes. It sees global politics not through the eyes of what it will ultimately become, but rather how it is now, and it provides the tools necessary to operate within as well as without this paradigm. The collective decision-making entity can represent the vision as a whole, and negotiate with other governments to ensure that the people’s activity does not inadvertently cause expensive wars. It can monitor negotiated border-security with other nations and enforce a few other proposals and policies, but it cannot violate the non-aggression principle. It is still fundamentally without control of the agoracratic populace. To sum it up, it is a blockchain-based system of polycentric law that is designed, updated, and governed by a liquid-democratic futarchy. It is a prediction market that creates and enhances markets for community security, law, adjudication, and promotes the causes of radical freedom around the world. This is not just an app for your computer or phone; this is a whole new way to organize the world. We have faith in humanity, and we think different. We see the violence and the hatred, the people starving and the people dying under the oppression of authoritarians and corporatocracies. We see a solution: using decentralized markets as a weapon of liberty.

An agoracratic revolution

To be absolutely, positively clear, I am not calling for the violent overthrow of any government whatsoever. I am not calling for any violence period. I am simply outlining the possibilities that this form of organization provides and what I think it will most likely bring about. I have no intention of even learning how to code, so this is not something I could ever do myself. I do, however, love to write on the possibilities that new technologies afford us. Some day, blockchain jurisdictions will cover the globe and governments will cease to exist, but I believe that in order to grow to a point where jurisdictions over land are possible, this system will have to take over the internet and the black markets first. After this happens, it is only a matter of time before an oppressed population that already uses this platform in their day-to-day lives would want to end the redundancy of government law.

This is Agoracracy. Rule by the market; the Dapp of the crypto-agorist. With the advent of the blockchain, we may truly see liberty in our lifetimes. Let me know what you think, and if any improvements can be made. Also, let's hear some more opinions on how you think liberty can be achieved. Thanks Steem!

Bibliography:

Hanson, Robin. "Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs?" Shall We Vote on Values, But Bet on Beliefs? * (n.d.): n. pag. Futarchy. Journal of Political Philosophy, 2013. Web. 5 June 2016. http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy2013.pdf.

Del Castillo, Michael. "The Father of Futarchy Has an Idea to Reshape DAO Governance - CoinDesk." CoinDesk RSS. Coindesk, 23 May 2016. Web. 05 June 2016. http://www.coindesk.com/futarchy-dao-governance/.

Larimer, Daniel, and Fabian Schuh. "BITSHARES 2.0: FINANCIAL SMART CONTRACT PLATFORM." Cryptonomex, 2015. Web. 5 June 2016. http://docs.bitshares.eu/_downloads/bitshares-financial-platform.pdf.

Larimer, Daniel, and Fabian Schuh. "BITSHARES 2.0: GENERAL OVERVIEW." (n.d.): n. pag. Cryptonomex. Web. 5 June 2016. http://docs.bitshares.eu/_downloads/bitshares-general.pdf.

Larimer, Daniel, Ned Scott, Valentine Zavgorodnev, Benjamin Johnson, James Calfee, and Michael Vandeberg. Steem (n.d.): n. pag.Steemwhitepaper.pdf. Cryptonomex, Mar. 2016. Web. 5 June 2016. https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf.

Peterson, Jack, Dr., and Joseph Krug. "Augur: A Decentralized, Open-Source Platform for Prediction Markets." (n.d.): n. pag. Augur.pdf. Web. 5 June 2016. http://augur.link/augur.pdf.

Friedman, David D. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Print.

Rothbard, Murray N. For a New Liberty. New York: Macmillan, 1973. Print.

MrJochmann. "Liquid Democracy In Simple Terms." YouTube. YouTube, 18 Nov. 2012. Web. 05 June 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg0_Vhldz-8.

Agoracracy: Rule by the Market