III — Overview

Chapitre III

OVERVIEW

This document proposes a complete institutional architecture. This overview presents the logic of each part and the system’s coherence.

Part I — Foundations

The system starts from an observation: the welfare State imposes uniform solidarity on everyone, transforming politics into a war for control of the State apparatus. The proposed alternative rests on a simple principle: the State protects rights, society organizes solidarity.

The minimal State does not eliminate solidarity — it ceases to impose it. The same country can thus accommodate autonomous individuals, egalitarian cooperatives, religious communities — each living according to their values without imposing them on others. The right of exit is the keystone: no one can be held against their will.

Part II — Economy and Finance

This part defines the State’s perimeter and its fiscal architecture. The State is limited to sovereign functions and cases the market cannot absorb. Quasi-inviolable budgetary rules — mandatory surplus, levy ceiling, reserve fund — prevent perpetual expansion of the public sphere.

Social protection shifts from State monopoly to a system of mandatory private insurance, with mutualization to prevent risk selection. Taxation is simplified to a single income tax (flat tax with allowance), all indirect taxes abolished. Currency ceases to be a State monopoly: monetary competition disciplines governments. Each domain — health, unemployment, pensions — is encapsulated in its own financing mechanism to prevent contagion of failures.

Part III — Autonomous Collectivities

Some people do not know how — or do not want — to manage themselves alone. The current system offers them dependency or abandonment. Autonomous Collectivities propose a third way: integration into a productive and self-funded community.

This part defines the concept, the different possible models (from highly directed to totally self-managed), the mechanisms of entry and exit, and the ecosystem connecting them. Case studies — Amish, kibbutzim, Emmaus, Mondragon — document what already works and what must be adapted.

Part IV — Self-Protection Without Community

Not everyone wishes to join a community. Between total autonomy and community membership, there exists an intermediate path: voluntarily delegating certain decisions to a chosen third party.

This part explores chosen delegation mechanisms — financial representatives, designated agents, automated savings — that allow vulnerable or overwhelmed people to protect themselves without losing their legal capacity or freedom of revocation.

Part V — Electoral System

Current representative democracy grants a blank check every five years. This document proposes real-time democracy: permanent recall of elected officials, black vote for blocking, white vote for counterweight, gray vote for abstention.

Not all decisions are of the same nature. Parliament, elected by property-weighted suffrage, manages the budget and economic questions — those who contribute more weigh more. The Senate, elected by equal suffrage, protects fundamental rights — each citizen weighs the same. This asymmetry is intentional: resilience is placed where the stakes are most serious. Budgetary blocking mechanisms prevent paralysis without letting sabotage go unpunished.

Part VI — Institutions

This part defines the architecture of powers. Judges are elected, revocable for serious misconduct, but protected by long mandates. The Constitutional Council, composed of elected officials, jurists, and citizens drawn by lot, verifies compliance with rules without creating them. Political parties, to be recognized, must function democratically internally. The head of State — president or monarch according to traditions — represents unity without exercising executive power.

Part VII — Citizen Protection

This part groups the mechanisms by which the collectivity protects the citizen against legal, economic, and normative asymmetries coming from outside.

Immigration is managed according to its nature: economic quotas by Parliament, fundamental rights by the Senate. The right to asylum is constitutionalized but budgetarily neutral — the asylum seeker enters the insurance system or joins an Autonomous Collectivity, without specific aid.

International trade rests on the principle of normative equality: any product sold on the national market must respect the norms applicable to national producers. International treaties are subordinate to national law and can be denounced by referendum.

Part VIII — Specific Questions

The administrative millefeuille — communes, intercommunalities, departments, regions, State — superimposes levels, overlaps competencies, dilutes responsibilities. This part sets the principles for radical simplification: strict subsidiarity, fiscal competition, voluntary merger, regulatory guillotine. This work remains partially open — the transition will need to include a major cleanup.

Part IX — Transition

How to dismantle an obese State without provoking collapse? By placing the safety net before cutting. Autonomous Collectivities must be operational before reducing public spending — people who lose their jobs or aid immediately have a structure to land in. The transition is brutal, but not cruel.

Appendices

The appendices provide technical details, calculations, and simulations supporting this document’s proposals: existing empirical precedents, mathematical formulas for property-weighted voting, pension transition simulations, mechanisms of the incorruptible price index, comparative dictionary of autonomous collectivities.