IV — A Minimal state for A Plural society

Chapitre IV

A MINIMAL STATE FOR A PLURAL SOCIETY: SEPARATING SOLIDARITY FROM COERCION

4.1 — Introduction: exiting imposed solidarity

The modern welfare State rests on an implicit but absolute idea:

Solidarity must be decided by the State and imposed uniformly on all.

Even when democratic, this model produces a centralized, uniform, and mandatory system from which no one can exit. This leads to growing tensions:

citizens who refuse to adhere to the system and no longer wish to contract with the State,
individuals who would want more solidarity but in a different form,
groups who wish to organize their own social protection without imposing it on others,
permanent conflict between “right-wing” and “left-wing” visions.

Hence the founding question:

Must solidarity be a State monopoly?

The model presented here clearly answers: no.

4.2 — The founding principle: dissociating the State from solidarity

The central idea is simple:

The State protects rights; society organizes solidarity.

This principle allows distinguishing two functions often confused:

The sovereign role of the State:
- guarantee freedoms,
- arbitrate contracts,
- ensure security,
- maintain the common legal framework.
Solidarity, which need not be imposed by this same State.

The minimal State does not eliminate solidarity: it ceases to impose it, to let individuals and groups organize it themselves, freely and contractually.

The State becomes a neutral guarantor, no longer a central organizer of social life.

4.3 — The minimal State is not a “non-State”: it allows all models

The minimal State retains essential functions:

fundamental rights,
justice,
security,
contracts,
monetary sovereignty,
minimal infrastructure.

What it no longer does:

impose a redistribution model,
define a vision of “good solidarity”,
stifle community or voluntary alternatives,
lock everyone into a uniform system.

Thus, the same country can accommodate:

independent and autonomous individuals,
mutualist villages,
modern kibbutzim,
egalitarian cooperatives,
religious or philosophical communities,
liberal or entrepreneurial structures,
village federations,
collectivity associations.

The State does not choose the best form of society. It guarantees the possibility of all these forms.

A minimal State allows a maximal society.

4.4 — Voluntary solidarity: contractual, diverse, reversible

In this model, solidarity becomes again:

voluntary — one adheres by choice,
contractual — rules are explicit and accepted,
pluralist — several models coexist,
reversible — one can exit,
adapted to members’ values — each group defines its vision.

This authorizes:

Communities more “leftist” than the State itself — kibbutzim, integral cooperatives, mutualist villages where everything is shared.

Lifestyles more “rightist” — individualistic, based on private property, with minimal mutualization.

And all nuances between the two — each collectivity freely defines its level of redistribution, its internal social protection, its rules of life, its economic organization.

The State no longer imposes a universal model: it guarantees the freedom to experiment with them.

4.5 — The right of exit: keystone of pluralism

The essential principle of this system is:

No one can be held in a collectivity against their will.

When a person leaves a community:

they keep their personal property,
they keep the fruit of their labor,
they are not penalized for their departure,
they can join another collectivity or live alone.

When a village leaves a federation:

it can keep its own infrastructure,
it must negotiate on common goods (e.g., land),
an independent tribunal arbitrates in case of disagreement.

This mechanism guarantees:

individual freedom,
property protection,
limitation of collective abuses,
compatibility between solidarity and freedom.

Without the right of exit, solidarity becomes servitude. With it, it remains a choice.

4.6 — Fractal jurisdiction: collectivities, federations, meta-collectivities

The model proposes a polycentric and fractal architecture:

a collectivity can contain other collectivities,
several villages can form a federation,
several federations can form a union,
these unions can cooperate or split freely.

Each entity possesses:

its legal personality,
its membership contract,
its right of exit,
its internal autonomy.

Nothing prevents:

a collectivity from encompassing another (with its consent),
an association of collectivities from being itself a collectivity,
a federation from evolving or dividing.

This is no longer a pyramidal State: it’s an organic, flexible, and self-organized society. Subsidiarity is no longer an abstract principle — it becomes the very structure of the system.

4.7 — The kibbutzim as an extreme example made compatible with a liberal framework

Historically, Israeli kibbutzim demonstrated that:

voluntary solidarity can be very strong,
collectivist communities can prosper,
mutual aid can replace a large part of public institutions.

But they lived in a State that otherwise imposed its own solidarity model.

The model presented here offers an unprecedented framework:

Collectivist communities can exist without depending on the State and without imposing it on others.

They become:

contractual (one enters voluntarily),
autonomous (they define their own rules),
evolving (they can change),
compatible with a liberal environment.

Thus, a community can be deeply collectivist, while the country in which it is located is not at all.

It’s this space of freedom that makes the model coherent: everyone lives according to their convictions without imposing them on others.

4.8 — Beyond the left-right divide

This model does not choose between right and left: it shifts the question.

The right can no longer impose its economic model at the national level.
The left can no longer impose its social model on the whole country.
Both can exist, but locally and voluntarily.

Politics ceases to be a war for control of the State, and becomes a freedom to choose one’s way of life.

Disagreements are no longer imposed by the force of national law: they unfold in concrete projects, experimented by those who desire them, observed by those who hesitate.

National democracy arbitrates the rules of the common game (fundamental rights, justice, security). It no longer arbitrates the content of social life.

4.9 — A more stable society because more diverse

A pluralist system naturally reduces:

polarization (no need to convince 51% of the country),
frustration (everyone can live according to their values),
social conflict (less at stake in national elections),
dependence on a single model (if one model fails, others survive),
the obligation to “convince the whole country” before acting.

Communities:

innovate (they test new solutions),
cooperate (they exchange best practices and resources),
compete positively (the best attract members),
learn from each other (one’s failure is everyone’s lesson).

The diversity of local structures produces a systemic resilience superior to that of a centralized welfare State. A shock that would destroy a uniform system only destroys a few models in a plural system.

4.10 — Conclusion: the freedom to choose one’s society

The proposed model can be summarized thus:

The State protects. Communities choose. Individuals decide.

By separating solidarity from State coercion, this system finally allows citizens:

to live according to their values,
to experiment with varied social forms,
to participate in communities that resemble them,
or to live without collectivity,
without ever imposing their choice on others.

This is the central philosophy of this document: a truly free society is a society that allows several ways of being free.

The following chapter details what the State does — and especially what it does not do.