Sineocracy: The Result of Teen Years Well-Wasted

A friend and I used to spend much of our time together discussing current events and alternate theories in everything from physics to politics. Those of you who have had the (dis)pleasure of interacting with me in my, so-far, short time here know that I now focus on the physics aspect, putting my energy into curtailing scientific ignorance. Today, physics is the focus of my education; preaching is my vocation (though, here on ATS, I keep this side of myself relatively quiet); and politics is my voyeurish source of both entertainment and painful disappointment.

At this particular time, though - 5 years ago -, he was 16 and I was 17. Balancing on a log at the gravel pit behind my house, we began thinking about the age-old issue of self-governance. Granted, this isn't the typical teenage conversation, but we were never typical teenagers. No drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, no partying - we found our fun in analyzing (and making usually very politically incorrect jokes about) the world around us. Some people may say that we should have lived it up a little more and left the adult-thinking for our adult years. But, I respectfully disagree. This was how we "lived it up". This was how we had fun, and I wouldn't trade those years for anything.

With the issue of self-governance in mind, we relocated to my room and whipped out the pen and paper, designing, in that one evening, the basis for a system of politics that we felt would make the people as responsible for themselves as is reasonably possible. Over the couple of weeks that followed, we streamlined our political theory and worked out its kinks and unattractive bits. Finally, after about a month, we had a working political theory devoted to the removal of an elite and corporate-backed hierarchy. Our theory was revolutionary in many aspects, and it earned me an A and a merit, as well as new respect from the teacher, for a political essay I wrote at the end of Grade 11.

Now, I want to present this political theory to all of you. We call it Sineocracy, meaning, simply, "without government", and, obviously, we based it in Canada, but the principles are easily transferable. The full overview/constitution is 11 pages, so I am linking to the document on my Scribd page (below), but, as a quick summary, here is the preamble:

- Sineocracy is a form of political self-rule that attempts to make the public solely responsible for itself and its actions
- Certain governmental functions (such as the Cabinet) are indispensable, and structures analogous to them are present, but they are run entirely by the free, unaffiliated public
- Each region is duly represented within those structures
- A group of citizens called the Circle oversees the monetary affairs of the public
- The public, as a whole, is responsible for just punishment of crimes
- The punishment for major crimes is severe in an effort to quell such acts
- A group of citizens called the Ædile holds the responsibilities typically allotted to a governmental Cabinet
- The same citizens that form the Ædile also comprise the Ecclesia, which filters proposed legislation (which, if approved initially, is ultimately voted on by the general public)
- All currency is virtual (computer-based), and there is a maximum amount of money that a person is allowed to possess
- There is also a maximum amount of money that a company is allowed to possess, and that amount is based on thecompany's multinational scope
- Each individual with a monetary account is given a handheld device called an ælius with which to access that account, and the use of each device is meticulously safeguarded
- The nation is defended by a regulated public-run military
- All forms of post-secondary education are either free or almost-free services, and are highly encouraged
- The collective of nearly all monetary accounts is the CORE, which is protected through numerous exhaustive security measures; the Defense Account is located in a separate facility called the Vault

Sineocratic Constitution

Feel free to tell me what you think... including any problems you find
And, ATS, thank you for being such a receptive bunch. There's a reason why I'm almost always "online" here.

Couple glaring issues is that what you've described is actually quite a bit of governance and not a whole lot of self governance. My main concern you listed is this whole virtual currency bit, this places a massive amount of power in the hands of the persons controlling the virtual currency system(virtual currency has no limitation, thus no worth,) aka bankers.

The bankers are most of the problem, and your virtual currency system is like their dream come true.

Always remember "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" -Rothschild

I'd give it about 10 years before the circle becomes controlled, it's just a really big problem with this.

Also the maximum amount of money bit...I can think of at least 10 ways to get around that.

I love your concepts, and we need more of this type of thinking.

America has some of the harshest punishments for crime, yet that doesn't seem to deter it any. Countries that have prison systems based on reform of prisoners rather than punishment, tend to have lower crime rates and higher rehabilitation rates after release from prison.

reply to post by Tephra


My friend and I would agree with you on those (although, we would argue that it is not a lot of governance, because it involves a constant stream of "regular people" in the governing positions, much like democracy in ancient Greece). We thought of those problems ourselves, in fact. However, we were working under the assumption that, should Sineocracy ever be implemented here, he and I would be the ones to oversee its integrity. We were well aware of the fact that, as soon as the two of us died (or were made to "disappear"), the whole system would fall apart.

Plus, the whole thing is based on the idea that the people would work together for their own good, and that any attempt to thwart the system would be punished by the people.

reply to post by CLPrime


How do you intend to tax the public for these free schools and to maintain this standing army/buildings of the circle/government. Also, how does a public as a whole run a military?

reply to post by Tephra


Schooling isn't free, but tuition is both more manageable due to the higher standard of living and more affordable due to tuitions being based entirely on school expenses and enrollment numbers. This, we figured, would makes schools self-sufficient.

The military is more of a "well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of the state". If the public can't handle the task, then I guess they're not worthy of ruling themselves. That's an issue among any self-governing people.

Also, funding in general is accomplished based on the assumption that the state, as a whole, will be wealthier. That's only the case if the system is successful.

Since both individual and corporate wealth have caps, how would people stay motivated to keep working hard and striving to make the country's businesses succesful ??

I mean if you are very hard working and build up your Citizen Account to the max by age 30, then you basically have to keep working until you retire, correct?

Is retirement sponsored by the businesses, government, or by an individual's own citizen account?

** Oh and yeah I think this is a great start, althought there are a lot of details that need refining. ,

But how do you actually get something like this up and running? Would you need a revolution?

reply to post by MaryStillToe


Honestly, we didn't consider retirement, but it would seem to me that funds for pensions would come from something that it seems we actually removed from this final form of the system. Originally, we had a sort of "bank" where account overflow would go and, from there, would be distributed among areas that require extra funding. This, then, would include pensions.
And now I remember why we removed that. Because, as soon as you suggest income distribution, people scream "Socialism!" and stop listening to you. But, if it were up to me, I would have it in there.

Also, there is another section to this that isn't included in the version I linked to, which details the implementation, as well as a treaty for other nations wishing to adopt the system. We really went all-out.


Here's the implementation process and other information we came up with:


Sineocracy - IMPLEMENTATION

• The period of implementation is divided into three focal points: Construction, Currency Exchange, and Civil Reform
• The following table summarizes estimated key expenses, excluding labour:

Structure - Est. Cost
--------------------------------------------------------
Circle Headquarters - CA$320,000,000
CORE Mainframe - CA$55,000
Ælius Network - CA$3,000,000,000
Ædile Headquarters - CA$7,000,000
TOTAL - CA$3,327,055,000

• The following table summarizes the five-year implementation process, given an example start date of 01/01/2010:

January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2012
- Construction of Circle and Ædile Headquarters, the Chamber, the CORE, and the fibre optic ælius network
September 1, 2013 – April 30, 2013
- System checks and any required debugging
May 1, 2013 – December 31, 2013
- Distribution of æliuses
January 1, 2014 (4:00:00 AM AST)
- Complete conversion to virtual currency
January 1, 2014 – December 31, 2014
- Institution of all other civil reforms
January 1, 2015 (4:00:00 AM AST)
- Dissolution of the government and governmental rule

• The following table summarizes the maximum number of accounts within each CORE sector:

Sector - Accounts
----------------------------------------------
Citizen Accounts - 50,000,000
Business Accounts - 5,000,000
Trade-Credit Accounts - 200
State Account - 1
ALL ACCOUNTS - 55,000,201

• The following table summarizes the civil reforms instituted during the final year of the implementation period:

Chief Civil Reforms
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction of restructured law and criminal processes
Establishment of the civil military force
Elimination of fees on post-secondary education
Elimination of taxes
Dissolution of all unnecessary groups, companies, individual institutional organs etc…*
Establishment all new required groups, companies, etc…

* It is the responsibility of the Ædile Labour facility to assure that citizens who lose their jobs receive new and appropriate placement as soon a possible

• At the point of transition, all debts owed to the government are absolved
• ACCOUNT CEILINGS: individual citizens who own more than CA$320,000 are permitted to keep the full value of their wealth; account ceilings take precedence as those citizens close their respective accounts, die, or fall below the CA$320,000 constraint, making the transformation gradual, natural, and, consequently, easier on the public

I think you started out with the right idea, and then tried to fix too many "problems" by adding external controls. The key to having a self governing society, is just that. To remember that things can work themselves out without this solution that comes down from the creator (monarch.)

There have been many very successful anarchist societies throughout history, and many exist to this day. Anarchist society is certainly the natural way human beings were meant to live. The people police themselves, and they trade in a way that matters to them and their prosperity.

Once you start considering centralized controls, you begin an ever downward cycle towards total control.

Just read your own writings, you started out with Self Governance, and then you slowly became more controlling, and now you've outlined how you're going to single handedly mastermind and transform everything. It's turned into Self Governance, meaning I CONTROL IT ALL!

reply to post by Tephra


Admittedly, it may be a paradox to tell people how they're going to run themselves, but my friend and I felt it was a necessity, since people have been used to being controlled for so long. We wanted to give the people control, but we wanted to organize it in a way that would ensure the purity of that control. Now, we are not anarchists... my political compass actually tells me I'm a Left-Libertarian. So, we have used "self-governance" loosely, and our form of self-governance is, indeed, very regulated. But, those regulations are safeguards to ensure the control stays with the people. How many anarchist societies have survived? Such societies are taken advantage of, and they can quickly deteriorate into dictatorships, or cults. Sineocracy was never intended to be an anarchist system - it was a way to give people control while simultaneously controlling how much control any given person (or group of people) could have. It was an attempt to avoid a dictatorship, or an oligarchy, while also avoiding the chaos of an anarchy.

Besides, we were 16 and 17, and this was 2006. Times have changed, and so have we. But I'm still proud of what we accomplished.

"It's always nice to see young people doing something." -Old man on the street, Slacker

I think its great that you are puzzling this stuff out OP. Or that you were. And hopefully you still are. Anyway, I recently had a pretty strong revelation that it's time to shift from simply pointing out mistakes with the current system, to actively proposing new frameworks, new solutions. And these frameworks and solutions should be networked and "open source" befitting our era -- they should be formed with the input of many, fine-tuned, inconsistancies winnowed out, best practices adopted. So even if your theory is flawed or incomplete at the moment I think it's great that you and your friend took the first vital step of actually proposing a new ideology. This is what we need a lot more of, brainstorming and hammering out new "-isms" and "-ocracies" to replace the old rotten ones now collapsing under their own deadweight.

reply to post by silent thunder


I definitely still am. There's a reason why I'm here.
My friend, on the other hand...I know he still keeps up with politics, but he's busy getting a business degree. I'm currently on hiatus, so I have time to kill. A LOT of time to kill.

imo,you are being idiotic. mankind time and again has abandoned anarchy, and the results have always ended in flaming ruin. democracy from inception hosts the maggot of destruction. the maggot is human nature, and,it seems to me, we are stuck with that. after this coming immolation, give me people who are dedicated to the proposition of NOT INITIATING FORCE, and they will develop a workable system without a formal pipedream. i had to smile at the start of your thread, and, no, i dont think you are stuck-on-stupid. keep thinking, i admire that!

reply to post by boxturtle


Idiotic, eh? Well, at least I'm being something. This was the result of a brainstorm among two teens. It was fun, but I don't deny its fallibility in many areas.

i haven't tended to be wordy, but if there is a youngster here (of any age) who has a hunger for learning, perhaps i should be more forthcoming. when i was a freshman in high school, i became friends with, to me, a very unusual person. he seemed to have no meanness, but he could hold his ground. no neurosis. at the time, i didn't find this remarkable. (smart too late!). many years later, my friend told me that his mother's father had emmigrated to the us from switzerland and had died from toxic gas while digging a well. my friend's mother was left to raise her brothers and sisters. before i had learned this, i had felt that she was someone who was very especial. he told me that he had read ATLAS SHRUGGED,and that it was important, so i thought i should read the book also. it was only on my third attempt, over a period of several years, that i accomplished this. this was the breakthrough scene: 3 men are in a room. one man has a gun, one man is "needy", and the third man has something of value. the man with the gun points it at the third man and says "give what you've got to the man who needs it more than you do!" the problem that was suddenly obvious to me was: who has the wisdom and the right to decide who holds the gun?

reply to post by boxturtle


That was also the premise of my favourite movie, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. They were discussing having a season for killing people who are inferior, and it was asked, who should have the right to decide who is inferior? The answer was, "Well, those who are intellectually superior, of course." Which is circular reasoning, just as in what you described. My friend and I considered that we were the "intellectual superiors" capable of holding the political gun to the People. Other people would probably disagree with our assessment. It's human nature to want to be the one holding the gun.

cool

I suggest you look up Jonathan Locke. It is his ideas on which the U.S. Constitution was built.

In fact, arguably, his ideas lead to the U.S. revolution.

A lot of nations have tried to recreate what the founders of the U.S. succeeded in doing after the revolutionary war, but few have succeeded. It is a very difficult thing to do.

reply to post by poet1b


admit am ignorant of john locke. however, if we dont have our heads on straight, the constitution is a piece of paper; the constitution is not magic, can't you see? in the near future, the survivers will have the opportunity beyond the scope of anything we have seen for thousands of years to gift mankind with a humane philosophy. forget about the Constitution! teach whoever will learn to NEVER, EVER, INITIATE FORCE! also, god bless May MAY who was an example of pre-emptive patriotism, a patriot for mankind, not a stupid flag. (TAI-PAN by james clavell)