The Charter
Eleven articles. Plain language. No loopholes.
Article 1
The Currency
The currency of this community is living energy — human labor, animal partnership, plant growth, elemental flow, and transmitted wisdom. No internal money shall circulate.
Article 2
The Exchange
Every need met creates a reciprocity obligation — not a debt of money, but a debt of energy to be returned to the whole. Obligations are tracked by memory, reputation, and public boards, not by ledgers of coin.
Article 3
The Care Pool
Every able person contributes one hour per day to the communal care pool. This pool covers those who cannot exert physical energy. Wisdom counts double.
Article 4
Elemental Reciprocity
For every fire lit, a tree is planted. For every water drawn, a bank is planted. For every soil used, a cover crop is sown. For every wind channeled, a windbreak is grown. Elemental energy borrowed must be returned as care.
Article 5
The Animal Compact
Animals are partners, not property. Their energy is exchanged for care, habitat, and rest. No animal shall be worked beyond its capacity.
Article 6
The Plant Compact
Plants are the primary currency-converters. Every harvest is reciprocated with seed-saving, soil-building, and habitat-planting. No plant shall be taken without a plan for its regeneration.
Article 7
The Wisdom Compact
Knowledge is currency that must circulate. Those who hold wisdom are sustained by the community so they can teach. Those who learn owe transmission. Wisdom hoarded is wisdom lost.
Article 8
The External Interface
The community may earn external money through collective enterprise to buy land, medicine, tools, and books that cannot be made internally. This external money is held in common and spent by community decision. It never circulates internally as currency.
Article 9
The Exit
Anyone may leave. No one may be held by debt, because energy-debt is not enforceable by force — only by reputation and the natural consequences of broken reciprocity.
Article 10
Enough
Take only what you need for the day. No one may hoard food, water, land, seed or tools beyond their daily need while another goes without. No hoarding, no oppression.
Article 11
The Commons of the Earth
What comes from the Earth is for all. What you cannot share, keep to yourself alone — it may never be used to rule, rent, or indebt another.