Core Principles

Part of Institutional Design

The foundational values that guide every governance decision your community makes.

Why This Matters

Every governance system embeds values, whether or not those values are stated explicitly. A system that concentrates power in one person embeds the value that concentrated power is efficient or necessary. A system that requires consensus embeds the value that agreement is more important than speed. A system that protects individual rights against majority decision embeds the value that individuals have inherent worth that collective authority cannot override.

Stating your core principles explicitly does several important things. It makes the embedded values visible so they can be examined, challenged, and deliberately chosen rather than inherited by default. It provides interpretive guidance when specific rules are ambiguous — “what does our rule on resource allocation mean in this unusual case?” is answered by asking which interpretation best serves the stated principles. And it creates a standard against which the community can evaluate its own governance: are we actually living by the principles we claim to hold?

Core principles are not aspirations. They are commitments. The community must be prepared to live by them even when doing so is costly, inconvenient, or contrary to the immediate preferences of those in power.

Human Dignity

Every member of the community has inherent worth that is not contingent on their productivity, their usefulness, their beliefs, or their agreement with the majority. This principle has direct governance implications:

• People may not be treated as means to community ends without their consent
• People whose contribution is diminished — by age, disability, illness, or circumstances — retain full membership and its protections
• Degrading or humiliating treatment is not an acceptable tool of community discipline regardless of what rule was violated
• No person or group may be defined as categorically worth less than others

In practice, enforcing this principle requires explicit attention to how low-status roles are treated, how disciplinary processes are conducted, and whether any community norms treat certain people as inherently lesser.

Accountability

Power exercised without accountability will eventually be abused. Those who hold authority over others — in governance roles, specialist roles, or any other function — are accountable to the community for how they exercise it. Accountability requires:

• Transparency: what is being decided and why must be visible
• Review: independent bodies must be able to examine decisions and conduct
• Consequences: genuine failures of duty must produce genuine consequences
• Equality before the framework: accountability applies to powerful people, not only to the weak

A principle of accountability that applies only downward — holding ordinary members to rules while exempting those in power — is not accountability. It is domination with a legitimacy veneer.

Proportionality

Responses to problems should be proportional to their severity. A small infraction should not produce severe punishment. A minor need should not consume major community resources. An ordinary decision should not require the most demanding deliberative process.

Proportionality operates in multiple governance domains:

• Sanctions: penalties match the severity and harm of the violation
• Process: the complexity of the decision-making process matches the significance of the decision
• Resource allocation: investment in a function reflects its actual importance to community welfare
• Authority delegation: the scope of authority delegated matches the scope of responsibility

Without proportionality, governance becomes simultaneously over-bureaucratized for minor matters and under-resourced for major ones.

Participation

Decisions affecting people should, to the greatest practical extent, involve those people in the decision-making process. This principle is both ethical and practical. Ethically, people have a legitimate interest in decisions that shape their lives. Practically, people who participate in decisions invest in their implementation in ways that those who are simply told what to do do not.

Participation does not mean that every decision requires universal vote. It means:

• Input opportunities exist before significant decisions are made
• Affected parties have notice of upcoming decisions and access to the deliberation process
• Governance bodies actively seek out input from those who are least likely to volunteer it
• The basis for decisions is explained to those who will live with the consequences

Subsidiarity

Decisions should be made at the most local level capable of making them competently. What can be decided by a household, should be. What must be decided by a neighborhood, should not be escalated to the whole community. What requires community-wide decision should not be delegated to a single official.

Subsidiarity keeps decision-making close to those affected, reduces central bottlenecks, and preserves space for variation and experimentation. Its failure mode — centralizing all decision-making — creates bureaucratic overhead, reduces responsiveness, and generates resentment among people who are governed from a distance about matters close to home.

Applying Principles When They Conflict

Core principles sometimes pull in different directions. Participation takes time; proportionality may suggest a faster process for minor matters. Accountability requires transparency; some decisions involve sensitive personal information. Dignity may protect a person from disclosure; accountability may require it.

When principles conflict, the community must make principled trade-offs — choosing which value takes precedence in this type of situation and documenting that choice so it is applied consistently. This process of principled trade-off, conducted transparently and recorded, is itself an expression of the core principles it navigates.