C4.4 Power Distribution
Ethical Integrity. Does the system satisfy justice requirements across time, groups, and power?
Pass threshold
Democratic accountability for ≥80% of major decisions, removal/replacement mechanisms functional
Clause by clause:
- Democratic accountability for ≥80% of major decisions
- removal/replacement mechanisms functional
What it asks
Diffuse rather than concentrate decision-making authority across economic, political, and social domains
Why it matters
Monopolization of power—whether by state, capital, or any elite—represents systemic failure regardless of material outcomes. Concentration of wealth ultimately represents concentration of power to shape society according to narrow interests.
How it is measured
Power concentration indices (economic decision-making distribution). Democratic control mechanisms (accountability of major decisions to those they affect). Accountability structures (capacity to remove/replace decision-makers). Wealth concentration and the adoption of citizen proposals are measured once, in C1.2b and C2.4. Clause 1 measures the first two: the major decisions are the investment, production and employment decisions of the organizations in which people work, public bodies included, and a decision is democratically accountable when those it affects take it or elect a majority of those who take it (the organization's workers or members, or, for a public body, the citizens through an authority chosen in free elections). A board a majority of whose members owners of capital elect answers to them, whatever minority the workers elect. The share is the share of employment in organizations whose decisions are accountable in this sense: public administration and public corporations where the authority they answer to is chosen in free elections; cooperatives, mutuals and other member-governed organizations whose workers or members elect a majority of the governing body; and the self-employed, who take their own decisions. Configured national economy: V-Dem's Regimes of the World decides whether the public sector counts (an electoral or liberal democracy at the stated date); general government employment (OECD, Government at a Glance), employment in state-owned enterprises (OECD), self-employment (labour force surveys) and employment in cooperatives, mutuals, associations and foundations (national statistics; the CIRIEC studies for the European Economic and Social Committee) give the share, and where it cannot reach 80% on the most generous count the clause is short. Design, mechanism or comprehensive system: its own sources, for the organizations in which it places the economy's work and to whom their decision-makers answer; a system that coexists with conventional enterprises governed by their owners shows the clause only if its sources state or project that its accountable organizations employ at least 80% of workers. Clause 2 measures the capacity to remove those who take decisions, legislators and executives included.
Indicators
clause 1, V-Dem Regimes of the World; OECD Government at a Glance (employment in general government); OECD, The Size and Sectoral Distribution of State-Owned Enterprises; labour force surveys (self-employment); national statistics and the CIRIEC/EESC studies of the social economy (employment in cooperatives, mutuals, associations and foundations); for a design, its own sources.
How scores are anchored
1.0, pass
Power (economic and political) is structurally diffused, not merely formally distributed. Participatory Economics (1.0): "No concentrated wealth, no capital owners, no managerial hierarchy. Participatory councils embody distributed decision-making."
0.5, partial
Some diffusion of one form of power (typically political) while the other (typically economic) remains concentrated, or vice versa. Libertarian Minarchism (0.5): "Distributes political power more widely by limiting state scope. However, economic power concentrates massively without checks."
0.0, structural failure
Concentration in a narrow group, whether market-based or bureaucratic. Status Quo Market Capitalism (0.0): "Top 1% owns 32.3% of wealth; political influence is highly concentrated." Centrally Planned Socialism (0.0): "Attempted to eliminate the capitalist class but created a new elite (nomenklatura)."
v2.0 (Session 45): this criterion's Pass Threshold was restated (K1, K2; NEEC_Criteria_v2_s45.md). The band texts and examples were written against Paper v1.4's threshold: they describe, and the threshold above governs (protocol 2.3(g)). Examples are re-estimated in the rescoring pass.
Normative roots
From N7 (Anti-Capture) + N3 (Coercion Minimization).
Judgment calls on this criterion
How the systems score
1.0, pass
0.5, partial
CCO-PTF-CIP-SZH, Degrowth Economics, Nordic Social Democracy, Sovereign Wealth Fund Statism, Georgism / LVT, Ostrom Commons, Islamic Finance, Mutual Credit / LETS, Universal Basic Income, Universal Basic Services, MMT + Job Guarantee, Status Quo Market Capitalism, Fully Automated Luxury Communism, Stakeholder Capitalism, Libertarian Minarchism
0.0, structural failure
State Capitalism / Singapore, State Capitalism / China, State Capitalism / Qatar, Doughnut Economics, Centrally Planned Socialism
Sources
Definition: Paper Section 6; restated in v2.0 (NEEC_Criteria_v2_s45.md, Appendix V). Anchors: Paper Appendix H.7.