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Ceding Authority

At the start, the originating presidency holds roles that will eventually belong to the Institute council, to area presidencies, and to Councils of Fifty. For the system to be trusted, it needs to give up these roles at the right time. This page describes how this happens, and why it is not left to anyone’s judgment.

Handing over by event

Many movements have been started by founders or founding groups who found it difficult to give up authority once the movement had grown. There is always more work to be done, and successors may never seem quite ready. Over time, offices that were meant to be temporary often become permanent and hierarchical.

NewVistas avoids this by removing the decision altogether. Each role passes automatically when a specific event occurs – a council is seated, a community is founded, or a presidency is drawn. These events are published, and anyone can count and verify them. The originating presidency cannot speed up or delay the handover of any role. Once the event occurs, the role has passed.

The four handovers

When this happens	The originating presidency gives up	The role passes to
The other eight seats of the first community’s founding council are drawn	Leading the founding of the first community on its own	That community’s founding council of twelve, in which it continues as the Trustee presidency
The Institute council of twelve is seated	Watching the world areas, publishing the map of world areas and world thirds, and certifying founders outside its own area	The Institute council and its three presidencies
Ten communities are founded within the first field	Bringing the field’s communities together and coordinating their shared hinterland	That field’s Council of Fifty
The first area presidency is seated in its area	Certifying founders and keeping the record of the area’s communities	That area presidency

After the fourth handover, the originating presidency holds no more than any founding Trustee presidency holds.

The latest date: when the first community is completed

The handovers take place in the order in which their events occur. However, none of them may be held past one fixed point: the day the first community is completed, at its closing at eight districts. From then on, the first community’s founding council only renews itself and carries its duties as the community’s nonprofit board, as every founding council does.

For this reason, the Institute council must be seated before that day, and within ten years of the Institute’s founding. On that day, any role the originating presidency still holds passes at once. If the first area presidency has not yet been seated, the area role passes to the Institute council, which carries it until the area’s own presidency is seated. If its field does not yet have ten communities, the field’s coordination passes to the intercommunity conventions of the communities already there, until they form their Council of Fifty.

The same rule inside every community

The originating presidency is not the only body that holds roles in trust and then gives them up. Every founding council does the same inside its own community. Until each presidency of the community is seated, the founding council holds that presidency’s duties – for each new building, each village at ten buildings, each district at forty, and each bureau at eight districts. On the day a presidency is seated, the founding council hands it those duties and takes no further part in governing it. After the closing, the bureaus seat the presidencies that remain, under the same rule.

In this way, authority is handed over only once, when a body is first formed, and is never taken back. The one role a founding council never gives up is its own – serving as the community’s nonprofit board and carrying its dealings with the civil authorities.

Roles are never returned

Once a role is handed over, it is never returned. If the body that receives a role is slow, or if a field grows more slowly than expected, the originating presidency does not step back in. Instead, the gap is filled by the body that now holds the role, under the ordinary rules. For instance, the Institute council certifies founders in any area where an area presidency has not yet been seated.

The public record

Each handover is published on the day it takes place, stating the role, the event that triggered it, the date, and the body that received it. Any participant, founder, or outside observer can compare the record with the events themselves, and confirm that each role passed when it should have. If a handover that should have been recorded is missing, this is visible to everyone.

If the first community fails

Every community stands on its own Trust, leases, and credit, and the first community is no different. If the first community dissolves before every role has been handed over, each role its presidency still holds passes immediately to the Institute council of twelve. If the council has not yet been seated, the Institute’s transitional board holds these roles only for as long as it takes to seat the council.

Why this matters

How a system begins has a great deal to do with whether people trust it. A person looking at NewVistas for the first time can see that no one, not even its founder, ends up with authority over the whole system. Through a fixed series of events that anyone can count, and by a fixed date at the latest, the body that starts the system becomes one Trustee presidency of one community among many, with no standing anywhere else.

In this way, the handovers are the first demonstration of the principles the system is built on – that no body governs the body it established, that no president governs alone, and that authority is held for a time, and then passed on.