Declaration of Independence from Concentrated Power

A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM CONCENTRATED POWER

A Declaration for a Free and Flourishing People

When, in the course of human events, the institutions created to serve a free people become so large, distant, or powerful that the people can no longer meaningfully understand, influence, or hold them accountable, it becomes necessary to reconsider the proper place of power in a free society.

A decent respect for the opinions of our fellow citizens requires that we declare the principles by which we believe a free people ought to govern themselves and one another.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all people are created equal, and are endowed with certain unalienable rights;

That among these are life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness;

That individuals, families, and communities are the fundamental institutions of a free society;

That people have the right to own property, to work, to create, to associate freely, to conduct honest commerce, and to pursue a meaningful life according to their own judgment;

That government exists to secure these rights, and derives its legitimate powers from the consent of the governed;

And that no institution, whether public or private, is entitled to unlimited power over free people.

Of Power and Tyranny

Our forebears understood tyranny as the concentration of political power in the hands of a distant sovereign who could govern without the meaningful consent of those he governed.

The nature of power has changed, but the danger has not.

Today, power may reside not only in a government, but in a corporation, financial institution, technology platform, political organization, bureaucracy, or other institution whose size and complexity place it beyond the meaningful reach of the individual.

We therefore understand tyranny not merely as the rule of a king, nor even as the rule of government, but as the exercise of substantial power without sufficient constraint, consent, transparency, or accountability.

Tyranny may wear the crown of government or the suit of commerce. It may act publicly or privately. It may belong to no single person and yet affect millions.

Its defining characteristic is not who holds the power, but whether those subject to it can reasonably understand it, challenge it, and hold someone accountable for its exercise.

A free society must therefore concern itself not only with the abuse of power, but with its concentration.

Of the Political Choice Before Us

For generations, our political life has increasingly presented the People with a choice between competing concentrations of power.

One side has placed greater faith in the power of government to order society, provide security, and remedy its failures.

The other has placed greater faith in the power of private enterprise and increasingly large institutions to organize economic life and create prosperity.

Both have identified real dangers in the alternative. Both have contributed much that is valuable to our nation.

Yet both have too often accepted the premise that the answer to concentrated power is another concentration of power.

When private power grows too great, we turn toward government.

When government grows too great, we turn toward private power.

The pendulum swings.

And with each swing, the institutions at either end have grown larger, more powerful, and more distant from the people whose lives they affect.

We reject this choice.

The freedom of a people cannot depend upon choosing which master shall possess the greater power.

The answer is not to determine which institution should rule us.

The answer is to ensure that no institution does.

Of Our Grievances

We have allowed ownership of productive assets to become increasingly distant from the people and communities in which those assets operate.

We have permitted decisions affecting families, workers, businesses, and communities to be made by people who may never see the consequences of those decisions.

We have created institutions so large that responsibility for their actions becomes diffused among boards, executives, shareholders, regulators, committees, and systems until no individual can reasonably be held accountable.

We have allowed political influence to become concentrated among those institutions and individuals with the greatest resources to purchase access, while the ordinary citizen struggles to make his voice heard.

We have permitted laws and regulations to grow so complex that the freedom to operate a small business increasingly depends upon the ability to navigate institutions and systems beyond the reach of ordinary people.

We have allowed financial capital to become increasingly separated from the people and enterprises that create value in their communities.

We have encouraged consolidation in industries where size itself can become a barrier to competition, ownership, and independence.

We have accepted the premise that an institution may become so large or interconnected that it cannot be allowed to fail, thereby transferring the consequences of private decisions to the public.

We have too often measured prosperity by the growth of institutions rather than by the prosperity, independence, security, and wellbeing of the people who constitute our communities.

And we have gradually forgotten a simple truth:

Institutions are created to serve people. People are not created to serve institutions.

Of Local Ownership

We therefore affirm that ownership matters.

A person who owns a home, a farm, a shop, a business, or a share in the productive life of a community possesses not merely an asset, but a measure of independence.

Ownership creates agency.

It gives people something to steward, something to improve, something to pass to others, and something for which they are personally responsible.

We do not demand that every enterprise be small or every asset be locally owned.

We demand only that scale never become a substitute for accountability, and that concentration never become the default.

Where an enterprise can be owned locally, let it have the opportunity to be locally owned.

Where capital can remain in a community, let it remain there.

Where a person can build an enterprise rather than merely work for one, let that opportunity remain open.

And where people can participate in the ownership of the places and enterprises that shape their lives, let that participation be encouraged rather than displaced by unnecessary concentration.

Of Local Accountability

We affirm that power and accountability should remain close together.

The person who makes a decision should, as far as reasonably possible, be identifiable.

The person who benefits from a decision should not be hidden behind layers of institutions.

The person who bears the consequences should have a meaningful means of seeking redress.

The greater the power exercised by an institution, the greater should be the transparency and accountability required of it.

Government must be accountable to the people.

Businesses must be accountable to their owners, customers, employees, and communities.

Financial institutions must be accountable for the consequences of the capital they allocate.

And all institutions must remain subject to the laws and principles that protect the rights of the people over whom they exercise power.

Power without accountability is the seed of tyranny, regardless of who holds it.

Of Local Purpose

We affirm also that the pursuit of happiness is more than the pursuit of consumption.

A prosperous society should provide people not merely with things to buy, but with the freedom and opportunity to build lives worth living.

Happiness is found in family and friendship, in meaningful work, in ownership and independence, in creating something of value, in serving others, in belonging to a community, in caring for the places entrusted to us, and in leaving something better for those who come after us.

These things happen somewhere.

They happen in homes, neighborhoods, towns, workplaces, farms, schools, businesses, and communities.

The pursuit of happiness therefore has a local scale.

A society organized entirely around the growth of distant institutions may become wealthier while its people become less connected to the places and purposes that give that wealth meaning.

We seek something better:

Prosperity that remains connected to people.
Ownership that remains connected to responsibility.
Power that remains connected to accountability.
And freedom that remains connected to purpose.

Of Free Markets

We affirm the free market because it distributes decision-making among millions of people rather than concentrating it in the hands of a few.

A free market allows individuals to choose, businesses to compete, entrepreneurs to create, customers to reward, and unsuccessful ideas to fail.

But markets are not made freer merely by removing government while permitting private institutions to become so dominant that meaningful competition disappears.

A market requires both freedom and competition.

No enterprise should receive special protection merely because it has become large.

No institution should be considered too important to fail merely because its failure would be inconvenient.

And no person should be denied the opportunity to compete merely because those already established possess greater wealth, influence, or political access.

The purpose of a free market is not to produce the largest possible institutions.

It is to give free people the greatest possible freedom to create value and exchange it voluntarily.

Of the Proper Scale of Society

We do not believe that everything should be small.

Some endeavors require scale.

Some problems require coordination across communities, states, or nations.

Some institutions perform functions that no individual or local community could perform alone.

But necessity should justify scale; scale should not justify itself.

Whenever a decision can reasonably be made by an individual, let the individual decide.

Where it requires a family, let the family decide.

Where it concerns a community, let the community have a meaningful voice.

Where a larger institution is necessary, let it exercise only the authority necessary to accomplish its legitimate purpose.

And wherever power is accumulated beyond what is necessary, let it be returned to the people and places from which it came.

Our Declaration

We therefore declare our independence from concentrated and unaccountable power, wherever it may be found.

We reject the rule of government over matters that free people can govern themselves.

We reject the rule of corporations and financial institutions over matters that markets and communities can govern themselves.

We reject political systems that require citizens to choose between competing forms of institutional power while offering them little power of their own.

We reject the notion that greater scale is inherently better, that greater efficiency is always worth the loss of resilience and independence, or that economic growth alone constitutes human flourishing.

We affirm the individual.

We affirm the family.

We affirm the community.

We affirm private property and voluntary exchange.

We affirm free enterprise and genuine competition.

We affirm local ownership and local accountability.

We affirm stewardship of the places and institutions entrusted to us.

And we affirm the right of every person to pursue not merely wealth, but a life of purpose, meaning, independence, and happiness.

We seek not a smaller world, but a more human one.

Not less prosperity, but prosperity that remains connected to the people who create it.

Not the absence of institutions, but institutions that remain accountable to the people they exist to serve.

Not merely the freedom to consume, but the freedom to own, to build, to contribute, and to belong.

Not a return to the past, but a restoration of a principle as old as self-government itself:

Power belongs closest to the people.

And when power must be exercised at a greater scale, it must remain limited, transparent, and accountable to those whose lives it affects.

For the preservation of our liberty, the strength of our communities, and the flourishing of generations yet to come,

we declare that a free society must remain a society of free people—not subjects of institutions.