Foundation for a Microtution

This section of the paper focuses on the construction of a microtution contract and the importance of understanding the framework of powers associated with the individual elective office that is the subject of the microtution. As shown in Figure 1, a microtution is a social contract from an individual candidate for a specific public office at any level of elective government.

(Note:  Figure 1 graphic is in the pdf version - email volunteer@microtution.org if you can help with graphics) Not represented in Figure 1 are the numerous elective special districts, school boards, water districts, utility districts, elected judicial officials and police. We have more than 511,000 elected officials in the United States.

The “Unused Reserved Power” block in Figure 1 represents the genius of our Founding Fathers. Some forty years after the creation of the United States Constitution, Tocqueville wrote: "This Constitution, which at first glance one is tempted to confuse with previous federal constitutions, in fact rests on an entirely new theory, a theory that should be hailed as one of the great discoveries of political science of our time. In America, the Union's subjects are not states but private citizens.”  It is also true that the power that enables the state, county, local and municipal government originates from the private citizens residing within the reach of that government entity.

This means that the American people have the power to add, at the micro level, another social contract to the structure by which we govern ourselves. A Microtution is an individual social contract that includes self-selected “action items” executed voluntarily by a candidate seeking election to any public office. One day America may have more than 500,000 candidates elected to public office utilizing these individual social contracts known as Microtutions.

What our Founding Fathers were trying to accomplish through the creation of our social contracts was a means by which the regulators would be regulated – a means by which the power of elected officials could be controlled. The issue of “regulating the regulators” was the umbrella issue overriding the creation of the US Constitution. It is through the power of elected officials that legitimate government operates. It is also the way legitimate government deteriorates, declines and abuses of power occurs. “Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.” 

 Since our founding, there has been an erosion of our individual liberties and an erosion of our faith in our government institutions and the people elected to run them. The vast majority of the 511,000 elected officials in this country are honest, hardworking public servants. What is lacking in our system of government is a methodology or tool able to facilitate accountability on the part of our elected public officials. A Microtution is the tool necessary to regain some of the “regulation of the regulators” as was the intent of the Framers of the United States Constitution.

Tocqueville and many others have written about the genius of our Founding Fathers in giving us, private citizens the tools we need to manage the power of government. The constitutional ability to control a small portion of micro political power has been in front of us for over two centuries. A Microtution provides the structural framework necessary to provide some granular control over individual elective officials and the government power those elective offices hold over our government institutions.

It is detrimental to the American democratic process that roughly half of the citizens in America do not vote. Additionally, the half that do often feel as though they are casting a vote for the lesser of two evils. Injecting the power of Microtutions into the American system of government may very well increase American voter participation.

Collectively, politicians spend more than $500 million dollars per election cycle to win votes. Much of that money is spent on negative ads, telling thin truths about the opposition and offering little to no information of value to the voter. Obviously, this negative misinformation tactic works. People listen and approximately half of them go to the polls and vote for the lesser of two evils. What happened to “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country?”