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NONPOLITICAL NATURE OF NEWVISTA.
NewVistas Project Paper
Author: Carl J. Belliston
Date: March 15, 2010
________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
One of the key principles of the NewVistas concept is that it is an entirely private and forprofit
approach to the challenge of sustainable living that is scalable to all people of the world. These two
characteristics make NewVistas unique. This paper explains what is meant by these two characteristics
and how they distinguish NewVistas from any number of possible political concepts for sustainable
living.
RELEVANCE
NewVistas is not a political concept. If it is misunderstood as being a political concept, or if
there are misperceptions about what it means to be private and forprofit, many false objections may be
raised regarding its workability or desirability before the merits are ever considered.
ISSUES
The forprofit nature of NewVistas is fairly straight forward. It means that at least one of the
objectives within the model is to provide a financial return for investors.
The private nature of NewVistas is somewhat more challenging conceptually, because NewVista
looks a lot like a city. The NewVista Community Corporation (NCC) corporate structure follows
geographical divisions and therefore tends to look like a municipal government. The matters over which
the NCC will have control include land use, transportation, and community environment, which are
usually matters of government concern. The NCC will collect fees that may look like taxes. It will
impose a number of restrictions on what NewVista residents can and cannot do and will have the ability
to make new rules. All of these characteristics may create a natural inclination to think of NewVista in
political terms.
It would be a mistake to think of NewVista in political terms, because NewVista is not a political
entity. But what does that really mean? How do we distinguish NewVistas from a political entity and
why is the distinction important?
ANALYSIS
Typically, a private forprofit enterprise is viewed fundamentally as a productive enterprise, an
engine for creating value sustainably, an endeavor focused primarily upon the production and
consumption of goods and services. This is very different from a political or social enterprise, which
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may have much broader goals.
NewVista is focused primarily upon the production and consumption of goods and services. It is
simply a system of forprofit corporations. Its place in society is limited. While it arguably may be
friendly to the establishment of one kind of social system or another, characterizing NewVista as
“socialist,” “capitalist,” or any other kind of “ist” is a fundamental mistake. “Democracy,” “autocracy,”
“oligarchy,” “monarchy,” “aristocracy,” and “theocracy” are not terms that can be used to describe (or
contrast with) the NewVistas econosystem. No kind of “acy” is part of the model. The goal is to create
an entity that produces goods and services sustainably.
The NCC is entirely private because it derives all of its power to direct production and
consumption decisions entirely from property rights under existing legal systems. It relies entirely on
voluntary agreements to induce its employees and clients to produce and consume and take proper care
of the earth’s resources.
Tort systems and criminal systems and the ability to impose fines or send offenders to prison are
not within the powers of a NewVista community. If someone violates the rules, the NCC’s only legal
recourse is to impose the prescriptions of the voluntary agreement or enter into arbitration with the
person as mandated by the voluntary agreement, or, in extreme cases, bring an action in the local civil
court for breach of contract. It relies on existing legal systems for police functions and enforcement of
legal rights. The people who live and work in NewVista participate in existing political systems.
Dispute resolution within NewVista relies on a system of internal private arbitration – at house,
village, district, and community levels. NewVista agreements will require adherence to arbitration
processes before resorting to local legal systems. However, it is expected that a person’s primary remedy,
if irresolvably dissatisfied with goods, services, processes, systems, or other economic arrangements in
NewVista, is to “walk.” The NewVista structure allows a person easily to shop around within a
NewVista community and ultimately to leave at any time for any reason.
The NCC performs no legislative or judicial functions but is restricted to management of leasing
relations and supporting productive businesses that operate within the community. (People who live in
NewVista may use the NCC corporate structure to communicate about many things and/or arbitrate
disputes on many types of matters, but the model does not contemplate that any part of the NCC will
have any formal or legal authority regarding matters other than production and consumption of goods and
services.)
Some parts of NewVista create rules and regulations relating to productive activities in just the
same way as any corporation creates rules and regulations relating to the workplace. Other parts of
NewVista create rules and regulations relating to use of land and buildings in just the same way as any
landlord creates rules and regulations relating to the use of its property.
Working for a NewVista business is similar to working for any corporate entity, with the terms of
employment determined by mutual agreement and daytoday activities determined by corporate
management. Living in a NewVista house is similar to living in any apartment under a lease, with a
landlord – a different landlord than the company one works for.
The contrasts are many, and they are significant.
IMPLICATIONS FOR NEWVISTAS
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The private nature of NewVista is important partly because a private solution is the only kind of
solution available to private persons who want to offer genuine solutions to environmental and social
challenges. It is also important, because the kind of handson management that is likely to be required to
achieve complete sustainability is very hard to achieve in a political system.
This is not to say that democracy and freedom and nondiscrimination are unimportant or should
be tossed aside in favor of a more authoritarian approach – or will be tossed aside in a NewVista
community. Quite the contrary. The whole point is that NewVista is not a political system of any kind
and should not be interpreted as doing anything in a political vein, neither tossing aside or enhancing
rights or freedoms, because political rights and freedoms are preserved (or not) by broader social systems
outside of NewVista, and all of those will remain in place and unaffected by anything done within the
NewVista econosystem.
There are a number of advantages of a purely voluntary and private approach to community,
including speed and efficiency. NewVistas accomplishes this without any of the disadvantages of
repressive political institutions because (i) in all matters outside of the community and all matters
between a NewVista participant and the community, the participant is entitled to all of the rights and
protections afforded by the larger society, and (ii) a NewVista community is precluded from growing
beyond 20,000 people, which preserves the practical ability of every participant to leave.
A free society has many levels, most of which (like forprofit corporations) do not and cannot
embody principles of free government in all of their particulars. But they are not governments. They
have very different purposes than governments. They play a different role than governments and
therefore should not be evaluated or understood in political terms. While governments have an important
role in achieving a sustainable society, many aspects of such a society must be achieved at a non
government level, and that is what NewVista seeks to do.
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