Recently some citizens of Neualtenburg have proposed, at the RA and on informal meetings as well, that we should start to consider other forms of participation in Neualtenburg beyond "owning deeded land". The ones I have attended may remember my own hesitations; there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a willingness to contribute to Neualtenburg (beyond buying deeded land), but, philosophically and sociologically speaking, there are slight issues that should be clarified — and thus this post, to engage the discussion.
We are currently at "Stage Two" of Neualtenburg's maturity level
Originally, Neualtenburg was more like a "commune": we had a group set up for people to join, and the only "requirements" to become a citizen were:- a willingness to help/commit some time to Neualtenburg
- abide by its laws
- get two other Neualtenburg group members to nominate you as a candidate
This is the "fun phase", where Neualtenburg did not have a pressing need to raise money to pay for the sim, since it was a mainland sim worked based on tier; people contributed tier to the group as they could (or not), and everybody enjoyed the benefits of the planned community. As people left the group, sometimes with their tier, it was up to the City Government to make sure enough tier contributors remained active, so that we were able to cover the whole city land (actually, we only had a third of a sim to cover, due to the arrangements with Linden Lab).
So "citizenship" was loosely defined as "willingness to join the group". Commiting tier to Neualtenburg was optional. Many contributed work instead — building, scripting, hosting events. All land was city owned and there was really no private property.
Jokingly, this is the stage (over a year ago!) which most SL residents still identify with Neualtenburg: a communal setting, where all land was shared by the group. Still today, this "communal approach" is criticized by the detractors of Neualtenburg. Basically, it worked because of the way group-owned land works in SL. In terms of society, this "communal" arrangement resembles most the tribal/clan groupment of pre-historic, Stone Age times.
With the move towards a private island, things have necessarily changed, and radically so. Now the City had a running cost of at least USD $195/mo. and these had to be paid by the citizens living in the City. Thus, there were two options: introducing taxes (to cover the costs, hopefully expecting people to pay) or private property.
Now, Second Life has several limitations in the issue of "voluntarily abiding by external authorities". Under the first model, if someone got expelled from Neualtenburg, they would not lose much. If they liked the City's look and feel, they could take copies of the structures they built, and set them up elsewhere. You didn't pay to join, and you didn't need to pay a running cost, so, the net result was that "expulsion" wasn't a serious threat. The worst that could happen was a sim-wide ban, but that was truly not such a personal disaster.
The private sim, however, needs constant money feeding to keep the costs, and somehow this meant passing those costs towards "citizens". While several models could be possible — all involving somehow a "tax" — the truth is, there was no simple way to enforce tax collection, simply because if someone disagreed with the way the City was being run, they could stop paying taxes and leave — thus hurting the whole City and the other citizens in the process. There is simply no way to enforce "voluntary monthly recurring contributions", or demand fines to be paid if someone skips a payment. Sl simply does not offer any mechanisms to deal with that.
The alternative, of course, was to change from the communal model to one where people own private property in the City. That way, their commitment was tied to two valuable resources: land ownership and a monthly payment. In a sense, to get entitled to private property in Neualtenburg, you would need to pay. If you left by some reason, or refused to abide by the laws, "exile" was an alternative — one that would be connected to personal financial loss (citizens leaving as a result of a hearing in Court would never get their money back).
While this certainly is a very weak enforcement, it actually has remodelled the way we think of Neualtenburg: from "communal" we became "feudal" — in the sense that the citizens living in Neualtenburg are land owners, and that the "vote" (which defines citizenship) comes with land ownership. This is definitely a completely different model — the model for "Stage Two" of Neualtenburg. Citizens are now stakeholders of the City — not only "volunteers" happily contributing their time and effort to the "greater good". Private property, and the ability to do land transactions (ie. anyone may sell the plot back to the City or to another resident), as well as to do commerce (currently tax-free), introduced the concept of the land-owning citizen as an economic agent, not unlike what happens elsewhere in Second Life. So, they have now a financial commitment to Neualtenburg, but in return, they also get the ability to make a profit from the land (and the advantages that come with land ownership) owned there.
In a sense, the City Government resembles more a "peerage assembly". Land is tied to a vote, but not in the measure of the land owned (which would be a "plutocracy"
. Also, all citizens own land, and all have a vote (and the right to get elected/appointed to any office). Although "owning land" (ie. becoming a stakeholder in the City) is a prerequisite of citizenship, there is no discrimination between different "investments" in the City. In a sense, what is required of a citizen is not "volunteering time", but participation as a stakeholder, to the measure of the amount of land owned. The risk of owning more or less land is up to the individual.So, citizenship was changed in the "feudal" model as "ownership of deeded land". This makes it very simple to track who is (or can be) a citizen and who isn't. If you own land, you're a citizen; if your relationship to Neualtenburg is different (ie. co-habiting with someone; visiting a lot; holding events in the City; just hanging around), you're not a citizen.
Strictly speaking, this is not exactly a "feudal" model as defined by historians; the only thing that resembles "feudalism" is the notion that land ownership ties people to the concept of the "nation". So the "nation of Neualtenburg" is not an abstract concept: it's the totality of land owned by its citizens. Societies where their identity is strictly tied to land ownership are more often "feudal" than otherwise.
On the other hand, this also provides a mechanism for dealing with people not abiding by the law: you remove their land. So, land ownership is a privilege, with rights and duties; while you mantain your duties, you get the right to own land (and all other rights attached to it, like voting and get elected, as well as legal protection).
We could also see something "beyond land" emerging in Neualtenburg. Other communities in private islands have a similar model: you pay for the land you own, you have the right to use it. You default on payment, your land is taken away. So, at this basic level, all communities using private islands are very similar to Neualtenburg.
The difference in Neualtenburg is that your rights are not limited to "owning land" — you have a right to participate in the way the City is run. Also, your duties are not limited to "paying fees for owned land". In Neualtenburg, you also have to abide by the laws. This means that beyond "basic land ownership" which proliferates in Second Life, you get, as "added value", more rights (and more duties). Still, the basis of this "feudal" model is that enforceability of duties, and the claim to extra rights, is strictly tied to ownership of land. And the ultimate penalty for not complying with the required duties can be enforceable: personal financial loss by removal of land without having the City returning your money invested in it.
Now some of our citizens are proposing a "Stage Three" to the way our society is modelled. In a sense, this is what happened to almost all modern countries, at least since 1789 in Europe and Europe-influenced countries. The concept of "nation" is not limited to the land owned by its citizens, but it becomes an abstract one, untied to "land" but to the abstract notion that you "live" in a physical space and abide by certain rules, which in return will give you certain rights as well. National identity was not strictly tied to "land ownership" anymore, but to a willingness to live in a place with a common identity.
Well into the 19th century, both models co-existed. The concept of "Nobility" in monarchies, for instance, which had the nobles still hold land under the old feudal model, were exempt from paying taxes, but had otherwise the same rights, sometimes even extra rights (like special courts for trial, or their own legislative chamber). As time progressed, all western monarchies became constitutional monarchies, and a citizen was certainly defined as "someone who abided by the law and resided (mostly) inside the nation's frontiers".
Now this model can be extended to Neualtenburg as well — ie. a "citizen of Stage Three" could simply declare to abide by the law and have some sort of residence inside the City of Neualtenburg, but there is a problem in Second Life that does not arise in the RL. A citizen of Neualtenburg that defaults on their oath to "abide by the law" has no consequences except perhaps a ban from the city — which is really not a problem in SL (they could even come back as an alt!). Thus, citizenship status without some stakeholding (the only form of "forcing" personal loss as a consequence of a trial on violations of the law) is simply not feasible — you would get all the rights, but none of the duties.
Another further problem with this issue is the notion of "second-class citizenship". On one side, we would have land-owning citizens, the true stakeholders that have a personal risk in being citizens of Neualtenburg; on the other hand there would be citizens without ties to the land ownership model, but free to ignore the law to their own benefit, confident that in Second Life there is no "enforcement" possible that may be at a personal loss. Even persons renting a vendor in Neualtenburg, if expelled as the result of a trial, wouldn't be much affected — they could easily place a vendor elsewhere. I see "enforceability of the law" as the major problem of Second Life, and, to an extent, this is something that hasn't affected us much under the "feudal" model.
But what about co-habitation and "working for citizenship status"? Some people have repeatedly claimed they would like to participate in the City, but are not willing (for financial reasons or others) to own land in Neualtenburg. Still, while co-habiting or working for the city (building infrastructure, running events...), they are benefiting the whole of the city in measurable amounts. Surely it would be unfair to deny them full rights? Although, in truth, they would also not need to abide by the laws, in the sense that they would "abide by them as long as they're not 'threatened' by them".
So it seems that a redefinition of "citizenship" to encompass renters, co-habitation, and volunteer service to the city, is actually a hard task. I would like very much to hear about opinions and suggestions on how this can be set up. One possibility exists, but which I'm not very keen on, which is having potential citizens deposit an up-front payment at the Neualtenburg Bank — a special type of "citizen's bond" — which would be a "security" held by the City. Also, land or rental payments could be derived from that "citizen's bond" somehow; I'm not sure exactly how that could be accomplished by being "fair" to all citizens (since we would't like to overburden the ones currently directly contributing towards the monthly payment of the private island). To aggravate matters, how would this be extended towards the future protectorate in Birka? Would these new citizens have to deposit the same amount on the city bank as a "city citizen"?
I leave these open for discussion. I hope that I made clear what my feelings are about this issue: I'd like a "definition of citizenship" that ties stakeholders to the success of the city, and which distributes in a fair way the amount of personal risk with the amount of rights and duties that are shared by each citizen. Also, I feel very uncomfortable with the notion of having "citizens" with full rights, and "inhabitants" (renters, volunteers...) that also contribute to the city, with their time, effort, and work, but have not citizen's rights, just strict duties to attend to. It's not for us to "judge" people and put them in different compartiments: the ones "worth" the citizenship status, and the ones that aren't worth of it. This is not the Roman Republic with its different degrees of citizenship (although it worked well for them!), but supposedly a representative, democratic republic — equal rights, but also equal duties, and equal treatment by the law to all.
