What Cooperation Is Not
协作不是什么
The range of this series is: how states that cannot exit from one another, and that have no superior with force above them and set none up, cooperate through consensus, checks and reputation; how they tolerate no state's colonizing another, and do not let the system become an extension of the strong; how they create conditions for the cultivation of people outside the system without entering other states to decide on behalf of the people there; how every arrangement remains open to questioning. Before setting to work, this paper first clears away what a system of cooperation is not. When the three states signed the Three-Borders Compact, a member of the People's Assembly asked: "Are we joining a larger state?" That the text says there is no superior does not mean that this is so in fact; what must be judged is force in fact. Cooperation has no compulsory power: the system's position is that of an external questioner, and the price is that at times it can only watch a problem happen. This series takes non-compulsion, and its main reason is this: not compelling leaves the other party room to grow by itself; only what has grown by itself is most its own. Force is substituting one's own judgment for the other party's judgment on its own affairs; stopping a colonizing entry is not judging the other party's own affairs in its place, and withdrawing cooperation is a check, not force. At the drafting conference, a text that set up a joint assembly, a court and a defense force was not adopted: the system is not a superior, and not a body that authorizes the use of armed force; merging into a larger state is not in itself forbidden; what is forbidden is holding force without acknowledging it. Nor is the system a "we," an extension of the strong, a club of like states or a world police, and it does not guarantee peace. The system's main line differs from the state's, because the system's interior is made up of states, one by one. The main line of this series is a single sentence. A system of cooperation stands against colonization, toward its member states and toward what lies outside it alike: it does not itself act as a superior, and it tolerates no state's colonizing another; toward people outside the system, it creates conditions for cultivation, and does not enter other states to decide on behalf of the people there; it puts questions to its members, and every one of its own arrangements remains open to questioning. The sections that follow give the domain, explain that binding can only be lateral and that at this level thickness is needed while there is no compulsion, place the five propositions of How Is Institution Possible (F6) at the level between states, settle the questions that the upstream series have handed to this series, and set out how the whole series speaks. The interfacing with the tradition comes as the text goes: Kant's Perpetual Peace says that the league need not be a state of nations, and this series takes that view, the interfacing having already been done in Theory of the State Paper 5; with Rawls there is a comparison by paraphrase only, and the parting comes at the threshold of membership. This paper sets up no proposition; the three judgments are each argued later: that binding can only be lateral, in Paper 1, XZ1; that the system does not act as a hidden superior, in Paper 7, XZ46; that thickness is needed and there is no compulsion, in Paper 8, XZ54.
Writing Declaration: This paper was co-drafted with Claude (Anthropic). All intellectual decisions, framework design, and final editorial judgments were made by the author.
Introduction
In the spring of Year 13, three states, the United City-States of Ends (UCSE), the Nation Union of Telos (NUT) and the Democratic Republic of Purposes (DRP), signed the Three-Borders Compact (hereafter the Compact) in the old customs house in the town of Three Borders. Three Borders is a border town of the NUT; in Years 10 and 11 the UCSE and the DRP had signed the ceasefire and withdrawal agreements there. The signatories were the UCSE's First Executive, the convener of the NUT's Council for External Affairs and the DRP President. At the ceremony the NUT's convener said: "Three Borders is where the three states made their ceasefire, not the center of the three states."
Article 2 of the Compact provides that all members have equal status and that each member has one vote in the Conference of Members; its clause 2 reads: "This Compact establishes no organ above the members. No organ of the system may exercise force against a member or against persons within a member's territory." Article 17 reads: "The system shall have no standing force." Article 25 allows a member to exit, with effect once twelve months' notice has run. The Compact sets up no common assembly, no common court and no common armed force; the Three-Borders Petitions Committee that it does set up gives opinions, not rulings (Compact, clause 4 of Article 14). These provisions, like the organs of the system and the laws of the several states spoken of below, are examples set up by this series, so that the argument has facts to judge by; this series does not claim that they are the best design.
The three states each ratified it. The UCSE's joint session ratified it by 241 votes to 72; the NUT's Council for External Affairs decided by 4 to 1 to sign, and the Assembly of the Union passed it in two readings. When the DRP's People's Assembly debated it in the autumn of Year 13, a member of the People's Assembly asked: "Are we joining a larger state? When the time comes, will Three Borders have the say, or the People's Assembly?" The Foreign Minister answered: "There is no organ in the Compact that can give orders to the Republic. Article 2 of the Compact says so." The People's Assembly ratified it by 389 votes to 196, with 15 absent. That winter the Compact entered into force. A newspaper in the NUT ran an editorial headed "Above the Three States"; the first bulletin of the system's Secretariat said: "Above the Compact there is nothing above the three states; documents issued in the system's name state the votes cast and how each member voted (Compact, Article 3)."
What that member was worried about was, first of all, the people of each of the three states: if the Compact grew into a superior, there would be one more layer holding force above their heads, and on matters where Three Borders had the say, the People's Assembly would have no say. Those whom the system's acts later reach are among them too: they will meet directly what is made in the system's name. The three states themselves are members; in this matter they are where the account is booked under their names, not the party to be protected (§4). This question does not yet touch on which line has been crossed; it asks about what lies between the system and its members: whether the system is a superior, and on which positions and votes the words spoken in the system's name land. Before the signing there were only agreements between two of the three states, such as the Cloud River Water-Sharing and Flood Notification Agreement between the UCSE and the NUT and the ceasefire and withdrawal agreements between the UCSE and the DRP, together with a liaison group of the three states' external-affairs departments at Three Borders; above the three states there was no common organ of any kind.
Half of this question can be answered at once. By the letter of the Compact, it stands at some distance from "a larger state": clause 2 of Article 2 sets up no organ above the members, Article 17 sets up no standing force, Article 25 allows exit, and clause 4 of Article 14 has the Petitions Committee give only opinions. Taken together, these provisions show how this Compact keeps the system on the side of cooperation; they are not four inverse conditions for judging every state. Whether a superior has appeared still turns on whether some arrangement has acquired the power to judge, on a member's behalf, the member's own affairs, and to carry the judgment out by compulsion (§§2, 3). The one who made the judgment in that matter was the People's Assembly, which accepted the Foreign Minister's reading by 389 votes to 196.
But "Article 2 says so" cannot finish answering this question. That a text says so does not mean that it is so in fact. A covenant may contain no organ called a "superior" and yet contain an arrangement that can in fact compel a member without passing through the member's own decision; conversely, an organ whose name sounds large may produce nothing but questions and records. What must be judged is force in fact, not provisions and names. How force is recognized is in §2; when an arrangement has become a superior is in §3.
It is a group of states like these that this series asks about. Its range is:
How states that cannot exit from one another, and that have no superior with force above them and set none up, cooperate through consensus, checks and reputation; how they tolerate no state's colonizing another, and do not let the system become an extension of the strong; how they create conditions for the cultivation of people outside the system without entering other states to decide on behalf of the people there; how every arrangement remains open to questioning.
The division of work in five steps. How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) answers on what grounds an institution stands; Institution Theory answers what an institution is for: the five oughts, with the Kingdom of Ends as the direction; the Theory of Government answers to whom, and for what, the judgments of that one kind of construct, government, must answer; the Theory of the State answers how, when a construct has no higher level above it, its several "lasts" guard the line and still remain open to questioning. At its close the Theory of the State says: "With this, the four steps on the side of institutions have completed this round of unfolding: F6, Institution Theory, the Theory of Government, the Theory of the State; this does not mean that all the questions of institutions have been settled." (Theory of the State N40) This series follows on after them, and writes how many such constructs cooperate when there is no superior with force among them and none is set up. How one state deals outward was written in Papers 5 and 6 of the Theory of the State, and this series cites it as it stands; this series examines the arrangements among those states themselves: how they are designed, how they bind states, what gaps they can fill, and where the shortfalls they cannot remedy fall. The state's end follows the Theory of the State's definition: "The state this series speaks of is a construct: inwardly, there is no higher level above it to govern it; outwardly, there is no higher level above it to govern what lies between it and other states." (the Theory of the State Prequel, §6) How a system of cooperation connects to this end is in §6.
The system and the states. The three states follow the Theory of the State, and what lies inside each of them follows what was written there. After the Compact entered into force, the three states formed the Three-Borders Cooperation System (hereafter the system). The system has four kinds of organ. The Conference of Members, in which each member has one vote, makes covenants, puts questions, makes records and adopts common measures. The Secretariat: the Secretary-General is elected by the Conference of Members with the consent of all members, serves in a personal capacity, can open questioning, and cannot give orders to any member. The Three-Borders Petitions Committee receives petitions from persons affected by a member's acts or by the system's common decisions, and gives opinions. The Joint Defense Coordination Council has one defense representative from each member, with a Coordination Office under it whose director is chosen by the Council; it does joint plans, joint exercises and prepositioned logistics. The Secretariat and the Petitions Committee sit at Three Borders; the system has no police and no armed force of its own. Three other states will often appear from here on. The Stonegorge Commonwealth has eleven million people; both shores of the Stonegorge Strait, the only sea route from the Mirror Sea to the open ocean, belong to it; it joined the system in the autumn of Year 14. The Plateau Federation has one hundred forty-five million people; it is outside the system, is the largest trading partner of the states along the Mirror Sea, and borders no member. The Republic of the Sandbars (the Sandbars for short) has thirty-three million people and is outside the system; in the winter of Year 15 it declared that its three northern provinces had entered a "state of stability," and since then people in the north have been fleeing to the east bank of the Grey River and to the NUT's Northern District. These names and facts are used as they stand in all the papers that follow.
How to read. This paper is the entrance to the whole series, and the words below are used in every later paper in the sense given here. First, the system's side. A system of cooperation is the common arrangements that several states have by covenant: the Compact, common procedures, treaty bodies, secretarial organs, and the coordination and preparation of joint defense; it is a construct, has institutional status, and has no first person (§4). A member is a state in the system, also called a member state; when it comes to persons, this series says only which state's citizenship a person holds, not of which state he is a member. Outside the system means the states that are not members, and the people there. The system's acts are actions made in the system's name, through a common procedure, that act upon persons: lists entered under a common procedure, notices and lists the system issues, allocations in admission, the decisions of treaty bodies, and that part of the coordination and preparation of joint defense which is made in the system's name (Paper 2, XZ14); sending forces and joint action themselves are acts of each participating state, not of the system. The system does not enforce its decisions; they land in each member.
Next, a few words received from upstream. The upstream means the SAE series published before this one: F6, Institution Theory, the Theory of Government, the Theory of the State, the War Treatise, the Conflict Treatise, the Law Series, Moral Law, Power Theory and others. A construct is an arrangement with institutional status: a mill, a level of government and a state are all constructs; a construct is not a person. Whether a system of cooperation counts as a construct is answered in Paper 2, §7. A position is an office within an organ, not the person who sits in it. Those whom a construct's acts reach and who cannot exit from them are its internal subjects; they are not drawn by citizenship. The line is the boundary between limit and violation: a constraint that holds a person's exercise in check, closes none of the dimensions he already has, does not press him down to where he cannot live, and does not seal off his ways of exit, refusal and revocation is a limit; one that crosses any of these is a violation (Institution Theory Paper 2). Colonization is taken in the narrow sense, following Moral Law P9: "the structural operation by which a subject or institution replaces another's own law with its own purposes." A colonizing entry is entering another state by force and deciding on behalf of the people there. Anti-colonization is itself under rule too: "anti-colonization is itself an act of the construct, governed by the first ought" (the Theory of Government Prequel, §8). Cultivation is providing the conditions for a person's growth without deciding for him what he is to become. The five oughts follow the Theory of the State's summary: "The five oughts are the five things a construct owes those inside it: its acts cross no line against anyone inside it; it guards the lines between those inside it; it provides conditions for their cultivation according to relational thickness; it lets cultivation between them happen, leaving room and not sealing the channels; it itself remains open to questioning, the channel being independent of the party questioned, within reach of those inside, and bringing no retaliation for its use" (the Theory of the State Prequel, Introduction).
This series also uses a few words from the War Treatise. War Treatise §13 judges whether a war may be opened: opening war requires that the opening side's own "cannot-not" hold, and this is the first face; as for the oppression that others suffer, "the second face can only be seen alongside a first face that already holds; it cannot by itself constitute a reason for opening war". To keep the second face from being abused, that section sets four gates: the second face cannot be started alone; seeing is not substituting; the oppression and the rising must be genuine; the intervention side should have its own stake in the matter, and what Gate Four tests is precisely the intervention side's own first face. Leaning follows the Theory of the State: it says which way the systemic purpose of a construct broadly points; 14DD and 15DD are two of the War Treatise's numbers, the 14DD side being expansion and oppression, the 15DD side the defense and resistance against it; a leaning is a direction, not an identity (§4).
Last come a few markers of this series' own. External questioning is questioning that comes from outside the party questioned and that the party questioned cannot itself close (Theory of the State Paper 1, §5; Theory of the State Paper 7, N36–N38). What is marked "(own undertaking)" is a step this series undertakes itself: either the upstream does not have it, or it extends an upstream sentence to a range the original did not speak of, for instance from two states to many, or from one state to the system level; where it extends, the same place states what the original sentence speaks of, and the subject term that has been changed. Wherever judgment is required, this series speaks in the normative layer, the rule layer and the judgment layer; §11 sets this out in full.
The questions left by the year of signing each have their place. Where the Conference of Members, the Secretariat and the Petitions Committee each stand, and on what grounds what they issue counts, Papers 1 and 2 answer. The editorial and the bulletin are in §4. When the DRP ratified, it attached a statement on the West Flats, which §4 uses as a contrast; what accession to a covenant changes and what it does not change, Paper 1, §7 answers.
This paper sets up no proposition; it only clears away what a system of cooperation that has no superior with force above it, and sets none up, is not. §§1 and 2 say why cooperation has no compulsory power, and how force is recognized. §§3 and 4 say that the system is not a superior, not a body that authorizes the use of armed force, not a "we," not an extension of the strong, not a club of like states, not a world police, and does not guarantee peace either. §5 says why the system's main line differs from the state's. §6 gives the domain. §§7 and 8 say that binding can only be lateral, and that at this level thickness is needed and there is no compulsion. §9 takes up the five propositions of F6. §10 settles the accounts handed over from upstream. §11 sets out how the whole series speaks.
§1 Cooperation Has No Compulsory Power
What that member feared was that one day Three Borders could decide in the People's Assembly's place. What makes cooperation cooperation is precisely the absence of this one thing: the system has no compulsory power over its members. If a system could authorize the use of armed force by a count of votes, it would have compulsory power, and would no longer be cooperation. Nor is the system nothing at all. Its position is outside the members: it is an external questioner. It can ask, it can record, and it can make the questions and the records public; it cannot carry things out on members' behalf, nor can it settle a matter by armed force. The price must be written as it stands: when a problem happens, the system can often only watch it happen, and can use only indirect means.
The position of external questioner takes up the Theory of the State's reading of "last": "'Last' refers to level: there is nothing above. It does not refer to exemption from questioning." "That there is no one overhead shows only where the questions must come from; it does not show that the questioning has stopped." (the Theory of the State Prequel, §3) With no superior above a state, those who question it come from the side: peers, those affected, and the channels inside it. The Conflict Treatise has said by whom such questioning can be borne: "the external avenue of questioning may be borne by a fit third party, by procedure, or by later public review." (Conflict Treatise §15) The Conflict Treatise speaks of who bears the questioning that comes from outside a first person; here it is changed to the system bearing that share of external questioning which falls toward its members (own undertaking). The system's questioning of members does not on that account put it above them. Its questions, like those of peers, come from the side; it is only that they come with a procedure and a public record.
Not compelling means facing an antinomy. The thesis says: without compulsion, what is to be done when some state is wrong? It presses people within its own territory and corners people at other states' doors; the system can only ask and only record, and the problem goes on happening all the same. The antithesis says: with compulsion, what is to be done when the compelling side is wrong? It has acquired the capacity to decide for other states and to carry the decision out, and its error may at the same time hold down the other side's room to refuse, to exit and to correct, while there is no higher level above it to correct it. Both sides carry weight, and neither may pretend that it has no cost.
This series takes non-compulsion, and registers the cost on the former side, as it stands, as a remainder, without hiding it. To take compulsion would be to build another state above the states; this series builds none, and accepts that at the top there is no superior. That at the top there is no superior means that there is no superior to do the ordering; it does not mean that there is no law (§8).
The main reason for taking non-compulsion is this one: not compelling leaves the other party room to grow by itself; only what has grown by itself is most its own. Even if the compelling side is right, compulsion is not cultivation. A teacher pours correct knowledge into a student; the knowledge the student gets is not wrong, and still it is not cultivation; this analogy only helps to explain, and serves as no argument. The argument lies in cultivation itself: cultivation is providing the conditions for a person's growth without deciding for him what he is to become. To decide for a state what it is to become, and then to carry this out by compulsion, is already to have decided for it, even if the direction is right; when it then walks that way, the road it walks is not its own. What is most its own is its own law. In three places the upstream has said the same thing. Gate Three of the War Treatise: "Genuine rising proceeds from the inside out; the outside can recognize it and can support it, but cannot manufacture it." (War Treatise §13) Moral Law P9: "Any operation of forced change, even when issuing from a 15DD legislative subject, has itself exited the cultivation posture". Moral Law P8 also says: "If the community uses coercion to maintain 'the default,' it becomes a 14DD authoritarian utopia." The latter two sentences originally speak of a way of treating persons and of a community; here both are changed to the system toward other states (own undertaking): the system does not use force to push a direction on other states or to hold them to one.
"The other party" is read by role mapping (§11): what grows is that state's construct and the people in that state, and in the end it comes down to persons. A state's construct is a means; that it should grow is so that the people there can grow within it. In not compelling, the system leaves room for both of these kinds of growth. The sentence in the antithesis, that when the compelling side is wrong there is no one above to correct it, makes the errors of the two sides asymmetric; this is a subsidiary reason, and it is placed in Paper 8, together with where this series parts from Kant and from Rawls.
The room left is room to grow, not room to colonize other states. Non-compulsion speaks of two things: not governing members from above, and not setting a direction for other states. It does not say that one stands by with folded arms in the face of a colonizing entry. When one state enters another by force and decides on behalf of the people there, joint defense stops it all the same, and questioning and recording go on as before (Paper 5); stopping it is not judging its own affairs in its place (§2). What non-compulsion gives is each state's room to grow by itself, not room for any state to take another.
It may be said that this pushes the cost onto those who are harmed. When the Compact was being drafted, an adviser in the UCSE delegation argued for following the Cloud River's road and growing, step by step, into a union; his text was not adopted (§3). After the conference he told a newspaper in Rivermouth City: "If we do not take this road today, then when something happens later, everyone will remember Iron Valley." Iron Valley is where, before the UCSE's constitution-making, two units along the Cloud River nearly came to arms over who owned a mining district. The weight of this objection is that, without a superior that can compel, some things really cannot be stopped. But not compelling is not doing nothing. Questioning is there (Paper 2), records are there (Paper 3), withdrawing cooperation is there (Paper 4), and the joint defense that stops a colonizing entry is there too (Paper 5). The part that cannot be stopped is written down, as it stands, as a cost and registered as a remainder; watching a problem happen is this part.
Kant gave a similar answer in the Second Definitive Article, in the Second Section of Perpetual Peace (Zum ewigen Frieden); Theory of the State Paper 5, §7 has already conversed with him, so here this paper only points back, and the translation follows the one given there. He says of that league that it would be a league of nations, "but it need not be a state of nations" (my translation; Dies wäre ein Völkerbund, der aber gleichwohl kein Völkerstaat seyn müßte; Zum ewigen Frieden, Second Section, Second Definitive Article, per the first edition, Nicolovius, 1795, Project Gutenberg EBook #46873; compared with the English translation by M. C. Smith, EBook #50922; tier A). Nor do the allied states on that account need to subject themselves, like human beings in the state of nature, to public laws and to a compulsion under them (ibid., paraphrased). This series takes this view. In the same place Kant also gives a ranking: by reason, the states ought to form a state of nations; since they do not want this, falling back on the second best, what remains "is only the negative surrogate of a league that averts war, endures, and keeps on expanding" (my translation; nur das negative Surrogat eines den Krieg abwehrenden, bestehenden, und sich immer ausbreitenden Bundes; ibid.). This series does not take that ranking; how the two views part is in Paper 8.
Non-compulsion, put into practice, is not judging in the other party's place. What judging in the other party's place means is set out in full in the next section.
§2 Force: Whose Judgment, and Which, Is Substituted
The "force" this series speaks of is recognized by this sentence:
Force is substituting one's own judgment for the other party's judgment on its own affairs.
Whenever it is said whether an act is force, it is stated, item by item, whose judgment is substituted, and which judgment; that the other party can still decide how to respond is not by itself grounds for finding that nothing has been substituted.
The criterion contains two qualifications. One is "the other party": whose judgment is substituted must be something one can point to: a state, a position, a group of people. The other is "on its own affairs": what is substituted is the other party's judgment on its own affairs, not just any calculation it may have. When one state stops selling fuel to another, the other state's affairs are affected, but whether it buys, where it buys from, and whether it changes its course because of this are still judged by itself; what has been decided is the seller's own cooperation. When one state sends troops into another state's towns and decides for them who may go out and who may pass, that is deciding their own affairs for them. The sentence that follows the criterion blocks a common claim: "The other side can still choose how to respond, so I have not decided for it." When a town is occupied, the people there can also still choose how to respond; this does not change the fact that who may go out has already been decided by someone else.
Recognized by this criterion, force is a spectrum that includes, but is not limited to, the use of armed force: from deciding for the other party and carrying it out by compulsion, to taking away what is its own, and on to the use of armed force, that is, entering another state's affairs by armed force and deciding there in its place; the use of armed force is the most extreme means on it. The criterion recognizes whether there is substitution; the spectrum says by what means the substitution is made, and how far it goes. The shape of force also differs from construct to construct. When the construct spoken of is the state, force mainly means its army and its armed force; this series speaks of acts between the system and its members and between state and state, and there force is recognized by this criterion and can be something other than an army, for instance taking away a member's own capital (Paper 4, XZ22). Where "force" in an upstream sentence means armies and armed force, its original sense is noted when it is cited (§11). Stopping a colonizing entry also uses armed force, yet it is not on this spectrum; the reason is in the next paragraph.
When what follows speaks of "substitute exercise," it means precisely this kind of substitution: judging the other party's own affairs in its place, and then carrying the judgment out. By this criterion, stopping a colonizing entry is not substitute exercise. When a party enters another state by force and decides on behalf of the people there, that was never its own affair to begin with; stopping it is not permitting it to judge for others, not judging its own affairs in its place. So joint defense that stops a colonizing entry, going no further than stopping it, is not within what this criterion forbids. When this series says that it does not use armed force for substitute exercise, read: it does not enter another state's affairs by armed force and decide there for the state or the people. The side that sends forces bears the judgment and the responsibility for its forces' use of armed force; whether it is at the same time engaged in substitute exercise is looked at separately, by whether it decides for another party that party's internal direction or particular matters. Nor does stopping give the stopping side authority to decide for the protected party. The War Treatise says: "the victorious party shall not decide on the defeated party's direction of subjectivity-development on their behalf" (War Treatise §18); the Theory of the State says: "Force turned outward is not turned inward." (Theory of the State N18) The former originally speaks of the victorious party after a war. The latter originally speaks of the state, where force means armies and armed force, and it says that a state's army is not turned to inward use; that is the army-and-armed-force sense, not the sense recognized by this section's criterion, and here this series calls it armed force. Here both sentences are extended to the states and the system that stop a colonizing entry (own undertaking): the armed force used in stopping is not turned into deciding for the protected party.
Several other places must be read together with this criterion; here only where they lie is pointed out. Sending forces into another state and fighting for one side in its internal strife, where how armed force is used is judged by the sending side, is intervention; sending or selling arms, where how they are used is judged by the receiving side, is assistance; judgment follows control, and control is read as it actually is (Paper 6, XZ43). Stopping a colonizing entry is not intervention. A state that draws on the principal another party has deposited with it is already judging, in the other party's place, how the other party's own money is to be used (Paper 4, XZ22). Nor is seeing substituting; Gate Two of the War Treatise says: "I can recognize your plight, recognize that as a subject you ought to be released, but I do not decide for you what you are to become" (War Treatise §13).
Checks are not force. The Theory of the State has written what, with no superior, a state cannot close: "peers judging for themselves on this basis and withdrawing cooperation other than recognition" (Theory of the State N36). Withdrawing cooperation, for instance stopping disbursements, suspending payments, freezing, suspending a vote in a common procedure, or sanctions, withdraws the cooperation of the party applying pressure itself. The other party's affairs are still decided by itself, and its room to bear the cost and not comply remains. By the criterion, this does not substitute for the other party's judgment on its own affairs; it is a check, not force (Paper 4, XZ22).
Some checks slide into force, and these are avoided too. If a measure makes the other party unable to live unless it does as the party applying pressure wishes, or in fact cancels its room to bear the cost and not comply, the measure has already slid into substituting judgment, and it is not done. When Institution Theory speaks of the line, it has two places for this: not pressing a person down to where he cannot live, and not sealing off his way of refusal. This test extends those two places to pressure between states, the subject term being changed from the person to the state under pressure and the people there (own undertaking). Requiring the other party to stop crossing the line, or to perform a covenant it has acknowledged, does not count as "what the party applying pressure wishes" (Paper 4, XZ25). A blockade that cuts off the life-substrate belongs to this class; the part of a measure that falls on the life-substrate is to be cut out and given a humanitarian exemption, and this is the reason (Paper 4, XZ24). A freeze too must pass this test: the end point of a freeze is not fixed by the freezing party alone (Paper 4, XZ22). Clause 2 of Article 2 of the Compact says that no organ of the system may exercise force against a member or against persons within a member's territory; "force" in that provision is read by this section's criterion.
It may be said that cutting off supply, freezing and the use of armed force differ only in degree, and that drawing a line somewhere among them is arbitrary. The weight of this objection is that the consequences of these sometimes really are close: a long blockade harms people no less than an entry does. But the criterion does not divide by degree; it divides by whether the other party's judgment on its own affairs is substituted; force itself is a spectrum, and whether a measure is on that spectrum is still judged by whether it substitutes. Where the degree grows heavy enough to cancel the other party's room not to comply, the measure falls, by the test above, into the class that slides into force, and is likewise not done; short of that, the other party's affairs are still in its own hands.
Throughout the series, wherever force, checks, intervention and assistance, financial means and entry by invitation are written of, they are judged only by this place, and the same place states whose judgment, and which, is substituted. Control is read as it actually is; which class a particular measure at the boundary falls into is left to the judgment of positions (§11).
§3 Not a Superior, Not a Body That Authorizes the Use of Armed Force
When does a covenant become a superior? When the Compact was being drafted, this question had already been put once, face to face.
In the winter of Year 12, at the second round of the drafting conference at Three Borders, an adviser in the UCSE delegation put forward a text. He was a former member of the Chamber of Member Units. The text set up a "Three-Borders Joint Assembly," with representation apportioned by population; a "Three-Borders Court," whose rulings would bind every member; and a "Common Defense Force," commanded by a chief chosen by the Joint Assembly. The text did not say who would carry out the Three-Borders Court's rulings, or how they would land. His explanation was: "At first the five units along the Cloud River also had only a compact. The compact was too loose, which is why Iron Valley nearly came to arms. We can follow the Cloud River's road and grow, step by step, into a union." The head of the DRP delegation said: "The Republic will not join something that will grow into a state." The head of the NUT delegation said: "The NUT is a union of nations, and does not intend to become, in turn, one district in another union." The head of the UCSE delegation did not support the text: "The UCSE has not come here to enlarge the UCSE." The minutes record that the text was not adopted. The same round agreed on a drafting principle, "to establish no organ above the members," which later became clause 2 of Article 2 of the Compact; the exit clause was there from the first draft and later became Article 25.
The Cloud River's road that the adviser spoke of did exist. The five units along the Cloud River were at first joined in a loose union under the Cloud River Compact, which covered shipping and common defense, with no common court and no standing organs; after the Iron Valley dispute a constitutional convention was held, the Charter came into force, and from this the UCSE was founded (Theory of the State Paper 1, §1). A covenant that carried no force later grew, through constitution-making, into a state; this is the road the adviser wanted the three states to follow. Had his text been adopted, there would have been one more layer above the heads of the people of the three states: a superior holding force. No line has yet been crossed here; what must be seen is whether a covenant would in fact acquire force over its members.
On what grounds is each of the text's three organs to be judged? The Common Defense Force is commanded by a chief chosen by the Joint Assembly, and deploys without passing through each member's own decision, so the position that gives the order stands above every member; once this one item is set up, the system has force over the members and over the people within their territories. The Three-Borders Court's "rulings bind every member": what must be seen is by what authority it judges and how its rulings land. A ruling that is made to land by compulsion over the members' own law is checked as a superior's; landing through the members' own law does not by itself prove that the court is a superior, nor does it reduce a valid decision made under an acknowledged procedure to an ordinary opinion. What kind of judging authority this court would actually have acquired the text does not make clear, and the word "bind" alone cannot decide it; the judgment lies in authority and landing, not in the name. The Joint Assembly's representation by population runs up against the provision that all states have equal status (Paper 1, XZ2), not against force. Read by the criterion of §2, this text points in fact toward a superior: the defense force item alone already puts the system above the members; the court item turns on an authority and a landing that the text left unclear. The judgment in that matter was made by the drafting conference: the heads of two delegations said they would not join, the third did not support the text, and the minutes record that it was not adopted. Setting up no superior was, in this matter too, the result of the consent of all parties.
Merging into a larger state is not in itself forbidden. The UCSE itself grew out of a compact; if the people of several states consent, each by their own law, to merge into one state, that is their affair. What is forbidden is something else: holding force without acknowledging it. If a system of cooperation has in fact acquired force over its members, and can compel a member without passing through the member's own decision, it is already a superior, and must answer to what the Theory of Government requires of a level of government: the multi-branch separation of powers, channels for internal subjects, and openness to questioning. The Theory of Government says: "Where the separation of powers may be weak, openness to questioning is not." (Theory of Government G26) It cannot evade these requirements by saying that it is "only cooperation." Reading Grotius, the Theory of the State has also said: "A congress that can compel the refractory has already started out toward a superior that holds force." (Theory of the State Paper 5, §1)
Force is recognized by the criterion of §2. If what an arrangement substitutes is a member's judgment on whether, and how, to carry something out at this moment, the arrangement is a superior. A decision made by majority under a covenant agreed in advance, landing through the member's own law, is not a superior: the member consented to the procedure in advance, and whether the decision is carried out still passes through its own law. Locking a member's exit is judged by the same criterion. Law Series P3 says: "Whoever controls exit controls the boundary of law." (Law Series P3 §6) The original speaks of the right of exit and the boundary of law; here it is extended to members' exit and the system: whoever can lock a member's exit stands above the member (own undertaking). How the system does not act as a hidden superior is argued in Paper 7, XZ46.
Who can point out that a covenant has in fact grown force? Not the system itself. It is the members' several positions, those affected, and the questions of peers (Paper 2); and they go by the criterion of §2, not by the names in the provisions.
The two appendices of F6 each write one kind of shape, used only as examples. The charter in Appendix A defines itself: "The Federation is not a super-state, not an empire, not an alliance." (F6, Appendix A, Article 5; a working demonstration; used only as an example) Appendix B goes to the other end: "The defense force may not be used in the Commonwealth's internal affairs, unless one member is committing armed aggression against another and this is confirmed by the Constitutional Court." (F6, Appendix B, Article 26; a working demonstration; used only as an example) A standing defense force that can be used inward upon confirmation by a court is what it looks like when a superior holding force already stands above. The system does not go that far. In the summer of Year 16, Stonegorge's Commonwealth Chamber passed, by 112 votes to 68, a resolution asking the Conference of Members to amend the Compact to set up a "Three-Borders Standing Force" of six thousand: "on a colonizing entry, it may deploy upon a determination by the Secretary-General, the members confirming afterward." When the Conference of Members discussed it, the UCSE's permanent representative asked: "Who orders the standing force to deploy? Whoever gives that order stands above the members." Amending the Compact requires the consent of all members, and the proposal never entered the procedure. This episode serves here only as a contrast: a force that can deploy on its own must have someone who gives the order (Paper 5, XZ31).
Nor is the system a body that authorizes the use of armed force. A body that authorizes the use of armed force by the votes of a majority or of a minority is not within this series' domain: authorizing the use of armed force means having compulsory power, and holding force means being a superior. The system neither authorizes nor vetoes (Paper 2, XZ9). Clause 2 of Article 18 of the Compact writes this into the text: where armed force has entered the affairs of a member or of another state, the Conference of Members may make a record, and "This record is a public question and record; it constitutes no authorization, and no obligation on any member to deploy." In the spring of Year 17, the Conference of Members made a record under this provision, writing "There is a colonizing entry," and the same record also wrote that it "constitutes no authorization, and no obligation on any member to deploy" (Paper 5). The system's determinations are public questions and records, not authorization, not approval, and not endorsement either.
It may be said that without a superior the system's decisions are waste paper; when the adviser said that the compact was too loose, this is what he meant too. The weight of this objection is that a decision that cannot compel may indeed fail to land. But members' landing a decision is also enforcement. F6 says: "voluntary execution under a shared procedure, and a node giving effect to a decision within its own jurisdiction, are still enforcement" (F6 §3.1a). So this series says that the system does not enforce, its decisions landing in each member, and not that those decisions go unenforced. A covenant counts through each party's own law (Paper 1, XZ1), and is not waste paper; where exactly the "looseness" lies is taken apart in §8. The cost of not taking the road of union is written as it stands, in §1; that account, following Theory of the State N39, falls on the positions that made the decision.
§4 Not a "We," Not an Extension of the Strong, Not a Club, Not a World Police
What the last section cleared away were two things that have to do with force. A few more things are often taken for the shape of a system of cooperation, and they too must be cleared away.
Not a "we." In the winter of the year the Compact entered into force, an editorial in an NUT newspaper was headed "Above the Three States," and the Secretariat's bulletin answered that above the Compact there is nothing above the three states. There is no "will of the international community," nor any "will of the system." The Theory of the State took apart the same thing within one state: "So this series does not write 'the state wants,' 'the state believes' or 'the will of the state'; it writes that persons in positions make the decision and that it takes effect in the state's name" (the Theory of the State Prequel, §1). Here the subject term is changed, from the state to the system: what is made in the system's name is traced back to the positions and votes of the member states that made it (own undertaking). Power Theory says: "the apparatus does not exercise power; individuals exercise power by invoking the apparatus." (Power Theory P3 §V.5) The Conflict Treatise says: "Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator." (Conflict Treatise §24) The system is a construct; it has institutional status and can serve as an address of attribution, but it is not a subject. Institution Theory says: "the construct is the address of attribution, not the subject of the act; the address of attribution and the actual actor do not hide each other." (Institution Theory Z7a) Article 3 of the Compact, which the bulletin cited, requires documents issued in the system's name to state the organ that made them, the votes cast and how each member voted; it is an example: following the vote count, those who ask can find the address.
Not an extension of the strong. The Conflict Treatise says: "A third party selected unilaterally by the stronger side may be only an extension of that side's power." (Conflict Treatise §27) A system of cooperation can be like this too: in name it belongs to all parties; in fact it is held by the party with the greatest influence. How to judge this follows the Theory of Government: "Capture is judged by structure, not by the name of a body or where it sits" (Theory of Government G38); and: "Every government, whatever its size, ought to be open to questioning" (Theory of Government G35). So within the system all states have equal status; differences of influence are acknowledged as facts, only they are not converted into votes or vetoes (Paper 1, XZ2). When Stonegorge applied to join in the spring of Year 14, the Federal President of the Plateau Federation said at a press conference: "A commonwealth of eleven million has the same single vote in that system as a republic of sixty-two million. That system was not built by weight." What he spoke of is the fact of Article 2 of the Compact; how that provision counts is written in Paper 1.
Cooperation and collusion can grow to look the same at the layer of recognition. Power Theory says that apparatuses can cooperate by registering one another forward, which is, "in a severing context, collusion," and it leaves the full mechanics to later work (Power Theory P3 §VII.2). The upstream gives only the minimal structure; the boundary between the two is undertaken by this series itself, in Paper 4, XZ25. One thing is said here first: using the system's sanctions, recognition and conditions of aid to press other states, deciding their own affairs for them, is colonization in the name of cooperation. Moral Law P9 says that "colonization does not necessarily rely on open violence" and that "Institutional architecture cannot be neutral." F6 too lists this class separately: "A third class must be listed separately: dominative / colonial institutions" (F6 §2.2). Having institutional status does not mean that a system cannot slide into being an extension of the strong.
Not a club of like states. Institution Theory says: "An institution does not presuppose that its internal subjects are all acting by their own law; its presupposition is mixed reality. What is mixed is realization, not standing." (Institution Theory Z3) Here the subject term is changed, from a construct's internal subjects to the system's members (own undertaking): the system does not take as its premise that its members all lean more toward the 15DD direction, and it sets no threshold of form of government. Members can be mixed, and mixed means that their leanings differ. When this series says that the system is truly effective only when 15DD predominates, it speaks of direction and of diagnosis, recognized by the system's acts, not by the members' names. Moral Law P8 says that "a community is not a 15DD identity entity"; 15DD is "community-level behavioral operation (doing)," not an identity label.
Why, then, is a party whose direction leans heavily toward 14DD not inside the system? A structural judgment is made here, not a threshold. The system has no force, only checks and questioning, and can supply no tool for dominating other states; that is precisely what a party leaning heavily toward 14DD wants, so it has no reason to join. If it did join, and then used the system to colonize other states, questioning, recording, withdrawing cooperation, suspension or expulsion, and joint defense would all be used as usual (Papers 2 to 5; Paper 7).
When the DRP ratified the Compact, its Foreign Ministry attached a statement: "Accession to the Compact does not change the Republic's position on the West Flats; the Republic will seek the return of the West Flats by peaceful means." The UCSE's Office of External Affairs replied: "The UCSE notes this statement, and notes Article 4(1) of the Compact." Article 4(1) is a commitment of members: not to enter the territory or territorial waters of any state by armed force, and not to set up administration within another state's territory. What the reply pointed to is a commitment about acts, not the DRP's form of government or its leaning. The Theory of the State says: "A leaning is a direction, not an identity." (the Theory of the State Prequel, §7) The system looks at acts. War Treatise §19 has an alliance seek allies of the same structure, the allies themselves having to operate in the 15DD direction; in a mixed system this requirement moves to the layer of joint acts, where which states send forces together, and who does what in joint command, are checked item by item (Paper 5, XZ36), and it is not read as a threshold of membership.
The tradition set a threshold here. Kant's First Definitive Article requires that the civil constitution of every state be republican (Die bürgerliche Verfassung in jedem Staat soll republikanisch seyn.; Zum ewigen Frieden, Second Section, First Definitive Article, same source; tier A; paraphrased). According to the summary in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry "John Rawls" (by L. Wenar, revised 2025), Rawls takes liberal peoples and decent peoples as the members of the Society of Peoples, with outlaw states left outside the door; he also assumes that no tolerable world state could be stable. This series reads him accordingly: Rawls sets up no world state, but still keeps a threshold of membership (tier C, paraphrased, per §5.2 and the introduction to §5 of that entry). In the Second Definitive Article Kant has another sentence, which comes closer to this series: states, as states, already have a rightful constitution internally, and so have outgrown the compulsion of others to bring them, according to those others' concepts of right, under a wider lawful constitution (weil sie, als Staaten, innerlich schon eine rechtliche Verfassung haben, und also dem Zwange anderer, sie nach ihren Rechtsbegriffen unter eine erweiterte gesetzliche Verfassung zu bringen, entwachsen sind; ibid., Second Definitive Article; tier A; paraphrased). Where they agree: other states cannot compel a state into a larger constitution. Where they part: Kant's reason is that states already have a rightful constitution internally; this series does not make it a condition that the other party already have a qualified constitution internally, and judgment falls on acts. In all three places the difference lies in the threshold itself, not in an evaluation of any form of government; this series does not evaluate the forms of government of other states.
Not a world police. The system is accountable for colonization that comes from members or from the system itself, whether that colonization falls on members or outside the system. One state outside the system colonizing another state outside the system is also within the range that the system stands against, but joint defense does not deal with it, and the system has only indirect ways (Paper 5, XZ29). Nor does the system send forces on the ground that "its institutions are better." The War Treatise says: "even if one's own system genuinely protects cultivation better, forcing it on the other through war violates the very 'persons as ends' principle the system is supposed to embody." (War Treatise §13)
No guarantee of peace. In its conversation with Kant, Theory of the State Paper 5 said: "This paper does not guarantee peace; this it concedes." (Theory of the State Paper 5, §7) This series takes this over as it stands. The system takes anti-colonization as its main line (§5), and does not take ending all war as its purpose; Kant's league of peace is to end all wars, and this series parts from him at this point, which has already been set side by side with him there.
It may be said that without a threshold the system will sooner or later be dragged, by a party whose direction leans toward 14DD, into being an extension of the strong. The weight of this objection is that the mixture is real, and there really may be members who use the system to press other states. But judgment falls on acts: whichever act uses the system to colonize, that act is questioned, recorded and checked, and where necessary there is suspension or expulsion; "15DD predominance" is a diagnosis, and it looks at what the system is actually doing (Paper 8, XZ53). In mixed reality, who is "only guarding" and who is "also expanding" often cannot be told apart until a particular matter arises; that is left to the judgment of positions (Paper 5, XZ35).
§5 Why the Main Lines of the System and the State Differ
The whole series of the Theory of the State, taken together, is one sentence:
"Toward its internal subjects, a state holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; outwardly, it does not colonize, and does not decide on behalf of the people of other states; each of its 'lasts' remains open to questioning." (the Theory of the State Prequel, Introduction)
This series, taken together, is also one sentence:
A system of cooperation stands against colonization, toward its member states and toward what lies outside it alike: it does not itself act as a superior, and it tolerates no state's colonizing another; toward people outside the system, it creates conditions for cultivation, and does not enter other states to decide on behalf of the people there; it puts questions to its members, and every one of its own arrangements remains open to questioning.
The two sentences differ because the "interiors" of the two levels hold different things.
| Who is inside | Inward | Outward | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The state (the Theory of the State) | subjects, one by one | holds to anti-colonization, strives for cultivation | does not colonize, does not decide on behalf of the people of other states |
| A system of cooperation (this series) | states, one by one | stands against colonization: does not itself act as a superior, tolerates no state's colonizing another | creates conditions for the cultivation of people outside the system, does not enter other states to decide on behalf of the people there; anti-colonization reaches outward as well |
The "strives for cultivation" in the Theory of the State's sentence speaks of a state toward its own internal subjects; that sentence has been settled, and it is not changed by this series. The two levels keep the same rule: each level stands against colonization toward its own interior; whichever level's interior holds subjects is the one that does the work of cultivating subjects. The system's interior is made up of states, one by one; states are means, and the people in the states are the ends. The system stands against colonization toward its members so that no state is treated as another state's means; the conditions for cultivation come down on persons, and the member states provide them. Those whom the system's acts reach are another kind of "interior"; what they are called, and how the five oughts apply to them, are in §11 and in Paper 2, §6.
Each of the three clauses of the main-line sentence gets one remark. The first clause says "tolerates no": the system has no force, and standing against colonization does not mean being able to prevent it; what it can do is question, record, withdraw cooperation, and stop the kind that enters by force (§§1, 2). The second clause writes for the outward side only "creates conditions for cultivation," and does not enter other states to decide on behalf of the people there. This takes up the half of the Theory of the State that faces other states, "Toward the other state as a construct: it does not colonize, does not decide the direction for its people" (Theory of the State N25); nor may the conditions exist on paper only; the Theory of Government has said: "It is concerned with conditions, not with outcomes; 'concerned with conditions' does not cancel the requirement that the conditions be actually usable." (the Theory of Government Prequel, §8) The third clause is questioning that runs both ways: the system is an external questioner, and puts questions to its members; each of its own arrangements is also under questioning. A member going on to colonize a state outside the system is not given a clause of its own in the main-line sentence: it falls within the first clause, "tolerates no state's colonizing another," and also within the third, "puts questions to its members"; Papers 4 and 5 develop this.
Why must there be an outward side? The Theory of the State says: "someone who leaves a state has no layer above to go with him, and can only enter another peer, and only if that peer takes him in." (Theory of the State Paper 1, §5) A single state can make real the exit of those who come to its door. What the system adds is several destinations, and sharing and channels between members that continue over time, so that exit does not rest on any one door. Moral Law P9 says that a single shelter "constitutes a single point of failure," and that "Networks of shelters add resilience." A system that is good only to its own members does not count as this direction. Moral Law P8 says that if recognition inside does not extend outward past the boundary, it "constitutes only intensified intra-community mutual aid"; the original speaks of a community, and here it is changed to a system of cooperation (own undertaking). Nor does the system change the order of other states on their behalf; that must wait for the people there themselves; but those at the door must be received now: "Macroscopic phase transition requires waiting, but microscopic recognition is never delayed." (Moral Law P9)
It may be said that a system that stands against colonization should, then, enter other states and strive for cultivation on behalf of the people there; why does it not? The weight of this objection is that the suffering outside the door is real, and the system can see it. But entering other states to strive on behalf of the people there is deciding on their behalf, and the second clause of the main-line sentence blocks exactly this step. Outwardly the system only makes conditions, and makes them where it can reach: the door is open, those who come can be received and have somewhere to go, and channels and comings and goings are not blocked. What a state and the system each "must" do and "can" do is written separately in Paper 6. Where the system cannot reach is written down, as it stands, as a remainder.
§6 The Domain
The system of cooperation this series speaks of has, by definition, no force above its members; if it had, it would be a larger state.
This definition follows on from the Theory of the State's. In its Prequel, §6, the Theory of the State gave the definition of the state's end and went on to say: "The definition names an extreme." The end of that section also says: "What the stretch between the two is like, this series acknowledges as a remainder, and leaves to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation to come." This series begins writing from this stretch.
Armed force runs in two directions. Armed force above the members that governs members, the system does not have; armed force that stops a colonizing entry from outside may exist, and the members that send forces do the stopping (Paper 5). "Setting none up" means that the system does not acquire force over its members. Only when the two are read together do they not obstruct each other: stopping a party that enters another state by force is not governing members, nor is it judging that party's own affairs in its place, so stopping a colonizing entry does not count as force (§2). This requires that the entry really be a colonizing entry. Whether it is recognized as one rests with the members that send forces (Paper 5, XZ30); if they recognize it wrongly, the stopping itself substitutes for someone else's judgment on their own affairs: for instance, stopping an entry by invitation as though it were a colonizing entry substitutes for the inviting party's judgment on whom to invite. By the criterion of §2, this entry is booked to the party that made the determination.
The Theory of the State speaks of "the stretch" in two places, and says it differently. One place speaks of what lies between the state's end and having a superior with force already above: "how the stretch between the two is to be designed, and how it binds states, is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation." (Theory of the State Paper 5, §1) The other speaks of what lies between the state's end and real states: "Actual states can have treaty mechanisms above them that carry no force, and so stand at some distance from this end" (Theory of the State Paper 7, §5). The two can be read together. The first gives the two ends of a scale: at one end there is nothing above, and this is the state's end; at the other there is already a superior with force above, and this is a level of the Theory of Government. The second gives where real states stand on this scale: they can have treaty mechanisms above them that carry no force, and fall between the two ends. So the stretch the second place speaks of lies within the stretch the first place speaks of. This series' domain takes the whole stretch; where the real world meets it is where the second place marks. How far one is from the state's end changes how much external routes can make up (the Theory of the State Prequel, §6); what this series writes is these external routes themselves. Once one reaches the point where there is a superior with force above, one has left this series' domain, and the answering follows a level of the Theory of Government (§3).
The domain has five parts:
- Between the system and its members: the system does not act as a superior, and tolerates no state's colonizing another.
- Between member and member: the part that takes the system's arrangements as its venue and its means, that is, covenant, questioning, the account, checks and joint defense.
- Those whom the system's acts reach: as regards these acts of the system, they are in the system's interior (§11; Paper 2, §6).
- Among the system, its members and what lies outside the system: colonization of members by states outside the system, and colonization outside the system by members; how to deal with states outside the system whose direction leans heavily toward 14DD; the leaving and the admission of people outside the system.
- Outside the system against outside the system: within the range the system stands against, only indirect ways are used.
What matters is entanglement, not geography. The Plateau Federation does not border the three states; its entanglement with them lies in trade, clearing, sea routes and military strength; that they cannot exit from one another is enough. This is exactly the condition of F6's Premise III: "Where subjects' actions come to overlap persistently, and that overlap cannot be dissolved by any party's exit, this paper discusses how a shared handling arrangement is to be formed." (F6 §2.1, Premise III) F6 speaks of subjects; here it is changed to states (own undertaking). A state is a construct, not a subject; what is protected is always the people of each state (§11).
This series and Law Series P4 divide their ground by premise. Law Series P4 writes of the top layer where exit is feasible: "An interstellar constitution is essentially consensus plus exit, not coercive law." (Law Series P4 §2) This series writes of cooperation where the parties cannot exit from one another, and can exit only from a particular arrangement. A member can exit the Compact (Article 25), but while it can exit this covenant, it cannot exit from the others. The Theory of the State has said: "a treaty between two states is also consensus plus exit; the agreement can be exited, the river cannot." (Theory of the State Paper 5, §1) So one cannot infer from members' being able to exit that the system can be thin: permitting exit from an arrangement is not the kind of exit in Law Series P4 that makes law thin. The two series divide by premise, not by the name "international law."
This series does not reach four things. The interstellar and what lies between civilizations, and the law above states, are in Law Series P4. The "institutions between institutions" among companies, and between states and companies, are not taken up. For the details of treaty law, this series gives direction, and the details are left to specific law (Paper 8, XZ56). The forms of organs and provisions are left to specific theories of institutions (§11).
It may be said that in the real world some multilateral arrangements carry force, and that by putting them outside the domain this series has avoided the hard part. The weight of this objection is that real arrangements are often mixed with parts that carry force, and cutting them apart at one stroke is not easy. But the part that carries force answers as a level of the Theory of Government, and cannot evade this by saying that it is "only cooperation" (§3; Paper 7, XZ46); it has not been let off. This series gives the real world a direction and names no names; where on the scale each real state and arrangement falls is not judged one by one, and is left as a remainder.
§7 Consensus, Reputation and Checks, Together with External Questioning, Are All Lateral
With no superior above, on what grounds does anything in the system count? This series takes these as counting: consensus, reputation and checks; the Theory of the State hands over one more, external questioning. Each of the four has a paper of its own: consensus in Paper 1, external questioning in Paper 2, reputation in Paper 3, checks in Paper 4.
Each of these already has a place in the Theory of the State. From the definition of the state's end, the Theory of the State derives three things: "Three things are derived from this definition (own undertaking): external routes exist, but they land in this state; exit can only be lateral; the guarantee is always there." (the Theory of the State Prequel, §6) Consensus is in N24: treaties and common procedures "bind both parties through each party's own law, or through a procedure both parties have acknowledged." Checks are in N26 and N36: peers judge for themselves and withdraw cooperation other than recognition. Reputation is in N26 and N39: recognition recognizes only where an act comes from and under whose name the account is booked, and the account falls on positions and persons.
Here one sentence is set up (own undertaking): with no superior above, binding too can only be lateral. It comes through the consent of all parties, and this is covenant; it comes through peers' questioning, recording and withdrawing cooperation, and this is questioning, the account and checks; it does not come through a superior. This sentence is confined to this premise: the parties cannot exit from one another, and above them there is no superior with force, nor do they set one up. Why does the upstream not have this sentence? The Theory of the State wrote as far as one state's outward dealings, and did not write where binding among many states comes from; this series sets the sentence up on the definition in §6, and the argument is in Paper 1, XZ1.
Why must several of these count together, rather than one of them alone? Power Theory says that the counter-force takes several forms: "The counter-vector has different forms at different DD layers: 15DD questioning (accountability at the reputation layer), 14DD resistance (counter-narrative), and 13DD response-refusal (withdrawing the protection-response)." It also says: "The three layers of operational recognition superpose topologically; they do not replace one another, and they are not morally ranked among the layers." (Power Theory P3 §V.2, §VI.4) Power Theory speaks of counter-registration against a wielder of power within one community; here it is extended to state and state (own undertaking): the three superpose, and do not replace one another. With a party whose direction leans more toward 15DD, questioning and giving reasons are of use; a party leaning toward 14DD may not care about being questioned, but does recognize the cost of withdrawn cooperation. Reputation counts with both; it counts in other parties' making their decisions by its account, not in whether the party recorded cares about it (Paper 3, §1). The accountability that Power Theory speaks of on the 15DD side relies on the party questioned caring about its own reputation; when this series says that reputation counts, it counts with the parties who read the account, and these two are not the same thing. So several of these must count together (Paper 4, XZ23).
Withdrawing cooperation has grounds upstream. The proviso of F6's Premise V says: "On that basis authority may be limited, requirements refused, cooperation suspended, and protection of third parties initiated" (F6 §2.1, Premise V). F6 speaks of members of the framework; here it is changed to states (own undertaking). F6 also says: "sharing a continent does not by itself prove that every external check must fail to be independent." (F6 §3.1b) External routes between states have ground to stand on.
Article 7 of the Compact is an example. New binding, that is, amending the Compact, adding a common procedure, admitting a new member, or concluding a new agreement in the system's name, requires the written consent of all members. Putting questions on existing matters, opening procedures and adopting records are done by a majority of the members not concerned; the member questioned does not take part in the vote on that item, but may make statements at every stage, and the statements are entered in the record. Measures within a common procedure are also adopted by a majority of the members not concerned; a member that does not take part must explain its reasons publicly to the Conference of Members. This division lets a covenant require the consent of all parties, while questioning does not require the consent of the party questioned (Papers 1, 2).
It may be said that lateral binding all rests on willingness, which amounts to no binding at all. The weight of this objection is that, if a state is determined to ignore it, the lateral means really cannot hold it down. But a covenant that passes through each party's own law has binding force. Theory of the State N24 says: "There is no one above to compel one party on the other's behalf; so while they have binding force, carrying out and questioning must land through each party's own law." External questioning cannot be cancelled (Paper 2, XZ11); the account stays at the address, and does not vanish because it is ignored (Paper 3); withdrawing cooperation has a real cost (Paper 4). There is binding; only there is no compulsion (§8).
These lateral means cannot stop colonization that enters by force. That side rests on outward joint defense (Paper 5), not on force from above.
§8 Thickness Is Needed; There Is No Compulsion
The adviser said that the compact was too loose, and that therefore the way had to lead toward union. Where the "looseness" lies must be taken apart.
First, how thick this level needs to be. Law Series P3 says: "The three variables combine: exit is hardest, collisions are densest, shared identity is thinnest. The thickness of law reaches its peak at the national scale." (Law Series P3 §4) Between states, they likewise cannot exit from one another, collisions are likewise dense, and shared identity is thinner still. So one may not, because there is no superior above, make the needed boundaries, roads for questioning and records thin; the arrangements needed are stated item by item according to the actual problems, and can be very thick. The upstream says that the thickness of law reaches its peak at the national level; this series does not say that what lies between states is thicker than what lies within a state, only that this level may not be written thin because it has no superior (own undertaking).
Next, thickness and compulsion are taken apart. When the upstream speaks of thick law, it speaks of it together with the separation of powers and compulsory negative boundaries, without taking the two apart; this series takes them apart here, and this step is its own undertaking. Thickness is read as the density of negative boundaries, of structures of questioning and of records. Law Series P1 gives the minimal form of law: "Law: when the remainder of collision cannot not be processed, the resulting structure is a questionable, modifiable, negative boundary. All four base layers are present." (Law Series P1 §7) This definition does not require compulsion. Law Series P4 also says of the thin agreements, charters, consensus texts and ad hoc arbitration that remain when exit is feasible: "These are still law" (Law Series P4 §2). So three things are held to here: thickness is not read as compulsion; one cannot infer from members' being able to exit that the system can be thin (§6); nor can one infer from 15DD predominance that compulsion can be thin, for Law Series P4 has said: "The recession condition of coercive law is not the arrival of 15DD."
The cost lies in there being no compulsion, not in thinness. Questioning and the account can be made very thick; landing by compulsion cannot be done; the part that cannot be done is written down, as it stands, as a cost, and it is the same entry as the cost in §1: watching a problem happen. When members land a common decision, each carries it out within its own territory by its own law; that is each state's own compulsion, not the system's, and it does not count toward the thickness of this level. Compulsion has not withdrawn; it falls within each state, and also on the side that stops colonization from outside; what there is not is a compulsion above the states. The positive answer is in Paper 8, XZ54.
Can a level like this give rise to law? Law Series P3 has written what it looks like when two sides cannot exit from one another and there is no law above them either: "But between the two factions there is no law, only intermittent peace agreements (consensus) and cyclical wars (showdowns)." That section says that this cycle will continue until exit is restored, "or law emerges (institutionally constraining both sides' 14DD)." This series takes "law emerges" as an entry handed over to it here (§10). What emerges when no superior grows, on what grounds it counts as law, and whether it is stable among parties whose direction leans more toward 14DD, are all answered in Paper 8, §3 (XZ54); here two things are said first: what this series is looking for is the kind that is still law without compulsion; whether it is stable, this series does not guarantee. F6's Proposition III is also at this level: "A construct's scale cannot by itself fix the necessary number and granularity of its institutional provisions." (F6 §3.2) Scale itself cannot tell how many provisions this level needs; how many are needed is stated item by item according to the actual problems.
Back to the adviser. If what is lacking is boundaries, roads for questioning and records, then what makes up for it is these, not necessarily compulsion. The Compact set up the Secretariat, public records and the Petitions Committee, and set up no superior; this is one way of making up.
It may be said that law without compulsion is not law. The weight of this objection is that many accounts of law take compulsion as the mark of law. This is not settled merely by swapping in another definition. The definition in Law Series P1 §7 grasps what law does: when the remainder left by collision cannot not be processed, it gives a negative boundary that can be questioned and modified; compulsion is one way of making the boundary land, not the boundary itself. Between states, landing passes through each state's own law to begin with; compulsion has not withdrawn, it is only not above the states (see the paragraph of this section beginning "The cost lies in there being no compulsion"). So whether what stands at this level is law depends on whether the four base layers are present, not on whether there is a compeller above. Whether it is stable is another question, and this series does not guarantee it. Whether it can hold steady among parties whose direction leans more toward 14DD is left as a remainder.
§9 The Five Propositions of F6 at the Level Between States
At its end F6 lists several open questions, and one of them is: "Do these 'institutions between institutions' (international law, trade agreements, regulatory frameworks) follow the same five propositions?" (F6 §7) F6 did not write to whom this question was handed. Institution Theory Paper 0 takes it apart: the part relating to a construct's interior and to nesting above and below, Institution Theory makes good itself; "conflict among all institutions, the outermost layer," it hands to the Theory of the State (Institution Theory Paper 0, §10). The Theory of the State in turn hands multi-state systems of cooperation over to this series (Theory of the State N40). This question has come here through two hands. This series takes up only the level between states, the level of systems of cooperation; the levels among companies, and between states and companies, it does not take up.
Where each of the five falls at this level:
- Proposition I, Premise Invariance, says that the five premises apply at every tier and are not replaced from tier to tier: at this level it serves as the whole series' way of reading, namely role mapping (§11).
- Proposition II, Institutional Variability, says that the institutional layer differs with tier and conditions: in this section.
- Proposition III, Thickness Constraint, says that a construct's scale cannot by itself fix the number and granularity of its institutional provisions: in §8, answered in Paper 8, XZ54.
- Proposition IV, Necessity of Self-Chiseling, says that the channel for chiseling an institution must be independent of what is chiseled, that members can actually initiate it, and that initiating it brings no retaliation: in Paper 2, XZ15.
- Proposition V, Minimization, says that matters that need not be borne by common rules are not taken in as institutional requirements: in Paper 1, XZ5.
This section treats only Proposition II. F6 says: "Institutions are not mechanical applications of premises but creative institutionalizations of premises under specific conditions." (F6 §3.2) The premises do not change; institutions are fixed by conditions. Between states the conditions are three: the parties cannot exit from one another, there is no superior above, and there is mixed reality. Each of the three conditions gives one shape of this level's institutions. They cannot exit from one another, so thickness is needed (§§6, 8). There is no superior, so there is no compulsion, and binding can only be lateral (§7). There is mixed reality, so judgment falls on acts and no threshold is set (§4). Functions only, no forms (§11), comes from here too: the conditions tell us what must be achieved, not by which kind of organ it is to be done.
The two appendices of F6 each write a fictional charter or constitution; a sentence of Appendix A was used above (§3). The appendices are working demonstrations, used only as examples; there are several further strands in them that this series does not take, and for each a reason is given in one sentence. Appendix A makes cultivation the default relation toward non-members at a far lower level of development (Appendix A, Article 15(b)); toward what lies outside the system, this series only creates conditions for cultivation, and does not make cultivation its default relation toward other states (§5). Appendix A has the Federal Assembly authorize the formation of a Temporary Joint Defense Force (Appendix A, Article 14); the system does not authorize the use of armed force (§3). Appendix A says of the Federal Assembly's axiom review: "Such a determination carries the highest authority." (F6, Appendix A, Article 12(d)) The system's determinations are only questions and records, and carry no highest authority over members (§3). Appendix B requires the parties not to blockade each other's trade routes (Appendix B, Article 7(c)); this series' checks include sanctions, which are tested against the criterion of §2, with the part falling on the life-substrate cut out, and it does not borrow that clause whole (Paper 4).
It may be said that the five of F6 were set up for institutions whose members are subjects; once the members are states, the subject term has changed, and the propositions may not hold. The weight of this objection F6 has itself acknowledged: "Each tier must therefore specify separately: who is the protected subject, who bears public judgment, and which construct serves only as the address of accountability." (F6 §3.2) Changing the subject term does not automatically preserve the same proposition. But every extension in this series passes these three questions and states the subject term that has been changed, and the protected subject is always the person (§11); where one does not hold, this is marked as it stands, not pushed through by force. "Institutions between institutions" at other levels this series does not take up; how far the level between states is answered is in Paper 8, XZ55.
§10 What Has Been Received
The accounts handed here from upstream are settled following the convention of the Theory of the State Prequel, §9. "Handed over expressly" means that the upstream states that it hands the matter to this series; "handed over tacitly" means that the upstream marks off its own range without naming a destination, and the matter lands here. An address being fixed is not the same as being settled; the original sentences of each entry, and their verification, are in the accompanying audit table.
| Item | Source | Status | Where taken up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Third-state rescue in the face of large-scale line-crossing inside another state: what can be done, and what must be done | Theory of the State Paper 5, §2 (N25); its Prequel, §9; its Paper 7, N40 and Interfaces | Handed over expressly | Paper 6, XZ41–XZ44 |
| How treaty mechanisms above states (those admitting individual petitions included) bind states, and what kind of channel they are | Theory of the State Paper 1, §5; its Paper 2, §5 (N9); its Paper 5, §§1, 4 (N27) | Handed over expressly | Paper 2, XZ12–XZ14; how treaties count, Paper 1, XZ1 |
| How multi-state systems of cooperation are to be designed; how far a league of many states can bind states | Theory of the State Paper 5, §7; its Prequel, §9; its Paper 7, N40 | Handed over expressly | The whole series; not a superior, §3 of this paper; how things count under multilateral arrangements, Paper 1 |
| The stretch between the state's end and having a superior with force already above | The Theory of the State Prequel, §6; its Paper 5, §1 | Handed over expressly | §§3, 6 of this paper; Paper 7, XZ46 |
| The common procedure for multilateral sanctions | Theory of the State Paper 5, §5 (N29) | Handed over expressly | Paper 4, XZ24 |
| How the exit from or switching of an external arrangement is to be reviewed, and by whom; whether a rule can review its own repeal | Theory of the State Paper 1, §§5, 6 (N5); its Paper 7, §5 | Handed over expressly | Paper 7, XZ45 |
| Whether a state that hands its exit over to be locked from outside is still at the state's end | Theory of the State Paper 1, §5 | Handed over expressly | Paper 7, XZ46; §3 of this paper |
| What a third state does inside another state, including the case of "splitting into two states and helping one of them" | Theory of the State Paper 6, §5 | Handed over expressly | Paper 6, XZ44; admitting one side of a split, Paper 1, XZ8; after admission, Paper 5, XZ34 |
| The initial arrangement of the center of the league that Kant envisaged | Theory of the State Paper 5, §7 | Handed over expressly | Paper 1, XZ7 |
| The stretch between the state's end and real states | Theory of the State Paper 7, §5 and Interfaces | Handed over expressly | §6 of this paper; Paper 8 |
| How international organizations are to be designed; the details of treaty law | Theory of the State Paper 5, "Where this paper stops" | Handed over expressly | For the former, functions only, though examples can be given (§11 of this paper; Paper 1, XZ5); for the latter, direction is given and the details are left to specific law (Paper 8, XZ56) |
| External questioning cannot be cancelled | Theory of the State Paper 1, §5 (N5, the Theory of the State's own undertaking) | Handed over expressly; taken up as it stands | Paper 2, XZ11; Paper 7, XZ45 |
| Matters between two directions of expansion are handled by their own order | War Treatise §5 | Handed over tacitly | Paper 1, XZ6; Paper 4, XZ23 |
| Law emerges | Law Series P3 §6.2 | Handed over tacitly | §8 of this paper; Paper 8, XZ54 |
| Institutions between institutions | F6 §7; by way of Institution Theory Paper 0, §10, and Theory of the State N40 | Handed over tacitly | §9 of this paper; Paper 8, XZ55 |
| Once a member has slid back and the slide has taken hold, how the system distances itself from it; who sits in that state's seat in common procedures; peers pursuing, each by its own law, the persons in positions in that state | The companion study to the Theory of the State, The Reverse Phase Transition, "Where this paper stops" and Interfaces | Handed over expressly | Paper 4, §8 (XZ27); Paper 6, §3 (XZ38); Paper 8, §5 |
Each of the three tacit handovers gets one sentence. The War Treatise says: "These matters between 14DDs are handled by 14DD's own order (diplomacy, treaties, balance of power, international law, etc.); they are not this treatise's work." (War Treatise §5) The Theory of the State took up only the part of this that concerns war (Theory of the State N33); the rest lands here, chiefly how the system, through the checks, reputation and treaties that all parties recognize, deals with states outside the system whose direction leans heavily toward 14DD. Law Series P3 leaves the phrase "law emerges" without saying what it is that emerges; this series answers in Paper 8, §3 (XZ54). F6's "institutions between institutions" came here through two hands, as §9 has already said.
The items not taken up, and where they go, are at the end of §6.
In two places the Theory of the State says different things, and it is stated here which is followed. Theory of the State Paper 5, in "Where this paper stops," lists what lies between the interstellar and between civilizations among the matters handed to this series; the Theory of the State Prequel, §9, and N40 hand it to Law Series P4; this series follows the latter two and does not take it up. The handover table in the Interfaces of Theory of the State Paper 7 is not complete: the design of that stretch, what a third state does inside another state, the center of the league, international organizations and the details of treaty law, and several points concerning treaty mechanisms are none of them on that table; the table in this section is authoritative.
The four steps on the side of institutions have completed one round, and this series follows on after them. It does not judge for readers the states in which they live, nor does it judge any kind of cooperation in the real world. What it gives is a ruler; where to take it to measure, how to measure, and what the measurement shows, rests with readers themselves.
§11 How the Whole Series Speaks
How the whole series speaks is set out here, and the later papers point back here when they use it.
The three-layer sentence form. This sentence follows Institution Theory:
The construct takes the ought, the position takes accountability, the person takes his own law.
In this series, the system and the member states are constructs, and oughts are said to them. The positions that vote and carry out in common procedures, the Secretary-General, the members of treaty bodies, and those in each state who declare war and those who command, are all in positions, and accountability is said to them. Those who leave, journalists, residents and soldiers each have their own law, and this series writes no oughts for them. Nor does it write oughts for states outside the system; it writes only how the system and its members deal with them.
Role mapping. The protected subject is always the person: the people of each state, and those whom the system's acts reach. Those who bear public judgment are positions: positions in each state, and positions in the system's common procedures. States and the system are only addresses of attribution. Every extension passes these three questions and states the subject term that has been changed (§9).
Two "interiors." When the system and states are spoken of, the system's interior is made up of states, one by one (§5); in the text, for the system in relation to states, this series says "members" and "toward its members." When the system and persons are spoken of, those whom the system's acts reach and who have no way to avoid them by exiting are, as regards those acts, in the system's interior. Each usage has its own referent: the states in the first usage do not on that account become objects the system is to cultivate, and the persons in the second do not on that account become members. The two must be kept apart; if they are not, this will be read as the system owing the third ought to the people in member states, providing conditions for their cultivation according to relational thickness; that is the member states' affair.
What the system owes the persons of the second usage is extended from the Theory of the State's unified sentence. The Theory of the State's unified sentence is: "Those whom this state's acts reach and who have no way to avoid them by exiting are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior; the five oughts apply each on its own conditions": "the first and fifth oughts (a channel that is independent, within reach, and brings no retaliation for its use) and the 'not sealing the channels' half of the fourth do not vary with relational thickness; the trigger of the second does not vary with it, and its means are bounded by this state's authority at that place"; "the third ought, and the 'leaving room' half of the fourth, go by relational thickness"; "This confers no membership" (the Theory of the State Prequel, §8). Extending this sentence to the system level is written out in full in Paper 2, §6: in the extension the subject term is changed, and it is stated how far the system's means there go.
Judgment falls on acts, not on the names of states. A leaning is a direction, not an identity (§4). 14DD and 15DD are used only to speak of direction, not as labels attached to the names of states; a theoretical sentence can say "leans more toward the 15DD direction" or "slides toward the 14DD direction"; when it comes to a particular state, only what it did, on whom this fell, and under what document, is written. Nor is direction a threshold: membership, admission and re-accession are none of them conditional on "already leaning more toward 15DD." Who the acting party is does not change the judgment on the act.
Three layers. Where judgment is required, this series speaks in three layers. The normative layer is the direction and the norms that philosophy states; the norms it gives must leave room for the judgment of those who carry them out, and it does not serve directly as the criterion for making decisions. The rule layer is the criterion for making decisions; what this series writes there are suggested rules and examples, without claiming to be the best design, and whether they are adopted rests with the parties, as agreed. The judgment layer is how a particular act is judged under the rules; this layer is left to the judgment of those in positions, and the account falls on positions and persons. The three layers divide philosophy, practice and judgment.
One more word is needed on how the three layers are used in sequence. The lines of the normative layer can be used directly, on matters that are fairly plain: whether a decision crosses the line, where this is plain, can be checked against the line without waiting for rules; only, used in this way, it leaves a larger remainder. On entering murkier ground, the rule layer is needed; the rule layer still has a remainder. The last remainder rests on the judgment layer, and is left to the judgment of those in positions. So to say that the normative layer does not serve directly as the criterion for making decisions means that it gives no case-by-case procedure of determination, which is the rule layer's business; it does not mean that its lines cannot be used directly to check a decision. The companion study to the Theory of the State, The Reverse Phase Transition, uses the same three layers. Two things must be kept apart. These three layers are not the three questions that Theory of Government G6 answers separately (its effect in fact; under what authority and procedure it is valid; on what grounds it may normatively be so). Nor is the "person takes his own law" of the three-layer sentence form within the judgment layer: the judgment layer is judgment in positions, and the account falls on positions and persons; for the person's own law, this series writes no oughts.
One example of each. Normative layer: a freeze directed at an act ends when that act stops and the account has landed, and its end point is not fixed by the freezing party alone (Paper 4, XZ22). Rule layer: the system can set up an observer member's seat, with an observation period, for a party that has applied to join and has not yet been admitted (Paper 1, XZ7); this is a suggested rule, not a norm. Judgment layer: how long the observation period lasts, and whether the degree of line-crossing and the degree of improvement are enough, are left to the judgment of those in positions in the Conference of Members. How a norm leaves room for judgment can also be shown in one place: when a member has split and both parts are entering each other, the system does not take sides, and this is a norm; whether the recognized part, over the stretch in which it crosses the dividing line between the two sides' control, is guarding or also expanding is left to the judgment layer (Paper 5, §§10, 11).
When what follows says "three layers," it means only these three layers; the several steps into which a proposition is divided by time or by order are called stages. Wherever a norm is written, the same place states which step is left to the judgment of positions. The Theory of the State has said: "This series gives direction; it does not judge in their place, nor does it exempt them from the account." (the Theory of the State Prequel, §8) The account, following Theory of the State N39, falls on positions and persons.
Functions only, no forms. The Compact, voting, common procedures, treaty bodies, secretarial organs and the coordination of joint defense are all set up only as functions. For each channel the four items are stated, as in the Theory of the State: "For every channel it must be stated who initiates it, which object it affects, whether the party questioned can close it, and how the account is booked when it fails" (Theory of the State N36). Forms are left to specific theories of institutions, that is, to the design of particular bodies and provisions, not to the already published upstream Institution Theory series. Moral Law P9 says: "institutional architecture in fact emerges from community fabric ... it cannot be prescribed from theoretical articulation." So this series can give examples, and the Compact and the system's organs are examples, but it does not claim that they are the best design.
Usage. A few words are used in one sense throughout the series, and kept apart from expressions easily confused with them:
| This series says | Not to be confused with | Why they are kept apart |
|---|---|---|
| The system does not enforce; its decisions land in each member | The system's decisions go unenforced | Members implementing a common decision within their own states is also enforcement (§3) |
| Public questions and records | Authorization, approval, endorsement | The system's determinations do not replace any state's own determination of its grounds for deployment (§3) |
| Tolerates no (state's colonizing another) | Does not let | Standing against colonization does not mean being able to prevent it (§5); the range sentence says "do not let the system become an extension of the strong," which is the system binding itself |
| Creates conditions for cultivation | "Strives for cultivation" toward what lies outside the system | It does not enter other states to decide on behalf of the people there (§5) |
| Thickness is needed; there is no compulsion | "Compulsion is thin"; "this level is thin" | Thickness is the density of boundaries, questioning and records (§8) |
| At the top there is no superior | Writing "disorder" on its own | There is no superior to do the ordering; this does not mean that there is no law (§8) |
| Force: recognized by the criterion of §2; it is a spectrum that includes, but is not limited to, the use of armed force | Calling only the use of armed force "force"; reading "force" in the army-and-armed-force sense of an upstream sentence by this series' criterion | The use of armed force is the most extreme means on the spectrum (§2). The shape of force differs from construct to construct, and when the state is spoken of it mainly means armies and armed force; where an upstream sentence uses it in this sense, its original sense is noted when it is cited. Stopping a colonizing entry uses the armed force of states, does not substitute for the other party's judgment on its own affairs, and does not count as force in this sense (§§2, 6) |
| Withdrawing cooperation is a check | Calling a check force | The other party's affairs are still decided by itself (§2) |
| Intervention; assistance | Using one for the other | Judgment follows control (§2) |
| Joint defense; sending forces | Using one for the other | The former is this set of arrangements, the latter a state's act |
| Assisting the defense | Writing "assistance" on its own | The defense belongs to the party defended, and is not the same as the assistance of sending arms |
| Suspension; expulsion | Using one for the other | Suspension is a member's vote, and its place in joint arrangements, not being exercised for a time; expulsion is the termination of membership |
| Must; can | Using one for the other | Rescue is divided into what must be done and what can be done (Paper 6) |
| Member, member state; holding a given state's citizenship; observer member | Calling an observer member simply a "member" | An observer member is not a member |
| A state that sits at a chokepoint; a state with great influence | Small state, great power | All states have equal status, and size is not used as a role |
The "mutual" in the titles of the papers, as in Mutual Covenant and Mutual Questioning, is said in the text as "one another."
Citations and examples. The War Treatise is cited from its revised edition, by section number only. External texts are cited in four tiers: tier A, the sentence and its location have been confirmed in a reliable original; tier B, the original is in hand, but the exact location or the exact wording has not been confirmed; tier C, confirmed only through reliable secondary literature, only paraphrased, with what it rests on stated; tier D, could not be confirmed, and not cited. There is no Paper 0; the interfacing goes where the judgments fall, mainly with Kant; a section at the end of a paper devoted to one author of the tradition appears in four places only: Papers 1, 6 and 7 with Kant, and Paper 5 with Grotius. The text is fictional, cites no real events, and names no real-world states, organizations, treaties or events; real history is left to essays.
It may be said that giving norms while leaving remainders amounts to settling nothing. The weight of this objection is that the more is left to judgment, the more the norms look like empty words. But what the norms state is where the line is, how channels are kept from being closed, and how the account falls; what falls outside the norms and the rules is a matter of degree, not exemption from the account. Those in positions make judgments there, and the account falls with them, on their positions and their persons.
Where This Paper Stops
This paper proves no proposition; it only clears away what cooperation is not. Each of the three judgments has the place where it is argued: that the system does not act as a hidden superior, in Paper 7, XZ46; that with no superior above, binding too can only be lateral, in Paper 1, XZ1; that thickness is needed and there is no compulsion, in Paper 8, XZ54. The subsidiary reason in the antinomy, namely that the errors of the two sides are asymmetric, is in Paper 8, together with where this series parts from Kant's ranking, "by reason there ought to be a state of nations, and the league is the fallback," and from Rawls's threshold of membership. Extending the unified sentence to the system level is in Paper 2, §6. The criterion of force and the three layers are written out in full here, and every later paper follows them.
The remainder it leaves: the part, under non-compulsion, of watching problems happen (§1); which class a measure at the boundary between checks and force falls into (§2); the cost of not taking the road of union (§1); in mixed reality, who is only guarding and who is also expanding (§4); where the system cannot reach (§5); where on the scale each real state and arrangement stands (§6); whether law at this level is stable among parties whose direction leans more toward 14DD (§8); "institutions between institutions" at other levels (§9).
Papers
- Prequel: What Cooperation Is Not (this paper) — what a system of cooperation that has no superior with force above it, and sets none up, is not.
- Paper 1: Mutual Covenant — with no superior, where new binding comes from, and how a covenant counts.
- Paper 2: Mutual Questioning — why, when existing matters are questioned, the consent of the party questioned is not needed; how the system itself is questioned.
- Paper 3: Mutual Trust — with no superior to enforce, how the account still stays at the address.
- Paper 4: Mutual Checks — peers withdrawing cooperation; where the boundaries lie between checks and erosion, and between cooperation and collusion.
- Paper 5: Mutual Defense — when withdrawing cooperation cannot stop colonization that enters by force, who sends forces for the outward defense, and how far the stopping goes.
- Paper 6: Admission and Rescue — toward people outside the system, what the system must do and what it can do, and how it creates conditions for cultivation.
- Paper 7: Exit and Switching — how members go out and how they come back, and why the account is not written off.
- Paper 8: The Close — whether every arrangement is still under questioning, where the needed thickness falls, and where the whole series stops.
Nine papers in all; there is no Paper 0 (§11).
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. The version records used for sentence-by-sentence verification are given in the accompanying audit table.
I · This system
Qin, H. (2026). How Is Institution Possible: From Inter-Ontological Remainder to Co-Constructive Framework (SAE Foundational Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19328662
Qin, H. (2026). To Whom the Ought Is Addressed (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269635
Qin, H. (2026). Not Crossing the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270384
Qin, H. (2026). Institution Theory and the Tradition: The Address of the Ought (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23272468
Qin, H. (2026). What a Government Is Not (SAE Theory of Government, Prequel) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23411670
Qin, H. (2026). Levels (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413192
Qin, H. (2026). Questioning and Bearing (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413511
Qin, H. (2026). What a State Is Not (SAE Theory of the State, Prequel) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584292
Qin, H. (2026). The Last Rule (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584315
Qin, H. (2026). The Last Instance (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584318
Qin, H. (2026). The Last Force (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584329
Qin, H. (2026). One Another, with No Superior (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584346
Qin, H. (2026). The Last Resort (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584352
Qin, H. (2026). Questioning the Last Layer (SAE Theory of the State, Paper 7) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23584356
Qin, H. (2026). The Reverse Phase Transition (SAE Theory of the State, Companion Study) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23779070
Qin, H. (2026). SAE War Treatise: How Cultivation Is Not Swallowed by War Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19656617
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Conflict Treatise: How Subjecthood Is Not Swallowed by Conflict Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22313628
Qin, H. (2026). One's Law Meets One's Law: The Structural Origin of Law from 14DD Showdown (SAE Law Series, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19548237
Qin, H. (2026). National Law — Azeroth: A Negative Thought Experiment on the Structural Necessity of Law (SAE Law Series, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19548596
Qin, H. (2026). Interstellar Law and Grand Closure — The Recession of Coercive Law (SAE Law Series, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19549018
Qin, H. (2026). Collective 15DD and the Four-Stage Evolution of Community Form (SAE Moral Law, Paper 8) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20218248
Qin, H. (2026). The Institutional Architecture of Mixed Reality: The Phase-Transition Evolution of Cultivation and Colonization (SAE Moral Law, Paper 9) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20262737
Qin, H. (2026). On the Recognition of Power · Shi (SAE Power Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20480134
II · External works (public-domain originals, tier A)
Kant, I. (1795). Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf. Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius. Project Gutenberg, EBook #46873. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46873
Kant, I. (1917). Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay. Trans. M. Campbell Smith (1st ed. 1903; 3rd impression). London: George Allen & Unwin. Project Gutenberg, EBook #50922. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50922
III · External works (secondary sources underlying tier C)
Wenar, L. John Rawls. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (substantive revision of September 3, 2025). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/
IV · External works (cited at second hand)
Rawls, J. (1999). The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (original not consulted; paraphrased from the Wenar entry; tier C)
Interfaces
Main upstream: the Theory of the State (the Prequel, §§1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and the Introduction; Paper 1, §§1, 5, 6, N5; Paper 5, §§1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and "Where this paper stops," N24 to N27, N29; Paper 7, N36 to N40, §5 and Interfaces); the Theory of Government (the Prequel, §8; Paper 4, G26; Paper 6, G35, G38); Institution Theory (Paper 1, Z3, Z7a and the three-layer sentence form; Paper 2 (the line); Paper 0, §10); F6 (§2.1, Premise III and Premise V; §2.2; §3.1a, b; §3.2; §7; Appendix A, Articles 5, 12, 14 and 15, and Appendix B, Articles 7 and 26, used only as examples).
Also used: War Treatise §5, §13, §18, §19; Conflict Treatise §15, §24, §27; Law Series P1 §7, P3 §4, §6, §6.2, P4 §2; Moral Law P8 and P9; Theory of Government Paper 1, G6 (only to distinguish, §11); Power Theory P3 §V.2, §V.5, §VI.4, §VII.2; the Theory of the State, Paper 2, N9, Paper 4, N18 (force in the original sentence meaning armies and armed force), Paper 6, N33 and §5 (the account table in §10); the companion study to the Theory of the State, The Reverse Phase Transition ("Where this paper stops" and Interfaces, the account table in §10; the three layers, §11).
Interfacing: Kant (Perpetual Peace, Second Section, First and Second Definitive Articles; tier A, per the first edition of 1795, compared with Smith's English translation); Rawls (The Law of Peoples, tier C, per the introduction to §5 and §5.2 of Wenar's entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Pointing back: Kant, the league that need not be a state of nations, and the negative surrogate (Theory of the State Paper 5, §7); Grotius, the congress that can compel the refractory (Theory of the State Paper 5, §1).
This series: Paper 1, XZ1, XZ2, XZ5, XZ6, XZ7, XZ8 and §7; Paper 2, XZ9, XZ11 to XZ15 and §6; Paper 3; Paper 4, XZ22 to XZ25, XZ27; Paper 5, XZ29 to XZ31, XZ34 to XZ36; Paper 6, XZ38, XZ41 to XZ44; Paper 7, XZ45, XZ46; Paper 8, XZ53 to XZ56.
Handed to Paper 1: with no superior, where new binding comes from.