# OURS TODAY · Decision Receipt — The founder declines to set the economics

```yaml
receipt: ours.decision-receipt/v1
decision_id: DEC-20260828-002
title: Defer the first economic instrument to a member ratification at 100,000
  sealed places, and publish economic simulations members can run themselves
date: 2026-08-28
authority: founder-steward
class: constitutional and economic
effect: adds a right; subtracts none
member_ratified: false
```

## The decision

The founder-steward declined to adopt any economic instrument for OURS, and
placed the decision with members.

> *"I think that this is such an important decision for forming the community
> that myself — founder — cannot decide it for as large network as we plan.
> Instead we will need to build later simulations to let user run them and see
> how economics of OURS should / could work. And to let if eg. first 100k
> members will be in place to ratify it. That will be already good enough
> sample to make decision. Instead of economic created now, with few members we
> should be transparent about that."*

Recorded verbatim because the reasoning is the decision. The instruction has
four parts, and all four were implemented:

1. the founder does not decide the economics;
2. OURS builds simulations members can run themselves;
3. ratification happens when roughly 100,000 places are sealed;
4. **be transparent about it** — this is the part that reaches the public
   surface, and it is the part most projects skip.

## Why this is the right shape

Two drafts of P-0002 existed. Version 0.1 gave the first 10,000 places 35% of
surplus forever; modelled at the scale OURS actually aims at, that paid each of
them **€280,000 a year — 3,500× an ordinary member.** A landlord class of
10,000 collecting rent from 100 million people, which is a precise description
of the thing OURS exists to replace.

That draft was written carefully and in good faith. It took arithmetic at scale,
not judgment or values, to expose it. **That is the argument for this decision.**
A rule that looks fair at 10,000 members can be indefensible at 100 million, and
one person at a drafting desk — with five people in the ledger, all of them
known to him — is the worst available instrument for finding out.

## What was implemented

- **[P-0002](../P-0002-FOUNDING-COHORT-ECONOMICS.md) rewritten to v0.3.** No
  longer a proposal. It is the working file for a decision handed to members,
  and it keeps both withdrawn drafts as evidence rather than deleting them.
- **[An amendment to Founding Right 0.1](../FOUNDING-RIGHT-AMENDMENT-0.1-ECONOMICS-RATIFICATION.md).**
  A refusal that lives only in a proposal can be reversed by the person who
  made it. §2.5 now denies the founder-steward the power to adopt an economic
  instrument by decision receipt, and §3 sets the threshold as a floor that may
  be raised in public before a vote, never lowered, and never moved while a
  vote is open.
- **The homepage says it.** `THE ECONOMICS ARE UNDECIDED. THE FIRST 100,000
  RATIFY THEM.` — nine words, on the front page, where a project would normally
  put a promise.
- **`/status` carries the detail**, in the section about what is not yet true,
  alongside the launch gates.

## What this does not do

- It creates **no** economic entitlement. A Founding Right still carries no
  claim on revenue, surplus, treasury or assets.
- It does not promise that economic participation will exist. Members may
  ratify an instrument, a different one, or none.
- It does not put the constitutional refusals on the ballot: no purchased
  places, no transfers, no secondary market, no bought votes.
- It is **not** member ratification of anything, including itself.

## The obligation it creates

OURS now owes members three things before it may ask them to vote: runnable
simulations with editable assumptions and readable source; securities,
cooperative-law and tax review; and a published answer to what happens if there
is never any surplus. None exist yet. Failing to build them is not a reason to
lower the threshold — it is a reason the vote does not open.

## Truth

- deployed: pending, in the same change.
- member_ratified: NO. This is a founder-steward decision.
- legal_review: NOT DONE. The instrument this defers is exactly what needs it.
- economic_entitlement_created: NONE.

> **FOUNDER-STEWARD DECISION · NOT MEMBER RATIFICATION**