DAOhaus

View DAOhaus GitHub

Abstract

DAOhaus is a social experiment to test pure democratic governance. The aim is to purchase, manage, and enjoy a single real estate property. The hope is to use this specific scope to expand and grow the idea into governance of a community, and even a nation. Hopefully bringing us closer to a more pure, accountable, and representative government. One that is truly of the people, by the people, for the people.

I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislature to write on politics. 
I answer that I am neither, and that is why I do so 

-- Rousseau, Social Contract

3 large similarities exist between managing a real estate property, and governing a nation. Namely the creation of rules called laws, the enforcement of those rules, and the management of an escrow account that we all fund through our taxes.

Creating the framework for a property on a much smaller and simpler scale and through basic mechanisms holds an important advantage which is flexibility. We start small so that we can learn from flaws in the design, build it incrementally, and test our hypothesis as it grows following an Agile 1 mentality.

DAOhaus is essentially built on the idea of it's members submitting proposals to use public funds, and gaining approval from the rest of it's members. The group is brought together around a specific idea or project, in which they hold a "token launch" allowing others to come onboard and to provide the startup costs needed to purchase the land, house, or whatever shared asset that is bringing them together. This token is then registered and members are made public along with how much interest they hold in the project.

From there it is up to the community to propose projects, rules, or the removal of bad actors in the system. In essence, this is pure democratic governance -- but also allows for alternative forms of governance as long as the people give their consent and enhances participation, education, and accountability in the way the group is governed.

DAOhaus is a proving ground for the advantages of a "proposal" governance over our current "charismatic representative" based system. Up to this point it has been a relatively good way to govern, but one that is now becoming outdated and unnecessary with the maturity of certain technologies such as the internet and blockchain.

Greed, corruption and incompetence cannot be solved by purely technical solutions, but I hope DAOhaus will grow into a tool used to combat such evils. If you'd like to read more of my thoughts on the subject, please see the afterword where I briefly address the implications of this project on our countries financial, policy and enforcement practices.

In the same way that the Bauhaus 2 movement was characterized by a minimalist type of design, we also hope to simplify and minimize governance of shared community assets.