Social Contract

General

A contract is an agreement for performance based on consideration on a given timeline between specified parties. Requirements are:

1. Identity of the parties
2. Definition of consideration (value for each party)
3. Terms - detailing duties and responibilities of each party
4. Timeline
5. Contingencies
6. Signature and date

See 7 Essential Elemnents of a Contract

In Practice

1. In practice, unknowns and contingencies are the elements in a contract which can cause trouble
2. Thus, it's critical to define If-then scenarios that consider who has what responsibilities if things do not go according to plan (they never do)
3. Who is responsible for what?
4. In unexpected conditions, what happens?
5. In cases that are not covered by the contract, what happens? Binding arbitration by a chosen neutral third party.
6. For cases of nonperformance, what happens?
7. How is non-performance evaluated, if it is not clear that something constitutes non-performance?
8. How do you keep lawyers out and meeting-of-the-minds in?

Overview

A contract that defines commitments between a community and its members.

Details

• Enterprise Community Contract
• The Contract
• Factor e Farm Social Contract
• Factor e Farm Social Contract v1.0

See Also

• Distributive Enterprise
• Ecotechnology Buying Club
• Open Business Models

• Wikipedia: Social Contract
• Neosubsistence