Les Pas Sages is a model for legal and financial governance originally developed in France over 20 years ago. It has been adopted in France by over 40 communities and is now spreading internationally, with Feenix being the first Finnish community.
At its core the model embeds the community into the larger national legal framework and balances the individual and group needs.
Les Pas Sages defines 8 core values for the model, as seen below. Many of these, like shared governance, no private property and sustainability are actually at the core of a (GEN) ecovillage. But the devil is in the details, as you will appreciate in the next section.
Unlike "normal" capitalistic systems, where more money means more voice, we recognise that each person is equal regardless of their past success or luck in capitalistic terms.
The model explicitly forbids speculation, meaning there is no interest paid on investments. Though inflation adjustments may be made.
The idea is that it must be easy for anyone who has invested to get their money back. Difficult in, easy out, so everyone can feel free in their choice (be independent/free).
Recognising the essential yin/yang nature of the individual and the group, the model strives for balance. No one should give up their individuality for a group, but concessions have to be made.
Individual property (almost always based on violence if one looks historically) can be seen as one of the basic mistakes of current systems and must be avoided for many reasons.
Only the current members can decide who they want to invite. This almost always means some financial input, and always financial transparency both ways. An essential part of sociocracy.
This means we recognise that only all our eyes, all our brains, all our hearts and voices can make us whole again and give us the best chance for a good life. We must learn to listen to each other, not be governed by a minority. Also a big part of sociocracy.
The Les Pas Sages model is build with a long and healthy future in mind. Not the usual short term profibility, but with the end goal of making the community financially independent within 100 years.
With all of above values in mind, a legal organisation has to be created, in our case Osuuskunta Hub Feenix. Bylaws have to be written to make it work according to the values and the financial flow below ensures correct monetary working. The associate´s current account is the amount of shares owned, or the investment made by the member.
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While the Les Pas Sages defines a complete model, it has never been implemented in Finland.
The Feenix community is currently engaged in defining the necessary documents in a two year process, closely guided by
Les Pas Sage.
This is basically a process of "translation", both literally and figuratively, and by the end we hope to help other communities in Finland to also implement the model, possibly in a shorter timeframe.
