Every safeguard in writing circulation into the rules needs to start early, because the public’s leverage fades. But a rule does not start because it is needed. It starts when someone with the power to act decides to, and the people who gain from capture are the people least willing to. The real question is what can be done, by whom, in what order.
The principle
Begin where agreement already exists, where the step is small and local, and where it produces evidence. The standing transition works the same way: fix failures people already find absurd, and let what they have watched work carry the next step. Each step should build the constituency for the one after it. A safeguard people have seen protect them is far harder to remove than one they were only told about.
Level one: measure and build, needing no one’s permission
This level can start today, anywhere, without a vote.
- Independent measurement. Universities, civic groups, and research projects can begin publishing the floor measure, the supply gap, the care gap, concentration in essential layers, and the signs of capture. Measuring bodies that exist before they are needed are far harder to capture after.
- Alternatives that stay routable. Cooperatives, community land trusts that keep land in circulation and out of speculation, data trusts, and open infrastructure. Each is a small part of the economy no one can capture from above, and each is a working example of the model.
- Model rules, written ahead. Draft ordinances, laws, and charter language for every safeguard, so the text is ready the moment a window opens. Windows close faster than drafting takes.
Level two: local leverage over land, permits, and grid
This is where public leverage is strongest today. AI data centers need land, water, power connections, and permits, and most of those are granted locally. Communities already negotiate benefits when a large facility arrives; they can go further:
- Attach a public share to permits and grid connections: a revenue stake or equity share as the price of public inputs, the first rule of circulation applied at the scale where it is enforceable now.
- Lease public land and assets, never sell them. A community that leases keeps its leverage; one that sells loses it for good.
- Pass commons-access rules: no fees to reach the shore or other natural commons, and public paths across private frontage.
- Contract with more than one provider, so a town never depends on a single firm for an essential service.
Each local success is evidence and a template for the next place.
Level three: fixes popular across the spectrum
Some safeguards draw support from people who agree on little else. Start there:
- Healthcare that does not disappear with a job.
- Support that does not vanish the moment a person earns.
- Cooling-off rules on moving from office into the industry one oversaw.
- Automatic expiry for emergency powers.
- No programmable conditions or surveillance attached to public payments. This draws people who fear state control and people who fear corporate control alike, and it is the first legal piece of a floor that cannot become a leash.
Level four: lock it in when power is balanced
The deepest protections, a floor that cannot be programmed, public inputs that cannot be given away, measuring bodies beyond capture, are easiest to pass at one kind of moment: when no side is confident it will hold power next. Then every faction fears the other capturing the floor or the measurers, and neutral safeguards become everyone’s self-interest. Divided governments, close elections, and recoveries after a scandal are the windows. The model rules from level one exist so those windows are not wasted.
The first step for each safeguard
| Safeguard | First step, available now | Locked in later |
|---|---|---|
| Public share | terms attached to local permits and grid connections | a national share on public inputs |
| Floor credits | partial credit folding in existing benefits | full floor, protected constitutionally |
| Floor beyond reach | a ban on conditions and surveillance in public payments | constitutional protection |
| Public inputs kept | local lease-not-sell rules | an irreversibility red line |
| Measurers beyond capture | independent bodies begin publishing | protected budgets, staggered terms |
| Emergency expiry | expiry clauses in new laws | a constitutional rule |
| Test for the loop | civic watchdogs publish the signs of capture | an official independent monitor |
| Routable layers | multi-provider contracts; open alternatives | the closed-field test in law |
| Commons access | local access rules | a national natural-commons rule |
| Public money creation | credit limits; crisis money paid to people | public issue by rule, on output net of depletion |
What this project can do
No Wasted Geometry is a civic research project. Its part in starting now is level one: publishing the methods for the measures, the model rules for each safeguard, and the signs of capture, in the open, so that anyone who wants to act has something ready to use. Who has the reason and the strength to act is in where the power to start comes from.
What no plan can promise
Where capture is already far along, none of this is guaranteed. The ownership concentration scenario states the same limit: past a certain point the framework can diagnose and cannot reverse. That is exactly why levels one and two matter most. They need no one’s permission, and they build capacity before the window closes.