Consent of the Governed (and Legitimacy by Process) in GitcoinDAO

[Huxwell]

Great post!

@owocki

• Inform individual members judgements of what decisions are legitimate by process (or not). The hope is that every member of GitcoinDAO learns to judge the legitimacy of various actions on their own accord (without having to defer those judgements to more authoritative community members).

@owocki

the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government’s legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised.

Here’s a quote from Noam Chomsky on Anarchism

authority, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can’t be met, the authority in question should be dismantled.

I think Gitcoin has been very successful in carrying the burden of proof and based on the diagram on How legitimacy flows in a DAO, it would be easy to dismantle any figure of authority that is illegitimate without hurting the entire DAO or workstream.