Hyperarchy Socially-networked Democracy

Hyperarchy is a democratically-governed software company. Our first product is the best tool we can build for democratically running an organization. This tool is also called Hyperarchy, and we ourselves use it to run our company. Hyperarchy keeps members of your organiazation continuously informed of the opinions of other members, both collectively and individually. It structures participation as a dialogue: members raise opinion-seeking questions, such as "What feature should we work on next?", or "What's our biggest performance bottleneck". Anyone can then suggest answers to these questions and rank answers in their order of preference. As preferences change, a condorcet algorithm continuously computes a global ranking that fairly combines every member's preferences. Questions are taggable, and participants can choose to delegate unused votes on specific tags to other friends. Rankings and delegations can be changed at any time, causing the global picture to be updated immediately.

With Hyperarchy, time that is usually wasted determining consensus can instead be spent on shifting on consolidating that consensus. Hyperarchy can tell you what questions or topics are most and least contentious, and can even recommend meetings between specific individuals that could best harmonize the collective opinion. Because every answer must address a question, an inclusive dialog naturally emerges. It's not possible to make a proposal without inviting alternatives. Delegation to friends means influence flows to those who are trusted rather than those who can speak the loudest, and power is always based on personal relationships that can be dissolved at any time. Because all participants know they are fairly represented, they feel more ownership and willingness to cooperate, even when they disagree with the majority.

For these reasons and more, we believe that socially networked democracy is the optimal strategy for running a company. We also believe it can help our world. If governments are largely controlled by companies, then perhaps the most important place to spread and support democracy is within companies themselves. Just as despotic nations pose a threat to their citizens' liberty, so too do despotic corporations. We believe that a democratic corporation is more likely to treat its citizens and environment with respect. And if democracy is truly more effective, then liberty should out-compete control.

Monarch