 Thank you Hans and Gunsinn for this wonderful conference every year for me it's the third time for many of you it's the 10th or 15th or 13th time 12th time for me it's always a big pleasure to come here and to share these ideas with you and to enjoy the hospitality of generosity of this house. Now this subject here suing the state for independence actually it's a bit the same subject I talked about two years ago and one year ago and I must ask you for apology that I cannot yet report that this lawsuit is done and that we won the case at least not in Switzerland we still have a terribly strong state in Switzerland maybe you think that in Switzerland it's not as bad as at other places that could be perhaps but I can tell you it's bad and as many of you know perhaps that I'm practicing lawyer including litigation I'm also a professor of private law and theory of law which is something like philosophy of law and I live in Switzerland so it's not very surprising that I come to the idea to sue the Swiss state now for for something and this is what I wanted to talk about more in detail last time because it's always a bit the similar point of view from the legal point of view to this problem the last time I enumerated some some sorry some some points and what will we sue the state for some very specific points such as for forcing people to compulsory sorry here we are for forcing people to go to school typically the schools operated by the state or for forcing people to and the Louis pay a part of their income or wealth to the state or there are many things and this is just a list of examples for forcing young men to rent the personal services during many months of their life or for impeding people from doing certain business activities and all this without the people having consented to it or given other causes for it if they would have consented that would not be a bigger problem but the problem is that all these enforcements are against the consent of the people or to put it more general I think I take all this the wrong button but in a more general thing it's we can sue the state for forcing the people to compulsory membership maybe this is the overall problem we have is the state not just the single subjects of application of this arrogance but that in principle you are obliged to obey to all this as a member so to speak of this whole organization or for behaving like an aggressive gang this is the notion I used last time an aggressive gang for thing all other gangs to to submission I mean there are many gangs in a country like Switzerland many enterprises organizations or gangs if you want to give them a negative touch there are many but what is the specialty of this organization called state is that they are the very first gang so to sue the state for being the first gang or just to put it in short terms for being the state so this is in principle what we try to sue him for so this membership so the dependence on him the unconditional dependence on him this is what I wanted to speak a bit more in detail today so I like to draw pictures and so last time to be we had some we developed some some you know parties how they interact and things like that and the picture a bit a bit like that was this so we have this this first gang here you know he is big he is aggressive he is red for that and he makes here aggressive actions against this group of people these are victims of this aggressivity in the lawsuit we I'm thinking about now they will be the plaintiffs and then these people I made them green as a contrast to the aggressive red and you see there are many people some are somehow also within that first gang so so there we have a vague aspect of are they in that group are they outside are they members of it or are they just victims ex external victims so to speak of it so this is what I wanted to to show a bit with this picture and in the case yet now of of the Swiss state the federal state actually I do not speak about the can tones in the case of the and federal state this big gang this first gang is not that big it is a 40,000 people are working there so maybe it's a considerable enterprise but it's not you know the country it's not the eight million people living in Switzerland it's just a small gang of 40,000 people so this is the outset of our discussion you know him huh actually it's it's this one is the same you know from another picture and I also put it put it red and the picture is a bit squeezed I think but that's a question of the beamer so I do not want to express some specific thing with that so but you know Leviathan on Thomas book cover this aggressive giant consisting of many many many many many many people you know this this body here as you know certainly consists of many people and now we go to this first gang and say you are aggressive against us and his answer will be no I'm not aggressive I'm not red imagine I'm green I'm soft and smooth actually I'm not aggressing you and I am your mutual cooperation we cooperate together you do not see it correctly so this is the picture he wants to give us as a response on our first blade and then he says something look at my belly this is just you and maybe the picture is not that that's clear now but there are many many people so this is you huh you form all together this body and he says my head which is perhaps a bit impressive which could give you the idea of aggressiveness actually this head is not on the top actually imagine this head is down there somewhere huh this is what he tries to to show us in order to calm us down or now let's make it a bit more technically he says you are the members of this group on the top of course you are the sovereign so to speak this is you the members we are a big cooperative I am just here below the board and you give me by delegation these competencies by elections by mandating me with certain sub tasks by delegation of liabilities to me this is he says actually the situation and then of course I will give you my services so this is a circle of cooperation you give me he says the democratic legitimacy and I will give you good services this is his answer once we approach him with the blame that he is attacking us or now this is co-operative you know the scheme of co-ops which is a broad scheme widely expanded in the world these co-op organizations and he says actually I am an organization like that on the one hand was I said before already you are organizing self help this is the idea of cooperation you give me democratic delegation and legitimacy and on the other hand I give you our common goods and services so this is this co-operative this is his answer to our blame now there are interesting parallels between co-op structure and state so it's not an accident that he argues with cooperation and with co-op namely in Switzerland which is maybe funny namely for Swiss attendance but it's interesting how the terminology is the official name of the federal Swiss state so the central states not the cantones is this this is the official logo so to speak this is a German version and as you know the bigger part in Switzerland is German speaking so the notion Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft is is very often applied to talk about the state Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft and these other are the French version Confederation Swiss Federazione Svizzera in Italian and Confederation Svizzera, this is a Romance this is a a small it's a small minority in Switzerland who speaks this this fourth official language so Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft or you can say if you translate it literally it's Swiss oath cooperative and when we heard about oath relations in your speech from the Middle Ages I thought about Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft this is not only a cooperative but an oath cooperative this is very you know strong tied together so just the notion but of course not only the notion the whole idea that the state is something like a big cooperation is not that far and then he says in this argument he says by the way it's no accident that we are talking now about corporatives because there is indeed a strong cooperative movement which began in the 19th century and actually the situation for that the picture is quite similar to the one you wanted to blame us for we have a big power here on the right side aggressive red and we have victims here these green persons on the left side and indeed he says our status interlocutor he says indeed we had in the 19th century often situations like that where people said there is abuse of power against us but not primarily in a political sense but rather in an economic sense or in economic context we were not all these people were not oppressed by state aggressiveness but by poor quality adulterated goods this was the problem in those times that people could not afford any acceptable goods so that there were in certain regions economic problems and then came up the idea of cooperation in order to avoid these humiliations so to speak by this economic power you then develop the idea we want to be more than just customers that can hardly afford these expensive and and bad goods or housing or whatever it was then came the idea that you as customers would try to become part of those who supply these goods so that they should become member of the supply side not just be on the demand side and to be humiliated there by economic power but to become member on the supply side and from that idea became then this this this corporate movement there is some of you certainly know these rockdale pioneers that formed these this system of corporate in order maybe that's too small to read to provide an affordable alternative to poor quality and adulterated food and provisions using any surplus to benefit the community so all these advantages that were on the other side should now be also accessible to us to these former victims that shall become now proud members there were customers or victims rather and now they become members there is this notion of mutualization in economic and business organization this notion is sometime used mutualization which says that we change to a system of mutuality corporatives are a structure of mutuality there are mutual credit institutes and so on you know this or there are insurances on a system of mutuality in principle this is what was formed by this idea by the the cooperative pioneers in the 19th century and then one could say this mutuality concept gives to the board which is of course on the bottom now it's not the king it's just the board gives the the task to care for all these goods and then this is what comes here he gives then unlike the former brutal economic power he gives then high quality affordable goods to his members we have again this circle of cooperation while these formal poor quality and adulterated goods they do not exist anymore this is the concept of this of these cooperatives and now actually we are not talking about cooperatives in the economic sense we're talking about the state and he said that there are some parallel parallelisms between these two structures and now let's ask okay it seems to be the case indeed that that is quite similar that are similar elements in it and then let's now go back to the state and let's apply these cooperative aspects to the state so if we have at the outset this situation that we have these humiliated subjects we have from the state not not now these goods and services but maybe this submission and coercion I mentioned in the beginning and now comes this cooperative idea and now okay why not these humiliated subjects now want to become member so along to this mutualization movement one could say in the political context democratization so the form of customers or let's say subjects humiliated subjects perhaps shall now become member of the whole organization they become proud citizens instead of humiliated subjects they can say now we the people and we have a concept an overall concept of mutuality or of course you can call them you can call it democracy and now it goes on with this cooperative aspects now you have the democratic aspect maybe via a parliament you have the government which is nothing but the board of this cooperative you have high quality and affordable services that this government now gives to his members and of course here with the state we do not have in this concept of the state we do not have this submission and coercion anymore this is what our interlocutor says to us and this sounds nice and plausible and it's hard to find the difference to how we realize the situation is now let's go further these rock tales principles and maybe these are similar also to state principles they were formulated with many points that are indeed again quite similar to the state one vote by person not by capital but by person by person by head one head one vote political and religious neutrality and this is what you often hear also from the state and then what is interesting in these rock tale principles co-op education encouragement for further cooperatives so this is not just one organization it's also something that has to do with the organization of society and therefore people must be trained in this in this concept so one could say these are sort of political principles and then we have distribution of the surplus is not according to capital invested but to trade how often you use the possibilities or the opportunities of the cooperative interest on capital are only on a limited basis cash trading this is an interesting point if you get services from the cooperative they must be paid cash and not just you know accredited because cooperatives often credit it to their members because they are generous these are their members and shortly they go bankrupt so it's more a practicable but interesting point and these one could say are the economic principles okay so far and now let's go back to our cooperative and say but now there are also some risks and maybe these risks have to do with these principles or maybe with other aspects so we have this again our cooperative we have the former customers that became members and now you see some parts now are not green anymore I put them now red it is namely this concentration of power with the board or maybe there is a committee you know if it's a very big cooperative then it's not only the board but maybe some assembly of delegates or things like that and so quite often in such organizations it could happen that some power is accelerated there and that they look for their own interest all these things one knows with the effect or at least with the risk of the effect that these formerly so good and and cheap services are of bad quality and once we thought that outside there that was bad quality for these customers oh is is it fine I hope it was not because of these bad good qualities here so in any way we we we see problems huh it's not that green as we we heard of before and again we have within the concept this time not outside within the concept we have these humiliating aspects we want to avoid so one could say that was not a mutualization or in the effect it was not it was a pseudo mutualization or those members became again victims what they wanted to avoid this is where they are or we have not a real mutuality anymore now this picture in a way is not precise anymore because once those dominating the others are on the bottom of the picture this is this is not not this does not correspond to the group and the situation so to be to be more accurate by by showing it you have to put it the other way around so the the board actually is not as Leviathan tried to show us before is not here down actually one should turn it from bottom up to top down so actually if you show the situation how it is after this power concentration began to abuse is its possibility then you have the board or this committee or how these instances are called you have them in the upper part and the members are in the lower part and you have these quality goods that are given down there to the people these bad services you have these humiliation aspects there so actually this could be the situation that the picture of the real situation of of a cooperative that could develop in such a direction it's not true but at least you have the risk that the cooperative goes to that direction and these pioneers they knew it because they really were in the practical life and so they said you have to give the possibility of demutralization you have to give the people there once they are down and not up anymore in this scheme and once they are humiliated and not not serviced you have to give them a possibility to go out again it corresponds to their right to go in before they also must have the possibility to go out so this demutralization step to become again customers and not remaining members and then the idea was that once then they want maybe from the same situation by goods they have the chance that these goods are better because they are customers and if other suppliers are there there is a certain competition and so on so the idea is that because of this demutralization they have the possibility to get to better goods and services then this is not a cooperation a cooperation anymore but maybe it's just an organization a cooperation it sounds similar but it's something quite different a cooperation and not a cooperation so one can say we have on this size not the concept of mutuality anymore but we have the concept of trade so these are the two alternatives we always have according to these cooperative principles so one could say that there is something like a circle of life of cooperation so the starting point is these victims you know in the trade world they became victims they could not help herself and then they decide to go into such an organization or to form such an organization to become members to start with a cooperation not to be in the trade anymore but in the cooperation now within the corporation as we showed quite shortly there could be a deterioration of the situation so they become victims and once this happens it's the tendency again to come outside to go outside this demutralization to become again victims and of course if out there in the world of trade necessity comes up and the situation deteriorates they should have the possibility to go again in other structures maybe to try it with cooperation so this is a sort of game and of principles and of natural laws in a way that these cooperative movements realized in the nature in society and I could imagine that indeed these are these kind of laws that are maybe not in in some statutes but but that they are proven and plausible kinds of behavior of people within society circle of life of cooperation so here we have sort of rights or possibility to enter into such an organization and of course also to get out of such an organization and not my accident I did not yet mention the very first principle of these rockdale principles it is open and voluntary membership this is the number one principle of cooperative structures these other principles are they are often six or seven principles if you look in history of of these movements and they are not quite the same sometimes they are mixed up or separated but the very first and and clear principle through all variants is open and voluntary membership open means you can go in voluntary means you can get out you know already what will be the the reason what I will give to the state with that and we could say this is master this is the master principle then maybe not to go deeper within I have 10 more minutes so and this is not to go deeper into but nevertheless that's also an interesting point that education in cooperative structure means encouragement for other corporative so to build up a society where you have alternatives in cooperative structures these two but the main point is the first one open and voluntary membership and now what is interesting for instance in swiss law just as an example and once I want to try to make something against the swiss federation so why not to look in the swiss statutes but these are statutes that are quite similar or identical even in other traditional continental statutes like in Germany like in France like in Italy I hope it's the case then you can confirm or object so these are these principles in principle that in principle that you find in all these national statutes and also if you go on on the websites of big international cooperative movements you find these principles and now in this statute so this is article 839 in this case of the swiss code of obligation who says new members may be accepted into cooperatives at any time then as usually come certain exceptions providing principle of unlimited membership is respected the articles of association may lay down more detailed provisions governing accession however they must not impose excessive obstacles to accession so in principle you can go into now comes the interesting point provided no resolution has been made to dissolve the cooperative I will come to that point later on every member is free to leave this is this main principle of exit in cooperative structures and then again come certain exceptions or reductions but the principle is always maintained the articles of association may provide that the departing member is obliged to pay an appropriate severance penalty wherein the circumstances his departure causes the cooperative significant losses or jeopardizes its continued existence so that could be expensive but point three any permanent ban on or excessive obstacles to departure imposed by the articles of association or by agreement is void so this penalty cannot be too high in principle you must be able to get out of this concept and then it goes further a member may be barred from leaving by the articles of association or by agreement for no more than five years okay five years you can wait this time but then finally you can go even during this period of time a member may leave for good cause and then some other details but you have here this principle principle that you can leave and here a detail only as of the end of the financial year and on the expiry of one year's notice these are really details or maybe in certain cases even earlier but you see very detailed in principle you can go out what is also interesting once you can go out in certain cases you have the possibility to get the indemnity indemnity because you had a share in this cooperative and now you get out so they have to to pay it to pay you for it and the article of association they can determine this and and some details how it should be calculated but this too is an interesting point now we come back to the state and now saying the state before you argued with cooperative okay let's argue now with cooperative elements and so I tried to put in the same text everywhere where we had articles of association I put state constitution and where they had member we put citizen and where we have the cooperative we put state and then we can show what the outcome is because these are principle that are plausible in this circle of cooperation this is the point I keep now and now new citizens if you put that I I can't call now this schweiz code of obligation Swiss code of of obligation one could say these are now these natural rules of cooperation that are proven in practice and according to these rules now you can say new citizens may be accepted into a cooperative such as for instance the state at any time this is the rule you know in in society you can refer to providing the same the principle of unlimited citizenship is respected the state constitution may load lay down more detailed provision concerning accession maybe not just everybody at once and now what is very interesting provided no resolution has been made to dissolve the state I will come back to this as said later every citizen is free to leave that's this main principle then the state constitution may provide that departing citizens citizen is obliged to pay an appropriate severance and so one if it causes the state significant losses any permanent ban or excessive obstacle to departure imposed by the state constitution or by legislation is void a citizen may be barred from leaving by the state constitution or by legislation for not more than five years that could be a night perspective so you can wait five more years and then they must get you free and so all these exceptions I have it have it here too that in principle even though a certain payment must be made and so on finally comes the point where you really have to be free and have the rights to get out of this state cooperative it goes through all these I abbreviate it a little bit I also skip this situation where I wanted to show some detail point to discuss with the state in that process of exit out of the state of this demutualization process and come now finally with this last slide to this article I mentioned twice before who says not only according to this first principle that you have the right to leave this cooperative structure but something else it says provided no resolution has been made to dissolve the state every citizen is free to leave and I what does this mean this first part provided no resolution has been made to dissolve the state so in these cooperative principles if no resolution has been made to dissolve the cooperative it means that there could be a situation where they did not work well and they have to dissolve it or something like that and if in that moment a member comes and says I have the right to leave then the cooperative can say no now you must wait we are dissolving it now together and whatever the outcome is you will then get your share you cannot get out right now and leave all other problems to the other this is a bit the idea and so if you transfer it to the state he too can say now if in this lawsuit I want to go against him with many plaintiffs and sort of class action and I will say I insist on my cooperative right to exit out of your structure then the state has in principle no answer he must accept our right because it's really the highest principle of cooperative structure but he can say oh wait a minute we are going to dissolve this organization and once we have made this a solution you cannot get out of it so actually there is a choice between two possibilities either freedom from the state right to leave the structure or the solution of the state and the state may choose thank you for