A Bill for the General Diffusion of Required Human Labor (2026)

                    [STATE] LEGISLATURE
              Insert the enacting chamber and session

HOUSE BILL ____ / SENATE BILL ____ BY __________ A BILL FOR AN ACT to require of every citizen, at the close of the continuation years, a term of citizen service and thereafter a four year tour of duty in the required human labor pool; to distribute that labor across the whole spectrum of production so that no sector of the abundance is left without human sight; to admit plainly that automation will render most labor unnecessary and to provide for the human presence that must remain regardless; to defer the tour for those pursuing higher learning and to require it of them afterward; to gate access to the abundance upon the maintained competency of the citizen; and to secure to every citizen who serves, and to every citizen who defends the model with their life, a lifetime guarantee of life and of health.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as A Bill for the General Diffusion of Required Human Labor (2026).

SECTION 2. PURPOSE AND SCOPE.

The purpose of this Act is to answer a question that the coming abundance asks and does not answer for itself, which is what the citizen owes and what the citizen is owed when the machines can do the work. This Act does not attempt to preserve labor that automation has made unnecessary. It requires instead that a human being remain stationed within every sector that produces or maintains the abundance, that the stations be filled by every citizen in turn, and that the citizen who fills them be secured for life in return.

SECTION 3. DEFINITIONS.

As used in this Act: (1) CONTINUATION YEARS has the meaning given in A Bill for the General Diffusion of Knowledge (2026). (2) CITIZEN SERVICE means the term of service required by Title II. (3) THE TOUR means the four year term of duty in the required human labor pool required by Title III. (4) REQUIRED HUMAN LABOR POOL means the whole body of stations designated under Title IV across every sector of the abundance. (5) SECTOR means any field of production, maintenance, adjudication, governance, protection, instruction, or care upon which the abundance depends, whether or not the work of that sector is performed principally by automated means. (6) MONITORING STATION means a station within a sector whose duties are observation, audit, judgment, and the authority to halt, and which exists whether or not the automated system requires human assistance to function. (7) MAINTAINED COMPETENCY means the standard of continued learning required of a citizen by Title VI as the condition of access to the abundance. (8) ABUNDANCE has the meaning given that term in Section 2(a) of the American Productive Capacity Act, which this Act adopts by reference and does not restate. Abundance is there defined as a measured projection stated in time, taken first at the base of need and only then upward through water, food, shelter, and the energy, medicine, and transport on which those depend, before any want is counted; surplus in a higher tier never offsets a shortfall in a lower one; and stocks not renewable at the rate of use, or not under an answerable steward, are counted at their projected depletion rather than their present volume. A longer projection is greater abundance and a shorter projection is lesser abundance. (9) ACCESS TO THE ABUNDANCE means the citizen's entitlement to draw upon the stocks and capacity so measured, at the tiers of need before the tier of wants.

SECTION 4. FINDINGS AND RECOGNITIONS.

(1) UNIVERSAL ENROLLMENT IS AN AMERICAN FORM. The Congress of the United States, by the Militia Act of May 8, 1792, enrolled every citizen of the described class between the ages of eighteen and forty five, by operation of law and without application, and made the enrollment a duty of the officer rather than a choice of the person. The Legislature adopts that structure and no more of it. The 1792 enrollment was restricted by race and by sex, and this Act enrolls every citizen without any such restriction. (2) THE OBLIGATION FOLLOWS THE EDUCATION. Jefferson proposed in 1779 that the Commonwealth furnish learning at common expense. The companion instrument to this Act furnishes it. This Act states the other side of that account. What is furnished to every citizen at common expense is answered by every citizen at common duty. (3) AUTOMATION WILL MAKE MOST LABOR UNNECESSARY, AND THE ACT SHALL NOT PRETEND OTHERWISE. The Legislature finds that machine systems and artificial intelligence are capable of performing, and will perform, the greater part of the labor by which this society is now sustained. No statute can honestly promise full employment against that fact, and this Act does not. The stations required by this Act are not a jobs program and shall not be defended as one. (4) THE REASON FOR THE STATION IS SIGHT, NOT PRODUCTION. Where a station is required by this Act and the automated system does not require human assistance, the station exists so that a human being sees the sector from the inside, can testify to its condition, and can stop it. The Legislature finds that a sector no citizen has looked at from within is a sector no citizen can govern, and that the loss of sight precedes the loss of control. (5) THE STATION MAY BE ARBITRARY AND SHALL BE HONEST ABOUT IT. Some stations designated under this Act will be arbitrary as to their productive necessity. The Legislature declares this openly. A station that produces nothing but a competent human witness inside an automated sector is worth its cost, and shall be described in the designation as what it is. (6) NO SECTOR IS HUMAN BLIND. The Legislature finds that the danger is not that machines will perform the work. The danger is that whole sectors will come to operate with no human being inside them who understands what they do. This Act therefore distributes the required human labor across the full spectrum of sectors regardless of the degree or the efficacy of automation in any of them, and permits no sector to be exempted on the ground that its automation is complete. (7) THE WORKFORCE WILL BE SMALL, AND SHALL BE SPREAD THIN AND WIDE. Because most labor will be unnecessary, the body of citizens serving at any time will be a small fraction of the population. The Legislature finds that this small body must be spread across every sector rather than concentrated in the sectors that still happen to need hands. (8) THE POOL DOES NOT REQUIRE EVERY HUMAN, AND THE ACT SHALL NOT PRETEND IT DOES. Since most labor will be unnecessary, the body of stations to be filled will be far smaller than the body of citizens available to fill them. It follows that the tour cannot honestly be written as a universal conscription. Citizen service under Title II is required of every citizen, in the manner of a junior and senior project that every pupil is expected to complete. The tour under Title III is served by those selected for it. Selection is made through the education system, on the suitability of the citizen to the role, and not by lot, by wealth, by connection, or by the preference of an employer. (9) SELECTION IS A PLACEMENT AND NOT A RANKING. The Legislature finds that a citizen not called to the tour has not failed, has not been graded, and forfeits nothing. The purpose of selection is to fit the person to the station, and a society with more citizens than stations is the intended result of the abundance rather than a defect in it. (10) THE ACT SHALL BE HUMANE IN ITS OPERATION. The Legislature finds that an obligation laid on every citizen will fall hardest on the citizen least able to bear it, and that a statute which is silent on that point has decided it. This Act therefore provides expressly for the pupil who performs below the standard, for the pupil with a disability, and for the pupil whose disposition makes a form of service harmful, and provides for them without loss of the guarantees of Title VII. (11) THE GUARANTEE IS EARNED, AND IS A COMPACT RATHER THAN A TRANSFER. The Legislature finds that what Title VII secures is not a distribution of one citizen's property to another, and shall not be enacted, administered, or defended as one. It is the consideration the sovereign pays for a duty it has laid on the person, in the manner in which this country has always answered the citizen who served it. The obligation comes first, the guarantee answers it, and the citizen who has borne the duty holds the benefit by right of having borne it. (12) THE STATIONS ARE COMPETED FOR. The Legislature finds that a station carrying real authority, and in particular a station of adjudication, of office, of command, or of management, must be won on merit and not allotted. Competition for the stations is open to every enrolled citizen on the record actually earned, and the whole of the accommodation provided in Title VI-A exists so that competition never operates as a penalty upon the citizen who cannot compete on the ordinary terms. (13) THE OBLIGATION IS ANSWERED BY A GUARANTEE. A duty laid on the person is not legitimate unless the sovereign that lays it answers for the person. This Act therefore secures to every citizen who completes the tour a lifetime guarantee of life and of health, and secures the same to the family of a citizen who dies in the defense of the model. (14) THE RIGHTS SECURED ARE UNALIENABLE AND ARE NOT THE STATE'S TO GRANT. The Legislature declares that the rights of life and of health secured by Title VII are unalienable, are endowed by the Creator, are held for the whole of the person's life, and are recognized rather than created by this Act. The State claims no power to withdraw what it did not confer.

TITLE I. THE COMPULSORY GATE.

SEC. 101. COMPLETION REQUIRED. Completion of the continuation years is required of every citizen, and the compulsory term of the companion instrument is a condition of the obligations and the guarantees of this Act. SEC. 102. ENROLLMENT BY OPERATION OF LAW. Every citizen is enrolled in the required human labor pool upon completion of the continuation years, by operation of law and without application. Enrollment is the duty of the registering officer and is not a choice of the person.

TITLE II. CITIZEN SERVICE AT THE CLOSE OF SCHOOLING.

SEC. 201. THE TERM, AND ITS CHARACTER AS A PROJECT OF THE COURSE. (a) Every citizen shall perform citizen service at the close of the continuation years. Unlike the tour, this obligation is universal. (b) Citizen service is carried as a junior and senior project of the continuation years, in the manner of any other capstone requirement of the course, and every pupil is expected to complete it as a matter of ordinary progression rather than as a separate levy upon the person. (c) The service is performed in the summer terms, or in hours outside of instruction for a citizen who elects an accelerated course, and shall be scheduled so as not to displace instruction. (d) The project is credited toward the credential of the continuation years, and the accommodations and elections of Title VI-A apply to it in full. SEC. 202. THE FORMS OF SERVICE. Citizen service may be performed in any of the following, at the election of the citizen and subject to the assignment provisions of Section 204. (a) Civic volunteer service with a recognized organization. (b) Military citizen service. (c) Service in the offices of local government. (d) Service in the offices of the government of this State. (e) Service in the offices of the government of the United States, where accepted. (f) Emergency, disaster, conservation, and public health service. SEC. 203. YOUTH IN THE SYSTEM. The Legislature intends by this Title that young citizens be placed inside the working institutions of the society while they are still in instruction, so that the human presence required by Title IV begins before the tour and is not first encountered at its commencement. SEC. 204. ASSIGNMENT AND ELECTION. The citizen elects the form of service. Where elections exceed the places available in a form, the assigning authority shall assign by lot and not by rank, wealth, or connection. SEC. 205. HIGH ACHIEVEMENT AND ADDITIONAL SERVICE. A citizen who completes the continuation years in advance of the ordinary term may perform additional citizen service in the time so gained, and such service shall be credited against the tour required by Title III.

TITLE III. THE FOUR YEAR TOUR.

SEC. 301. THE TOUR, AND WHO SERVES IT. (a) The tour is a term of four years in the required human labor pool. (b) Every citizen is enrolled and is eligible. The tour is served by the citizens called to it. The Legislature does not represent that every citizen will be called, because the stations to be filled are fewer than the citizens available to fill them. (c) A citizen not called has not failed, has not been graded, and forfeits nothing under this Act, including the guarantees of Title VII. SEC. 302. SELECTION BY SUITABILITY THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM. (a) Selection is made on the suitability of the citizen to the station, determined on the declared preference of the citizen and on the record of the continuation years, of which the principal evidence is the record of the Senior Trials established by Title I-A of the companion instrument. (a-1) THE TRIALS ARE THE MEASURE. Because the Trials contest the whole spectrum of capability, athletic, tactical, instrumental, artistic, forensic, governmental, enterprising, mechanical, scientific, and clinical, the record they produce is evidence of what a citizen can actually do under pressure rather than of what a citizen has been told. A station shall be matched to the forms in which the citizen demonstrated capability. (a-2) A low placement in the Trials is not a disqualification from any station, and the accommodations and adapted contests of Title I-A of the companion instrument carry the same standing in selection as any other form. (b) Selection shall not be made by lot, by wealth, by family connection, by the preference of a private employer, or by any measure of social rank. (c) MERITORIOUS COMPETITION FOR THE STATIONS. A station is competed for and is awarded on merit. Competition is open to every enrolled citizen, is judged on the record of the continuation years, the citizen service, and any credential required by the station, and the standing of a citizen in that competition is not affected by wealth, family, employer, or office held. (d) DECLINING IS HONORED ONLY WHILE THE STATION CAN BE FILLED. A citizen may decline a call and request a different station or a later cycle. The request shall be granted whenever another citizen is available to fill the station. It shall not be granted where granting it would leave the station unfilled. (e) A citizen may volunteer for a call at any time before the age of fifty and shall be placed where a station is open. SEC. 302A. NO CYCLE MAY FAIL TO FILL. (a) The Legislature intends that the stations be filled by election and by competition, and expects that in the ordinary course they will be. (b) Where in any cycle the elections and the competitions do not fill the stations designated under Title IV, the assigning authority shall select from the enrolled citizens to fill them, and that selection is compulsory. (c) A want of volunteers is not a ground on which a station may be left vacant, a sector may be left without human sight, or the obligation of this Act may lapse. The absence of submissions in a cycle can end only in selection. (d) Compulsory selection under this section is made on the same measure of suitability as an ordinary call, is subject in full to Title VI-A, and carries the same compensation, the same protections, and the same guarantees as a station taken by election. (e) The assigning authority shall publish, each cycle, the number of stations designated, the number filled by election and competition, and the number filled by compulsory selection, so that the public may see how far the voluntary means carried and where it did not. SEC. 303. COMMENCEMENT. The tour commences upon call, following completion of the continuation years and the citizen service, except as deferred under Title V. SEC. 304. ASSIGNMENT ACROSS SECTORS. The assigning authority shall assign each called citizen to a station in a sector, and shall satisfy the distribution rule of Title IV before satisfying any preference of the citizen, subject always to Section 302(c). SEC. 305. COMPENSATION. Service in the tour is compensated at not less than the prevailing rate for the station, and no station shall be uncompensated by reason of its being required. SEC. 306. PUBLIC DUTY, NOT SERVITUDE. The tour is a public duty of citizenship, of the same character as jury service and the militia enrollment from which it descends. It is not servitude, and the distinction is the one the law has always drawn: a public duty is owed to the whole and is discharged in the open, while servitude is compelled service to a particular master. Accordingly no citizen shall be assigned under this Act to serve a private party, a citizen may leave a station on the terms provided by rule, and a citizen retains the whole of the rights of a citizen throughout the tour. SEC. 307. COMPLETION. Upon completion of the tour the citizen is discharged from further compulsory labor and enters upon the guarantees of Title VII.

TITLE IV. THE DISTRIBUTION, AND THE RULE AGAINST HUMAN BLINDNESS.

SEC. 401. THE SECTOR SCHEDULE. The assigning authority shall maintain a schedule of every sector upon which the abundance depends, and shall designate stations in each. The schedule shall include, at a minimum, adjudication and the courts, designated elected and appointed offices, first response and emergency medicine, instruction, medicine and care, control of factory production, high level management and coordination, mass food production, energy generation and distribution, water, transport and logistics, communications and networks, construction and maintenance of physical plant, sanitation and waste, and the maintenance and audit of the automated systems themselves. SEC. 402. THE DISTRIBUTION RULE. No sector shall be without stations filled by citizens serving the tour. The assigning authority shall not exempt a sector by reason of the completeness, the reliability, or the efficacy of its automation. SEC. 403. MONITORING STATIONS. Where a sector requires no human labor for its operation, the assigning authority shall designate monitoring stations within it. A monitoring station carries the duties of observation, of audit, of judgment, and of the authority to halt the system, and the holder of the station shall be furnished the training, the access, and the standing to exercise that authority. SEC. 404. THE HALT AUTHORITY. The citizen holding a monitoring station may halt the operation of the system within that station's scope upon a finding of danger, of malfunction, or of harm, and shall not be penalized for a halt made in good faith. SEC. 405. DESIGNATION SHALL STATE THE GROUND. Each designation shall state whether the station is required for production or is required for sight alone. A station required for sight alone shall be designated as such, and shall not be justified to the public on productive grounds. SEC. 406. CREDENTIALED SECTORS. Where a station requires a professional credential, including the stations of physician, attorney, judge, engineer, and licensed instructor, the credential remains required, and the citizen is directed to Title V.

TITLE V. DEFERRAL FOR HIGHER LEARNING.

SEC. 501. DEFERRAL. A citizen admitted to a course of graduate, professional, or post-baccalaureate study shall have the tour deferred for the duration of that study. SEC. 502. THE OBLIGATION SURVIVES THE DEFERRAL. Deferral is not exemption. The tour is required upon completion of the higher study, and the citizen serves it in the sector of the credential so obtained. SEC. 503. NO PURCHASE OF EXEMPTION. No citizen shall be excused from the tour by payment, by substitution of another person, or by any consideration whatsoever. A deferral is available only for study actually pursued and completed.

TITLE VI. MAINTAINED COMPETENCY AND ACCESS TO THE ABUNDANCE.

SEC. 601. THE STANDARD. Every citizen shall maintain the competency attained in the continuation years, at or above the standard of the twelfth year across the subjects, until the age of fifty. SEC. 602. ACCESS CONDITIONED. Access to the abundance secured by this State is conditioned upon the maintained competency of the citizen, and is not conditioned upon wealth, employment, or property. SEC. 603. THE MEANS OF MAINTENANCE FURNISHED FREE. Instruction, examination, and remediation sufficient to maintain the standard shall be furnished by the State without charge and without limit of attempt, and no citizen shall lose access for want of the means to maintain the standard. SEC. 604. NO FORFEITURE FOR INCAPACITY. A citizen who is unable to maintain the standard by reason of disability, injury, or illness does not thereby lose access, and shall be secured on the terms of Title VII.

TITLE VI-A. ACCOMMODATION, DISPOSITION, AND THE CITIZEN WHO CANNOT.

SEC. 6A01. THE RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. Every obligation in this Act shall be construed in favor of the person on whom it falls. Where an obligation cannot be performed by a citizen in the ordinary form, the duty of the State is to find a form the citizen can perform, and only where no such form exists is the obligation excused. An obligation excused under this Title carries no loss of the guarantees of Title VII and no notation of failure on any record. SEC. 6A02. THE PUPIL WHO PERFORMS BELOW THE STANDARD. (a) Performance below the standard is a call upon the State for instruction and not a ground for exclusion. (b) A citizen who does not attain the standard of the continuation years retains access to the abundance, is furnished continued instruction and remediation without charge and without limit of attempt, and is eligible for citizen service and for the tour in a station suited to the citizen. (c) No citizen shall be denied a station, denied the guarantees, or assigned to a lesser class of station by reason of a rate of learning. SEC. 6A03. DISABILITY. (a) A citizen with a disability performs citizen service and any tour with the accommodations, assistive technology, supported decision making, personal assistance, modified hours, and modified duties necessary to perform it. (b) Where a form of service cannot be accommodated, the assigning authority shall offer an alternative form, including remote, part-time, intermittent, and supported forms. (c) Where no form of service is possible, the obligation is excused in full, and the citizen receives the guarantees of Title VII as though the tour had been completed. (d) A determination under this section is made with the citizen, with any person the citizen chooses to assist them, and with a clinician of the citizen's choosing. It is reviewable, is not permanent unless the citizen asks that it be, and shall never be recorded as a failure. SEC. 6A04. DISPOSITION AND ELECTION. (a) The Legislature recognizes that a form of service which is ordinary for one citizen is harmful for another, and that this is a matter of disposition rather than of willingness. (b) A citizen whose disposition makes a form of service harmful may decline that form and elect another, and shall not be required to disclose the ground of the election beyond the statement that the form is unsuitable. (c) The forms subject to election under this section include, without limitation, military citizen service, service involving firearms, service involving the handling of the dead or injured, service in confined or crowded settings, service requiring sustained public exposure, and service requiring night or rotating hours. (d) An election under this section is made at the citizen's own instance, is not conditioned on diagnosis, and carries no penalty, no delay of the guarantees, and no adverse notation. SEC. 6A05. NO COERCION THROUGH THE GUARANTEES. The guarantees of Title VII shall never be withheld, reduced, delayed, or threatened in order to induce a citizen to accept a station, to decline an accommodation, to waive an election, or to disclose a disability or a disposition.

TITLE VII. THE GUARANTEES.

SEC. 701. LIFETIME GUARANTEE OF LIFE AND HEALTH. (a) Every citizen who completes the tour is secured, for the whole of that citizen's life, in the necessities of life and in the whole of medical and mental health care, without charge and without condition of employment. (b) THE GUARANTEE DOES NOT DEPEND ON BEING CALLED. Because the stations are fewer than the citizens, the same guarantee is secured to every citizen who completes the continuation years and the citizen service and remains enrolled and available, whether or not that citizen is ever called to a tour. A citizen is not to be left without the necessities of life because the society did not happen to need their labor. (c) The same guarantee is secured to every citizen whose obligation is excused under Title VI-A. SEC. 702. THE CITIZEN WHO DEFENDS THE MODEL WITH THEIR LIFE. Where a citizen dies, or is permanently disabled, in the course of service in defense of this model, whether in military citizen service, in first response, in emergency medicine, in disaster service, or in the exercise of the halt authority, the guarantee of Section 701 attaches to that citizen for life and to the surviving spouse and children of that citizen for their lives. SEC. 703. UNALIENABLE AND NOT FORFEITABLE. The guarantees of this Title are declared unalienable, are endowed by the Creator and recognized by this State, are held for the whole of the person's life, and shall not be sold, assigned, attached, taxed, means tested, waived, or forfeited. SEC. 704. NOT CONDITIONED ON CONTINUED LABOR. The guarantees are earned by the completion of the tour and are not conditioned upon any labor performed afterward.

SECTION 8. NO SERVITUDE, AND THE LIMITS OF THE OBLIGATION.

(a) Nothing in this Act authorizes involuntary servitude. (b) No citizen shall be assigned to labor for the private profit of another. (c) A citizen retains the whole of the rights of conscience, and a citizen with a conscientious objection to military citizen service shall be assigned to a civil form. (d) The obligation of this Act is a public duty of citizenship, coextensive with jury service, the militia enrollment, and the compulsory school attendance from which it descends.

SECTION 9. SEVERABILITY.

If any provision of this Act or its application is held invalid, the remainder and its other applications are not affected. In particular, the invalidity of any obligation imposed by Titles II through VI shall not affect the guarantees secured by Title VII to any citizen who has performed service in reliance upon them.

SECTION 10. EFFECTIVE DATE.

This Act takes effect upon the first commencement of the continuation years under A Bill for the General Diffusion of Knowledge (2026), and the tour is first required of the first cohort completing those years.

Scope & source chain

A Bill for the General Diffusion of Required Human Labor (2026) states the obligation that answers the schooling furnished by its companion instrument. Every citizen performs citizen service at the close of the continuation years, in civic volunteer work, military citizen service, or the offices of local, State, or federal government, and thereafter serves a four year tour in the required human labor pool. The tour is deferred for graduate and professional study and is still owed afterward, served in the sector of the credential obtained. Access to the abundance is conditioned on maintained competency at or above the twelfth-year standard until the age of fifty, with the means of maintenance furnished free and without limit of attempt. The Act admits plainly that automation will render most labor unnecessary and refuses to be defended as a jobs program: where a sector requires no human hands, the Act designates monitoring stations carrying observation, audit, judgment, and the authority to halt, and requires each designation to state whether the station exists for production or for sight alone. The governing rule is that no sector is human blind, and no sector may be exempted by reason of the completeness or efficacy of its automation. The obligation is answered by a lifetime unalienable guarantee of the necessities of life and of the whole of medical and mental health care, extended for life to the surviving spouse and children of a citizen who dies defending the model. The Act adopts the universal-enrollment structure of the Militia Act of 1792 and none of its restrictions of race or sex. Cluster instrument two of two. This is a working draft.

Scope: DRAFT model State legislative act. Universal enrollment by operation of law; citizen service at the close of schooling; four year tour in the required human labor pool; distribution across every sector with monitoring stations where no labor is needed; halt authority; deferral for higher learning without exemption; maintained competency as the condition of abundance access; lifetime unalienable guarantee of life and health.