The Engagement Credit Economy (ECE): A Post-Labour Participation Architecture

This paper introduces the Engagement Credit Economy (ECE), a post-labour participation architecture designed to render necessary but non-market contribution visible, remunerated, and legitimate without coercion, labour substitution, or exploitation.

As optimisation and automation weaken the historical coupling between labour, income, and social legitimacy, existing policy instruments increasingly misclassify contribution and disengagement. ECE addresses this structural failure by providing a bounded accounting framework for participation that markets no longer price but societies continue to require.

ECE is not a labour market, volunteer scheme, or workfare model. It functions as participation infrastructure alongside existing income floors, human-value systems, and human-governed coordination mechanisms. The framework preserves unconditional exit, enforces anti-exploitation boundaries, and scales recognition without mass aggregation.

This record serves as the architectural anchor for the broader Engagement Credit Economy (ECE) dossier. Subsequent papers extending the framework into specific domains will be linked to this record as they become available.