The Living Node Principle (LNP): The Human as Sovereign Unit of the Planetary Economy

This white paper states, defines, and operationalises the Living Node Principle (LNP), originated by Jude Onemolease: the basic unit of a viable next economy is not the firm, the household-as-consumption-bundle, the labourer, the consumer, or the user, but the living node — a person with equal standing, independent agency, and contribution-weighted outcomes. Firms, platforms, and states remain organisations. They are not the unit of moral and economic accounting. The paper supplies a canonical definition; a standard modal representation of rights, obligations, and rewards; an ontology that refuses to reduce persons to labour hours or data exhaust; a multi-dimensional contribution function ci(t); reward flows ri(t) consistent with Onemolease's Law of the Regenerative Constant (TRC) and the Serving Order Structure (SOS); an identity rule that forbids gatekeeping of nodehood; comparisons with stakeholder theory, decentralised autonomous organisations, and network economics; and industry cases. Planetary-system theory and full governance-layer design are reserved for companion papers. The argument is universal and non-sectarian.