What Is Sociocracy? Personal responses as a community resource. Please add yours below

[John Buc]

Sociocracy = socios + cracy or [people who have a social relationship] + rule. Democracy = demos _cracy or [the general mass of people who may or may not know each other] +rule. In Spanish, socios = partners. Democracy has the value of "equality'" = treat everyone the same. You see that at the ballot box. Literally, the essence of you is abstracted to a ballot that is identical to everyone else's ballot. Sociocracy has the value of "equivalence" = honor individual differences give everyone the same respect. Literally, the essence of you participates directly into every consent decision; everyone has the same right to make an argued and paramount objection to a proposed decision.  

[Francois Knuchel]

Interesting comment. However, I object.  Thank you for picking these 'mis-definitions' up.

It is my opinion/belief that the first definition is quite wrong, or misleading at best, indeed it is not even clear what it is supposed to mean.  Sociocracy is not about government, and certainly not about society as a whole.  It's about governance of groups (socius) with common aims.  The Free Dictionary (TFD) does not name any source for this particular definition (whereas it does for most other words), and it's a rather dubious definition in my view, indeed a miscomprehension of what sociocracy is.

I'm not sure where the second definition comes from (not TFD), it is better but still misleading.  Democracy presumes equality of individuals, sociocracy does not; sociocracy honors differences but respects everyone in equal measure, with equivalence.  That's the whole point of sociocracy, it honours people as unique different beings while respecting them with equal value - this is not the same as being equal.