Ixutopet

The Ixutopet ("division of loot/earnings to the community") is a traditional community right in Sunekan religion and High Sunekan Culture. Essentially, Ixutopet is the principle that all Sunekan communities that contribute to a government, monarch, or other ruling authority have a right to some common material gain - tax and obedience is given, and the relationship demands a gift of some kind in return. In modern Sunekan republics, this typically takes the form of useful goods from the other parts of the republic: a farming village might get some cloth, iron tools, medicine, and other goods produced by specialized communities or industries elsewhere.    The Ixutopet is often managed through bureaucratic systems, often tied to the Bureau of Abundance in heartlands Sunekan republics. Essentially, goods are stockpiled and then distributed according to population and need by various government caravans. Management Cliques, which handle land, labor, and goods administration, usually handle much of the work on a local level.   The Ixutopet is reciporical, but it is not equal. Most communities give more in surplus to the government than they receive materially (especially if you count the amounts accumulated by the Management Cliques). This is not supposed to be an equal exchange; rather, it is about maintaining a relationship between the Whole and the Part, the State and the Local. In that relationship, there is a promise that the government will provide key supplies necessary for certain emergencies: that there will always be enough food, clothing, tools, and shelter for everyone's survival, and that the government will step in to ensure that is true if emergencies arrive. Not all governments live up to this, of course - especially not for regions or populations that are systemically neglected or deemed unimportant for some reason. This is an ideal, not some kind of immutable law.   As a foundational social principle, some communities have used Ixutopet to sue governments or Management Cliques that have critically failed to either provide basic promised goods or emergency support. However, these cases are fairly rare and those most badly impacted by some kind of systemic neglect are usually those who have the hardest time accessing the legal system. The fact that a village can successfully sue the ruling class for failing to provide famine relief is something of a comfort to many people, though, even if it doesn't happen much.   Failure by rulers to maintain the Ixutopet is considered justification for rebellion if the community in question was not elected. Ixutopet is considered a physical emanation of the spiritual connection between rulers and ruled: through voting, the people become part of the Great Community of the State, like cells in a body. A functional body is expected to keep all its components alive and healthy through sufficient access to blood and vital energy; but even if it doesn't, they are still spiritually linked as part of a whole. In the case of an autocracy, there is no spiritual binding and the Ixutopet is the sole fundamental contract between rulers and ruled - failing to maintain it means that the contract is in breach and can be ignored by the community.    Ixutopet once had a martial element regarding the division of loot, but this has faded somewhat. Still, even to this day a victorious army is expected to distribute victorious loot among the soldiery.