{
  "id": "law-abiding-citizens.deserving",
  "term": "law-abiding citizens",
  "sense": "deserving",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 19,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "A collective self that narrows its boundary to members who keep its rules and give its government their taxes, reading those who do not as outside it.",
  "folk_gloss": "members of the public who obey the law and pay their way, named as the ones policy should serve",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "boundary.limit",
      "rules.social",
      "tax.economic",
      "keep.maintenance",
      "out-group.outside",
      "narrow.spatial",
      "member.social",
      "give.transfer",
      "government.administrative",
      "read.information",
      "outside.spatial"
    ],
    "interaction": "Membership is made to depend on keeping a condition the group names, so the boundary is set by conduct and the group's protection follows only those who meet it.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "membership earned by conduct",
      "protection read as owed only inside the kept rule"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "second-class-citizens.lesser",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "second class citizens are read out whatever they do; here members are read in by what they do"
    },
    {
      "id": "loyalty.kept",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "loyalty keeps one's walls where the group sets them; this phrase makes that keeping the edge of the group"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "decent citizens",
    "hard working taxpayers",
    "hardworking taxpayers",
    "law abiding citizen",
    "law abiding citizens"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-law-abiding-citizens.deserving"
}