Voluntary State - Blueprint for a Free Society
It may sound like an oxymoron, but it's actually possible. I have been thinking about how to reach a practical libertarian society, that is actually realizable in the real world, and not some anarchist fantasy.
The problem with most libertarians is that they have good ideas, but they fail to map them to the real world, and find a solution that can actually be applied to the real world, and it's not just a libertarian fantasy.
Well I have been thinking about this lately, and I believe I have the best solution so far, not the ultimate, but certainly the best solution that I know, and believe me I have heard them all (from resource based economy, to DRO managed property, it's all nonsense for the most part).
The system will have to be based on private property and free markets, but we should also recognize that power corrupts, therefore we need a decentralized governance system. And the defense mechanism, where the most power resides, should be directly controlled by the people.
THE VOLUNTARY STATE
The solution is simple:
- We will keep all nation states.
- DECONSTRUCTION: Deconstruct all government services, except the military and court enforcement. This means a 99% shrink in government, and the government will only have 2 roles: enforcement of private contracts, and collective defense of territory.
- ELIMINATE INCOME TAXES: Reform taxation system, by eliminating all taxes, and replace them with 1 single flat "citizen subscription fee" that will only pay for the state defense services. It will be voluntary, if you don't pay it, you just lose citizenship.
- DIRECT DEMOCRACY: Make the government an online direct democracy, with 90% threshold needed to pass laws, to ensure that the government won't grow like cancer, and only grow when utmost necessary.
- DECENTRALIZED MILITARY: The military will be controlled by the democratic procedure to avoid the generals becoming another Caesar, Napoleon or Hitler, and making sure that no crazy person has access to the nukes. It will actually require a 100% consensus between all senior officers in order to have access of the nuclear control. No more centralized power.
It's not simple and this theory is actually achievable. The biggest issue with Ancap thinking and the whole DRO nonsense is that it won't work, since corporate control of nukes is a pretty horrible idea, and handing over property dispute to a tiny group of corporate people is not a good idea. Our principles are the decentralization of power, since we know that power corrupts, and these are the only practical ways to do it.
- Now we already have functioning nation states, so there is nothing left to do there
- The issue is how do you deconstruct the government services, on which many citizens depend (especially pensions, medical care and welfare)
DECONSTRUCTION:
My plan would be a slow introduction of competition in all fields, so that the government will lose monopoly over them.
There are already private pension providers, and with the advent of blockchain, we could perhaps create some cryptocurrency based systems, that will have a much higher yearly % return than your average pension fund.
Medical care is mostly an issue of price. Private health insurance providers have to take the lead here, but more importantly, hospitals need to become de-bureaucratized. A lot of government hospitals are extremely corrupt, where half of the money is stolen. Well it can't get any worse than that. So a privatization of hospitals would be a great idea.
Welfare would not be a problem if we had a functioning job market. But we don't due to government regulations. My bet here is also on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. It could offer many jobs to people, and many new ways to make money can appear. So maybe a person now needs to work a day in a sweatshop in Africa for 5$, but later they may only need to blog on Steemit or other social media to earn 5$. The world is changing for the better.
So yes technology will eventually make government obsolete. Besides healthcare is getting cheaper, nanotechnology will soon eliminate cancer, and it will make illnesses more manageable.
And when this happens, the citizenry will surely realize that funding a "government health program" that steals away 50% of your income, when you can get "nano-robot-pills" for 10$ that will cure all your diseases will be a pretty stupid idea. Give it 50-100 years and this will become a reality, perhaps sooner if we are lucky.
Every other service will be provided by a voluntary free market, where different ideas can compete with eachother, to avoid entrenched monopoly.
ELIMINATE INCOME TAXES:
Now this is straighforward. All taxes have to go, they are a burden on the economy, and they have a net drain on society.
The problem with the current taxation system is that it only pays for a small fraction of the government services, while the rest of it is embezzled away into corruption, or is paying for useless things:
- https://euobserver.com/political/23804
- https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/175340-corrupt-eu-economy-money/
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10614864/EU-corruption-costing-economy-100bn-a-year.html
...and so on, you know how it works...
So while you are paying 90% in taxes, you only receive 5% in services, while the rest of it is just theft. Now this has to stop.
So all taxes have to be eliminated, and the coercive system be replaced with a subscription system, just like your internet service provider. The ISP won't come after you with machine guns if you don't pay your bill, they will just cut the service off.
The same way the only thing you should pay for is the services directly, and that should be a flat fee, and it has to be voluntary. Failure to pay it would only result in losing access to that service, or loss of citizenship, but no physical harm.
- So if the military would cost 100 bn $ and the court system 1 bn$, that is a 101bn$ spending bill.
- Say there are 80 million people in the country, so that makes a 1262.5$ fee yearly, that you can pay yearly or pay it off for multiple years.
- So pay 12,625$ in order to be subscribed to the state services for 10 years, and you can earn as much money as you want, there will be no other taxes. Sounds good right?
- And as the population grows or the tech becomes cheaper, the fee will become cheaper. Imagine keeping 99.99% of your income, while still having access to any service you need voluntarily.
DIRECT DEMOCRACY:
I have already talked about this in the past:
- https://steemit.com/politics/@profitgenerator/direct-democracy-is-not-socialism
- https://steemit.com/freedom/@profitgenerator/privatization-vs-decentralization
- https://steemit.com/philosophy/@profitgenerator/majority-is-always-right
You have to decentralize power, in order to avoid corruption. It's the only way. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
All state legislation will be in the hands of the citizens, directly, and laws will not pass without a 90% consensus, to avoid cancerous growth of bureaucracy and tyranny.
DECENTRALIZED MILITARY:
The military has to be decentralized as well, otherwise it will become an instrument of tyranny. There is too much power in the military, in fact in this kind of society, the only power will reside in the military. So you have to make sure that it's under the control of the citizens, to avoid it being turned against them. And make sure it's only used for defense.
This means no chiefs of staff, and no commander in chief. In fact there shouldn't even be a rank above colonel, to avoid powerhungry generals going on conquest sprees like Caesar, Napoleon or Hitler. The army management should be a democratic council of colonels, each commanding their own regiment. While the direct democracy, the people having the final authority over it.
The colonels appoint ranks below them up to the major, while the majors are ranked up to colonel by the citizenry. The citizenry will also have power to discharge or replace any corrupt officer.
Also any soldier can become a whistleblower to inform the people about corrupt officers to avoid entrenchment of corruption.
Also the citizens military should be transparent, and only classify things that are imperative, while most things being public. This might lose the competitive edge towards other countries, but the military will only be used towards defense, and most secrets are needed for offensive measures, not defense.
This is how I would envision a Libertarian Country's Armed Forces. As you can see, there is no need for an Air-Force or Navy, since they are mostly used for offensive purposes. We only need an Army with strong anti-air force defenses. And the Army should be under the control of the people:
So that's it. This is totally possible to achieve, I don't know how you get rid of the politicians though, since they are completely useless. But I'll leave that problem for other people to figure out. While direct-democracy is gaining some traction, hopefully we will be able to have it one day, and then steer society towards decentralization.
Technology will make government programs obsolete, so at some point the tax system will have to be eliminated and replaced by voluntary subscription fees. It will be inevitable.
And then the remaining power structures will erode, and hopefully the people will be in control, in a decentralized fashion.
Sources:
https://pixabay.com
https://poetryandnewmediaart.wordpress.com/graham-cook-3/
