...if war broke out, I might donate to the More Fund of Defense -- and my donation would be matched by the same amount of money taken out of the Justice system.

There were 10 messages lost when the server went down. Please let me recap the conversation and correct me if I’ve misrepresented your position. There were contributions from Ed Thompson, PMH, Steve Wolfer and myself.

After some jousting, Ed gave an example of a More fund that had $15k in it, a Less fund that had $5k in it and a person who wanted to disable the program by donating $5k to the Less fund, thus leaving both funds with $10k in them thus reducing the surplus to zero. He asked if this was what I was proposing and I said it was precisely correct. Ed said he thought the scheme was a good one.

I suggested that the no-tax proposal could be tried out as a 5 year pilot program at a municipal level, say in New Hampshire, as part of the Free State Project. Steve said that he lauded the Free State Project for the initiative they displayed but didn’t like anything that would have “anarcho-capitalism” in its credo.

PMH agreed with Steve.

I proposed that  a pilot project wouldn’t have to be in New Hampshire. There are plenty of municipalities in California that are now bankrupt, or about to be. A person or group with deep pockets could buy up the debt, or negotiate to reduce it and, upon agreement with the residents, start over from scratch with no-tax revenue production. Of course, the no-tax scheme could only be applied to those items that are normally under municipal control, i.e. sales tax, business taxes, infrastructure, some police and courts, school tax, house taxes, etc.

Sam

Toward a Non-Coercive Society

By Paul Hibbert

I get the impression that a great number of people don’t understand the bedrock of libertarianism: the principle of non-initiation of force (NIOF), an ideal that I embrace.  Everything in the libertarian philosophy springs from that assertion and if something violates it, it’s not libertarianism. If one wants to construct such a society based on such an ideal one must analyze the conditions. Firstly, the only function of the government should be to protect the individual rights of the citizenry — anything else is by definition, coercive. Those rights are the right to protection from foreign invaders and the right to protection from criminals.  Secondly, the government should provide only those services that cannot be undertaken by individuals. These would be a Department of Defense and a Department of Justice. Individuals cannot protect the nation from being invaded and individuals cannot track down and prosecute criminals but every other function of our present day government can be undertaken by individuals or individuals voluntarily banding together to form charities, schools, fund foreign aid and to organize boycotts, etc.

At the heart of the matter is that of taxation which is, by its very nature, coercive. A progressive’s position on taxation is, “I’m a nice person but I don’t trust others to be as nice as I am, therefore I’m going to force others to contribute their fair share to government programs that I deem to be in the public good.” It matters not that those programs might be endorsed by only 51% of the electorate (the tyranny of the majority) or whether they might be ineffective, such as the wars on poverty, drugs and terror. Those are legitimate issues of debate. As distressing as the progressive’s assertion might there is no way to spin it as there is no other rational explanation of their position and they are abrogating their personal responsibility by passing it on to others. So, how can a society be conceived so that it doesn’t violate the NIOF dictum and at the same time imbue the citizens with the conviction that the government is responsive to them?

Here is my proposal: Consider, for the time being, only the two functions of the federal government that are necessary for the protection of the rights of citizens, the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice. Funding of them would be from voluntary donations. One could call such a funding to be a “xat” (the opposite of a tax) but a more descriptive term would be a Voluntary Civic Commitment (VCC.)  Two funds for each of those branches will be set up, the “More” Fund and the “Less” Fund. Donors can make contributions to the ”More” Fund of Justice or the “Less” Fund of Justice and the corresponding ones of Defense. Contributions to a More Fund cause an equal amount in the Less Fund to be transferred to it. Similarly, contributions to a Less Fund also cause an equal amount in the More Fund to be transferred to it. Thus, for instance, if a donor wishes that there be more federal money spent on justice he will get his wish, with double benefits, and vice-versa. The operating budget for a program is taken from the More fund. Note that this process is equally fair if one is a progressive or a conservative and that it is responsive to the current sentiments of the donors. The administrators (the bureaucrats under the direction of the elected politicians) are thus limited in the expenditures of their programs.

Money that resides in a Less fund acts as a reserve for future necessities, emergency, or as a savings account for things that the government (in less enlightened times) would have borrowed or floated bonds for. For instance, if in world affairs, war clouds appeared in an otherwise peaceful climate, public opinion would cause large donations to be made to the More Defense fund, thus making even larger amounts of money immediately available by drawing money from the Less fund and transferring it to the More fund.

Norms for donations would spring up quickly with pundits, analysts, commentators, bloggers, politicians, and the media providing opinions and facts to the citizens. If a fund were to be judged under-funded or over-funded the donations would react accordingly. Thus there would be a dynamic, real-time reflection of the wishes of the electorate. Donors could make their contributions whenever they wished. If, in the happy event that the funds were judged over-funded, donors would refrain from contributing anything. Withdrawals from the surplus to fund ongoing operations would deplete the More fund until the program was judged under-funded. As an added example, if, the public felt that the Federal Reserve Board was irrelevant the More fund for that program would dry up because of increased donations to the Less fund. Then the Less fund contributions could then be returned to the donors when the program finally dies.

It would be naďve to think that this could be accomplished without some other motivation on the part of the donors, and that motivation is that their donations would be of public record. Only the amount of their donation would be revealed (unless they requested otherwise) so that their political position could be respected. Charities routinely publish a list of their donors classified as to the amount of the gift and for good reason — the donors are proud to be recognized for their generosity and it encourages further donations. There would be many free-loaders but there are many at the present time: the underground economy with cash transactions, criminals not reporting drug money, loopholes, off-shore income, and on and on. Furthermore, only about one third of the population pays any federal income tax at all. A whole industry exists devoted to minimizing or avoiding federal income tax. Think of what this does to the mentality of those participating in this endeavor. It fosters antagonism toward government even among those most inclined to view government as a benevolent agency and they still take advantage of every loophole, subsidy, grant, incentive, deferment and concession that the government provides in its programs of social engineering, the result of which transfers the tax burden to others who are not as adroit.

In my opinion, donating would become a source of pride that one’s friends and neighbors could appreciate. There would be a paradigm shift from how society regards conspicuous consumption to one of conspicuous generosity — a vast improvement, in my opinion. Undoubtedly there would be some “discrimination” against those who don’t contribute in the sense that those who donate according to the norms would naturally tend to associate and do business with those who do.

I don’t think that corporations or businesses should be allowed to contribute as employees and stockholders might not hold the same views as the entity and they shouldn’t have to contribute to programs with which they may disagree. This would be similar to unions forcing members to contribute to programs that they are opposed to. Anyway, corporate taxes are passed on to the consumers in the form of higher prices for their products so this shouldn’t be a concern.  

Imagine, just imagine, what this would do for both the economy and ethos of the nation. No longer would there be any, I mean any income tax with its stultifying burden on the citizens. Perhaps a million or more smart, well-meaning people could be freed up from trying to do the best they can within the system and instead allocate capital and resources where they can best be used — for the good of everyone. Currently, every business decision has to consider the tax implications and this distorts all the signals that the free market depends on. The newly revealed corrupt IRS would still exist, but at about 1/100^th of its present size, and its only duties would be to ensure that the donations were funneled to the correct bucket and to keep an on-line ledger of all the donors and their amounts so that the data are available to anyone at a touch on an iPad. Of course fraud might be a problem so the identity of donors would have to be protected.

The examples of Justice and Defense are just that but the principle of publicly visible donations could be applied to other (less legitimate, in my view) functions of government such as social policy, environment, consumer protection, and so on. One might call these funds Voluntary Civic Donations (VCD’s.) Surely, one can visualize the complex interactions affecting the funds as donors react to the changing “market” forces. Some donors might put all their contribution into the More bucket of a social policy fund, for instance, and others the Less but what will result would be a dynamically stable system that reflects the mood and aspirations of the citizens as to the direction the country should go. In this sense the government would be under control of the citizens rather than the opposite, as it seems to be now. If some donors wished to avoid the requirement of tracking and rating many candidate charities they could follow or subscribe to the recommendations of a guru or politician they admire and have trust in, whether he be an Al Gore or a Rand Paul.

If you believe that a civilized country can’t exist without coercion and that taxation is moral even though it is coercive then you are stuck and can’t move forward. You are reduced to being a pragmatist believing that the present system works — kinda, sorta. Without ideals to provide a framework for all your beliefs then you are inevitably confronted with all kinds of contradictions. The perpetual, vicious fighting between political parties regarding who should be taxed, and by how much, that fosters class warfare would completely disappear with those decisions would be made automatically by each citizen when he votes with his pocketbook. Citizens would tend to take more interest in current events and they would feel, justifiably, that government is responsive to their opinions and needs.

So, no matter whether you’re a progressive or conservative the benefits of a publicly open donation system of funding government should be apparent. In spite of my arguments you might still regard this scheme as impractical, pie-in-the-sky utopianism but nevertheless it’s my contribution to what I think is a means of leaving this world in a better state than when I was brought into it. In my mind, this proposal could release repressed energy and usher in a whole new era of pride and prosperity to the USA that could rival the industrial revolution. That’s my position and I’m stickin’ to it.