There are 2 opposing view on how to run things.
1st. Individuals have right. Government should just be just a small violation of individual freedom we exchange for security, etc. This is the point of view of libertarians and minarchists. I like this. This isn't too practical because states often get way bigger than what libertarians wish. The most libertarian state is probably Singapore. It's closer to conservative rather than libertarian because it prohibits drugs and prostitution.
2nd. The state have all the powah in the world. Something is good, okay, if the state says so. This is the view of statists. It's also not too practical. Statism has costs. You don't just wave hands and expect people to obey. Laws need enforcement. Big governments encourage capital flight, brain drain, corruption, and rebellion. In fact, most ancient state can be statist because they have religions. Now, with freedom of religions and opinions, combined with free flow of trade to many places, states are actually more libertarian than say 200 years ago.
We obviously can see the difference very clearly. The state prohibit prostitution. Libertarians believe it should be legal. The state wants to raise tax and minimum wage. Libertarians say those should be low or gone.
Perhaps, rather than thinking whether the tax is justified or not, we should think how to lower those taxes. I think those would be a more practical question with real benefit when properly answered.
Lowering taxes however, will be opposed by rulers. Our rulers, the majestic welfare parasites, won't be happy if tax is lower. They would like, die starving. What about lowering taxes and yet increasing profit for the rulers' of a state? How's that for win win solution?
How can a state lower tax and still got more tax revenue? Well, what about by making the state to be more attractive to investors and productive people? A state may tax land. The land tax may be lowered to 4% from 6% a year. However, with lack of corruption, the state, with so little tax, can guard security and build awesome infrastructure. So investors come in, and land price go up. More tax revenue for rulers of the state.
Rather than arguing whether the statist or the libertarian are the one that's right, what about if we come up with a way to lower taxes all over the world and yet achieve many things many statists want that free market don't give automatically.
Can this idea be combined?
Yes. What about if government itself is a private company or behave like a private company? What about if it has owners, pursue profit, and have to compete with other states. What about if it can do "many things" within the norm, just like private companies.
What about if our world are divided into many many small states like private companies that have to compete with one another? It's pretty close to reality actually.
And let's forget the semantic difference whether the states are private companies or just "like" private companies. If they're similar then let's presume they really are private companies. We talk about reality here, not philosophy.
Then it doesn't matter whether you're a libertarian or statist. That government have a right to do many things.
If you're statist, it's okay because statists think governments have right to do whatever it pleases with few limitations. Libertarian will also think it's okay because private companies can also do whatever it pleases with few limitations.
However, even if the governments, that's like private companies, have many right, many will most likely lower taxes and embrace individual freedom. Perhaps even much more than now.
Why? Competition.
Just because a shop can raise price to 10 times the market price doesn't mean a shop will. Reasonable shop, in the process of maximizing it's profit, will want to sell at reasonable price so you, customers, would come to it.
In fact, a shop that's irrational, that doesn't maximize it's profit, are the one that's more likely to raise price to 10 times. That's because those shops may have to listen to irrational shareholders that just wanna be a bitch.
The same way, if governments are like private companies, then they have right to tax land or income at very high rate. However, it wouldn't. Tax too high and people would flee.
We probably need arrangements so those small states don't, for example, abruptly raise tax. That way anyone that disagree will have plenty of time to get the hell out.
A government run for profit, by profit, of profit will rationally often lower taxes and honor individual freedom to attract productive people in. Often, they don't because they are controlled by irrational voters that just don't want you to be free.
How does the idea works in practice?
I checked history.
It turns out, even before democracy, libertarianism, and minarchism, the people's life are not necessarily too unfair for the people.
For example. Kong Fu Chu would meet a woman that's crying because her husband and son was eaten by a tiger. Kong asked "Why don't you live in the city?"
The woman said, "Well, tax was high in the city so I live in the forest."
So, contrary to what libertarians think, governments actually do add value, and hence, create wealth, at least during Kong Fu Chu's time.
No body forces that woman to pay tax. She can live in the forest. She did. Of course, by living in the forest she (or at least her husband and son) get eaten by lion.
The fact that her her family is eaten by tiger, instead of executed for not paying tax suggests that the city rulers' add value. Also it shows the relationship between tax payers and city rulers are reasonably consensual.
If you live in the city, you pay tax. If you don't you're welcome to found other cities or go to other cities.
I said reasonably consensual. The thing is con-sensuality is often a grey area. We have deceptive contracts, we have bare necessity arguments, we have consent under dures issues.
For example, say someone put gun in your head demanding your wallet. That is not consensual. Say you call cops to catch the thief. Okay that's consensual. But what about if the cops are hired by governments that demand taxes from you? And what about if the thief also can vote and part of the government?
In politic, non consensual things matter. Smaller states "consent" to be controlled and pay tribute to larger states to avoid being conquered. Not necessarily a bad thing. Those smaller states can concentrate on making money while the big states govern security.
In fact, the arrangements tend to be so much in favor of the smaller states, many states get independence easily in 20th century. There were an argument in US to free Philippine so US don't have to protect Philippines from Japan military.
Some would argue that because the woman can just found her own city, tax is consensual. In fact, the fact that her husband is eaten by tiger shows that cities' founders/rulers "deserve" to charge huge taxes.
On the other hand another would argue because she can't found her own city, the choices of "founding" another city shouldn't count in determining consent. Hence, the heavy tax is forced.
Things get even more complicated by the fact that leaving outside an established city can cause problems far more than tigers. What about if an established cities often raid neighboring areas that are unprotected? Can we say the tax in the city is consensual then?
But isn't threat from one city, and another city, is part of the game?
That is why I do not like to judge whether something is okay or not just based on "consent". It's too complex. Why not judge is based on profit.
Are cities good?
More or less, "entrepreneur" that found cities and pay guards to keep tigers out actually provide value. And hence, even under normal capitalistic norm, deserves some money for his service.
Is the tax too high? I don't know. Kong Fu Chu, after listening to women's complain says that people fear tax more than tiger. Perhaps confirming that he feels the tax is unfairly high.
Or take a look at another sample. In ancient British, you do not have to even obey any laws. I may have misunderstood it. You don't. If you don't, you become an "outlaw". That means you are no longer granted the protection of the king. Anyone can legally kill or rob you.
Again, the British king does not force people to do anything. He just withdraw services when people opt out.
Awesome.
Freedom.
So why are we getting richer now in 21st century?
Why are we not getting richer when kings and sultans and emperors rule the earth with iron fist?
Because states wage war with each other.
Most religions allow, even encourage genocide, and war looting. While people think it's "wrong" to pickpockets your neighbor's pockets, people think it's "okay" to invade another country, kill all the males, loot their wealth, and turn all the women into sex slaves.
The "system" in ancient time have a big loophole. Governments prevent people from robbing or killing each other. However, almost nothing prevents governments from invading one another.
Who governs the governors? No body.
Well, we can have a big government overseeing smaller governments, like feudalism. However, that leads to another problem. That one big government is too big it doesn't compete with another government.
On period of "peace" we usually have imperium. We have big states like China, and Rome. What happened in those big states is we have a king/emperor/sultan that pretty much live a very opulent life.
The productive people are heavily taxed and then the money just go to the kings or the overlords. Tax, is just robbery.
Imagine if states compete with one another rather than waging war against each other?
Then the states behave like private corporation. We can move to where we like.
However, if the states are small enough that we can move around, and hence effectively compete, it's weak and swallowed by bigger oppressive states. If the states are big enough, it has "monopoly" over large area and become oppressive.
The most obvious sample is the Ming dynasty. While western Europe states compete with one another to discover new worlds, the Ming dynasty, a large centralized state, prohibits foreign trade.
We all know the result. Those western Europeans then become the most advance, richest, most powerful states in the whole world. They're now in decline, but they still are.
The Ming collapse, replaced by the Qing, another Luddite big states. Qing was pretty much gang banged by European states on opium wars due to it's lack of willingness to honor individual freedom and free trade.
What about if many states are small enough, and yet they do not attack one another. And what about if that's happening without a big state or a world government on top of those states?
And that's the state of the world right now. And that is why we achieved the golden age of our species' history.
We have many states. We have China, US, Malaysia, Finland, Iran, Iraq. Most of the time, the states do not wage war with each other. Why? I don't know. We got Westphalia sovereign preventing that from happening. We got nukes making sure that invading doesn't pay most of the time.
In fact, the main reason why anyone would still want to fight is religion. No rational reason is there to fight state. Most wars are in middle east.
So even without democracy, states get prosperous. Any state that does not embrace individual freedom, or being a jerk overall, will have investors and productive people left.
Look at US. It used to be "nice" in a sense that it's capitalistic. However, when China is communist and many other countries are "jerk", US and Western Europe states have an issue. They're the only "nice" states in the world.
Hence, prosperity only come to western europes, US. There are other prosperous states but they're exception. Things like Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan.
About 50 years ago, most states are evil commies. So the "good guys" are few.
So it raises it's price.
In US 50 years ago, till now, the mere acts of making honest money is punishable by tax to reward welfare parasites that breed and breed and pop babies out of her c*nt faster than Gatling guns spewing bullets.
This while productive individuals were forced to pay 90% income tax rate.
However, now, hope is on the horizon.
With China embracing capitalism too, US cannot oppress entrepreneurs and productive elements in society too. Raise minimum wage, and factories move to China. Increase income taxes and companies incorporate in Liechesten or Seyschelles or Vanuatu or Belize.
Finally Donald Trump did the honorable thing. He lowered corporate tax rate so US can be competitive against China.
Yay..........
The productive gets richer and richer.
Democracy is nice and all.
However, if we truly want freedom, we should be grateful, to the one thing that give us freedom.
Competition among states.
The next step will be obvious. Why don't we split big states into smaller and smaller competing states? The central government can just regulate trade and prevent those states from waging war against one another?
Well, it's tried.
A country did that and is very rich and prosperous. United States. It has it's flaws. But I think that can be fixed easily. That'll be next topic.
1st. Individuals have right. Government should just be just a small violation of individual freedom we exchange for security, etc. This is the point of view of libertarians and minarchists. I like this. This isn't too practical because states often get way bigger than what libertarians wish. The most libertarian state is probably Singapore. It's closer to conservative rather than libertarian because it prohibits drugs and prostitution.
2nd. The state have all the powah in the world. Something is good, okay, if the state says so. This is the view of statists. It's also not too practical. Statism has costs. You don't just wave hands and expect people to obey. Laws need enforcement. Big governments encourage capital flight, brain drain, corruption, and rebellion. In fact, most ancient state can be statist because they have religions. Now, with freedom of religions and opinions, combined with free flow of trade to many places, states are actually more libertarian than say 200 years ago.
We obviously can see the difference very clearly. The state prohibit prostitution. Libertarians believe it should be legal. The state wants to raise tax and minimum wage. Libertarians say those should be low or gone.
Perhaps, rather than thinking whether the tax is justified or not, we should think how to lower those taxes. I think those would be a more practical question with real benefit when properly answered.
Lowering taxes however, will be opposed by rulers. Our rulers, the majestic welfare parasites, won't be happy if tax is lower. They would like, die starving. What about lowering taxes and yet increasing profit for the rulers' of a state? How's that for win win solution?
How can a state lower tax and still got more tax revenue? Well, what about by making the state to be more attractive to investors and productive people? A state may tax land. The land tax may be lowered to 4% from 6% a year. However, with lack of corruption, the state, with so little tax, can guard security and build awesome infrastructure. So investors come in, and land price go up. More tax revenue for rulers of the state.
Rather than arguing whether the statist or the libertarian are the one that's right, what about if we come up with a way to lower taxes all over the world and yet achieve many things many statists want that free market don't give automatically.
Can this idea be combined?
Yes. What about if government itself is a private company or behave like a private company? What about if it has owners, pursue profit, and have to compete with other states. What about if it can do "many things" within the norm, just like private companies.
What about if our world are divided into many many small states like private companies that have to compete with one another? It's pretty close to reality actually.
And let's forget the semantic difference whether the states are private companies or just "like" private companies. If they're similar then let's presume they really are private companies. We talk about reality here, not philosophy.
Then it doesn't matter whether you're a libertarian or statist. That government have a right to do many things.
If you're statist, it's okay because statists think governments have right to do whatever it pleases with few limitations. Libertarian will also think it's okay because private companies can also do whatever it pleases with few limitations.
However, even if the governments, that's like private companies, have many right, many will most likely lower taxes and embrace individual freedom. Perhaps even much more than now.
Why? Competition.
Just because a shop can raise price to 10 times the market price doesn't mean a shop will. Reasonable shop, in the process of maximizing it's profit, will want to sell at reasonable price so you, customers, would come to it.
In fact, a shop that's irrational, that doesn't maximize it's profit, are the one that's more likely to raise price to 10 times. That's because those shops may have to listen to irrational shareholders that just wanna be a bitch.
The same way, if governments are like private companies, then they have right to tax land or income at very high rate. However, it wouldn't. Tax too high and people would flee.
We probably need arrangements so those small states don't, for example, abruptly raise tax. That way anyone that disagree will have plenty of time to get the hell out.
A government run for profit, by profit, of profit will rationally often lower taxes and honor individual freedom to attract productive people in. Often, they don't because they are controlled by irrational voters that just don't want you to be free.
How does the idea works in practice?
I checked history.
It turns out, even before democracy, libertarianism, and minarchism, the people's life are not necessarily too unfair for the people.
For example. Kong Fu Chu would meet a woman that's crying because her husband and son was eaten by a tiger. Kong asked "Why don't you live in the city?"
The woman said, "Well, tax was high in the city so I live in the forest."
So, contrary to what libertarians think, governments actually do add value, and hence, create wealth, at least during Kong Fu Chu's time.
No body forces that woman to pay tax. She can live in the forest. She did. Of course, by living in the forest she (or at least her husband and son) get eaten by lion.
The fact that her her family is eaten by tiger, instead of executed for not paying tax suggests that the city rulers' add value. Also it shows the relationship between tax payers and city rulers are reasonably consensual.
If you live in the city, you pay tax. If you don't you're welcome to found other cities or go to other cities.
I said reasonably consensual. The thing is con-sensuality is often a grey area. We have deceptive contracts, we have bare necessity arguments, we have consent under dures issues.
For example, say someone put gun in your head demanding your wallet. That is not consensual. Say you call cops to catch the thief. Okay that's consensual. But what about if the cops are hired by governments that demand taxes from you? And what about if the thief also can vote and part of the government?
In politic, non consensual things matter. Smaller states "consent" to be controlled and pay tribute to larger states to avoid being conquered. Not necessarily a bad thing. Those smaller states can concentrate on making money while the big states govern security.
In fact, the arrangements tend to be so much in favor of the smaller states, many states get independence easily in 20th century. There were an argument in US to free Philippine so US don't have to protect Philippines from Japan military.
Some would argue that because the woman can just found her own city, tax is consensual. In fact, the fact that her husband is eaten by tiger shows that cities' founders/rulers "deserve" to charge huge taxes.
On the other hand another would argue because she can't found her own city, the choices of "founding" another city shouldn't count in determining consent. Hence, the heavy tax is forced.
Things get even more complicated by the fact that leaving outside an established city can cause problems far more than tigers. What about if an established cities often raid neighboring areas that are unprotected? Can we say the tax in the city is consensual then?
But isn't threat from one city, and another city, is part of the game?
That is why I do not like to judge whether something is okay or not just based on "consent". It's too complex. Why not judge is based on profit.
Are cities good?
More or less, "entrepreneur" that found cities and pay guards to keep tigers out actually provide value. And hence, even under normal capitalistic norm, deserves some money for his service.
Is the tax too high? I don't know. Kong Fu Chu, after listening to women's complain says that people fear tax more than tiger. Perhaps confirming that he feels the tax is unfairly high.
Or take a look at another sample. In ancient British, you do not have to even obey any laws. I may have misunderstood it. You don't. If you don't, you become an "outlaw". That means you are no longer granted the protection of the king. Anyone can legally kill or rob you.
Again, the British king does not force people to do anything. He just withdraw services when people opt out.
Awesome.
Freedom.
So why are we getting richer now in 21st century?
Why are we not getting richer when kings and sultans and emperors rule the earth with iron fist?
Because states wage war with each other.
Most religions allow, even encourage genocide, and war looting. While people think it's "wrong" to pickpockets your neighbor's pockets, people think it's "okay" to invade another country, kill all the males, loot their wealth, and turn all the women into sex slaves.
The "system" in ancient time have a big loophole. Governments prevent people from robbing or killing each other. However, almost nothing prevents governments from invading one another.
Who governs the governors? No body.
Well, we can have a big government overseeing smaller governments, like feudalism. However, that leads to another problem. That one big government is too big it doesn't compete with another government.
On period of "peace" we usually have imperium. We have big states like China, and Rome. What happened in those big states is we have a king/emperor/sultan that pretty much live a very opulent life.
The productive people are heavily taxed and then the money just go to the kings or the overlords. Tax, is just robbery.
Imagine if states compete with one another rather than waging war against each other?
Then the states behave like private corporation. We can move to where we like.
However, if the states are small enough that we can move around, and hence effectively compete, it's weak and swallowed by bigger oppressive states. If the states are big enough, it has "monopoly" over large area and become oppressive.
The most obvious sample is the Ming dynasty. While western Europe states compete with one another to discover new worlds, the Ming dynasty, a large centralized state, prohibits foreign trade.
We all know the result. Those western Europeans then become the most advance, richest, most powerful states in the whole world. They're now in decline, but they still are.
The Ming collapse, replaced by the Qing, another Luddite big states. Qing was pretty much gang banged by European states on opium wars due to it's lack of willingness to honor individual freedom and free trade.
What about if many states are small enough, and yet they do not attack one another. And what about if that's happening without a big state or a world government on top of those states?
And that's the state of the world right now. And that is why we achieved the golden age of our species' history.
We have many states. We have China, US, Malaysia, Finland, Iran, Iraq. Most of the time, the states do not wage war with each other. Why? I don't know. We got Westphalia sovereign preventing that from happening. We got nukes making sure that invading doesn't pay most of the time.
In fact, the main reason why anyone would still want to fight is religion. No rational reason is there to fight state. Most wars are in middle east.
So even without democracy, states get prosperous. Any state that does not embrace individual freedom, or being a jerk overall, will have investors and productive people left.
Look at US. It used to be "nice" in a sense that it's capitalistic. However, when China is communist and many other countries are "jerk", US and Western Europe states have an issue. They're the only "nice" states in the world.
Hence, prosperity only come to western europes, US. There are other prosperous states but they're exception. Things like Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan.
About 50 years ago, most states are evil commies. So the "good guys" are few.
So it raises it's price.
In US 50 years ago, till now, the mere acts of making honest money is punishable by tax to reward welfare parasites that breed and breed and pop babies out of her c*nt faster than Gatling guns spewing bullets.
This while productive individuals were forced to pay 90% income tax rate.
However, now, hope is on the horizon.
With China embracing capitalism too, US cannot oppress entrepreneurs and productive elements in society too. Raise minimum wage, and factories move to China. Increase income taxes and companies incorporate in Liechesten or Seyschelles or Vanuatu or Belize.
Finally Donald Trump did the honorable thing. He lowered corporate tax rate so US can be competitive against China.
Yay..........
The productive gets richer and richer.
Democracy is nice and all.
However, if we truly want freedom, we should be grateful, to the one thing that give us freedom.
Competition among states.
The next step will be obvious. Why don't we split big states into smaller and smaller competing states? The central government can just regulate trade and prevent those states from waging war against one another?
Well, it's tried.
A country did that and is very rich and prosperous. United States. It has it's flaws. But I think that can be fixed easily. That'll be next topic.
