Let's start with a small town. The people in the town decides to convert their citizenship into stocks.
Not much change.
One man one vote becomes one man one share, one share one vote.
The small differences are
1. With shares, people don't just get more shares if they produce more children. This solves the main cause of poverty. Poverty happens because welfare parasites keep producing large number of cradle to grave welfare parasites. Parents that produce more than 2 children will have to buy more citizenship share to ensure that their kids have citizenship too. If they can't pay or unlikely to be able to pay after 1 children, government can require them to do some semi permanent contraception till they can.
2. Refugees coming do not get more shares (in democracy, population have voting power. Children of refugee have the same right to vote as children of original citizens. In ancient Rome, only "founders" family can vote. Then the rest can vote. Then all Rome's colonies get Roman citizenship.).
3. Shares can be inherited. It can be bought and sold (perhaps with some restrictions)
4. Rich investors that want to build massive infrastructures can buy more and more shares. So, the small town or provinces can "go IPO". Even very backward and poor country can benefit from well managed investments.
5. Some restrictions on buying and selling stocks may exist. For example, each population must have a minimum of 1 share. The state's decisions must still be approved by at least 30% of the population. Residences that do not like new rules should have ample of time to leave, and so on...
6. We will call our leader CEO, instead of President. The function is the same. Like all CEO, the CEO of the state will worry about increasing valuation of the state and maximizing share holder value.
7. Shares will have valuation. We will have market for citizenship/shares.
8. Like corporations, the state will have strong incentive to produce maximum "value" at the least cost. Is this road worth building? Well, if we build this road, how many people would want to live here? How much would they be willing to pay for residency permit? All those are answerable questions.
9. Residency permit, like shares, can also be bought and sold. If I prefer to live in normal states, I can rent my residency permit to foreigners for extra cash.
Some possible immediate "decisions" by share holders would be
Most governments' benefit will be replaced by standard dividend like in corporation.
Share holders will be obsessed with return of capital (dividend + increased valuation of their share) rather than how the state is run.
Under democracy, when your government is rich, you tend to get the benefit of your country's economic success in the form of "higher wages" in government "created jobs." That means to reap the benefit of your country's economic success you need to stay in the country.
That means a lot of resources are spend by bickering voting blocks to get more share of the pie often at the expense of other voting blocks. Some voters want their country to move toward secularism. Another voters want their countries to be more religious. Most of the debate in democratic countries revolves around that.
Imagine if Microsoft told the shareholders that it will create jobs for every share holder. It doesn't make sense right? It will benefit share holders that are good at programming. The opposition will then demand "affirmative action" to ensure the job goes to them. Microsoft will then have worse programmers because it has to take into account low IQ programmers that are now protected under "anti discriminatory laws".
You got the point. All those are typical problems in democratic countries. Government benefits tend to benefit some people more than the other and the whole politic in democracy is each group of people try to get more benefit at the expense of other citizens. At the end, benefits of each citizen is roughly the same actually. They each can vote once. Most of the benefits go to lying politicians though that keep gaming the system.
In corporations, it's simple. Every share gets the same dividend. Equal share for everyone. Okay, corporations is a bit commie in this regard. You have the same share, why should you get more or less than other share holders? If other share holders, or other people work more, then they get more, but that's usually come as salary instead of more dividend. Is it a good idea to pay workers with dividends than just salary? Well, we got stock options for that. It could be, but that's not the norm in general.
The CEO of Microsoft concentrate on making the "pie" bigger than figuring out how to share the benefit of the pie.
If states/provinces/countries are governed like companies, a share holder does not need to reside in the states/provinces/countries. Anyone that doesn't like the way their states are governed can simply move somewhere else. As long as the states are governed well they will still reap the benefit of those.
Say 90% of the population is secular. Say the state decides that being even more secular will attract more secular investments, like science. That move, if done correctly, will improve the state's valuation in stock market. A religious people in that state can simply move to another place and still enjoy the benefit of increased valuation.
The same way, if 80% of the population is religious, a secular person doesn't have to argue about how wonderful a secular state is. If the state goes toward more religious direction, it may attract investments from arab, again increasing the valuation. That secular person can move somewhere else and still receive the benefit of his well managed state.
It's similar with stocks. You don't need to buy microsoft stocks to enjoy Bill Gates' leadership. If you own microsoft stocks, you will receive the benefit of Bill Gates' leadership in the form of higher stock price whether you use linux, max, or windows.
Customers' interests are protected by buying others' product. The same way, a residence interests are protected by simply moving to other states. In democracy, it's difficult because most benefit of being a citizen of a rich state comes only when the person live in that state. Giving dividend instead of "creating jobs" would eliminate that issue.
The state may have a stake at market price of land in that state.
Well governed states are attractive to investors and people. That will increase land value.
Infrastructure, for example, improves land price. If an infrastructure cost $4 billion and the total land price increase by $6 billion, the whole thing should be done. Usually, the state pays for the infrastructure cost and the land owners enjoy the increased land price. So a decision to spend $4 billion on infrastructure becomes complex even though the "pie" got bigger by $2 billion.
One ways to do this is the company/state will buy an option to buy land at some locked in price. Say the price of a piece of land is $1k in 2018. The state have a right to buy that land for $1.1k for 100 years. Now the state can spend $4 billion on that infrastructure, the land price improved to $6 billion. The land owners, whose land price increase, just buy the option back from the state. $2 billion profit for the state.
Another way would be to simply tax land the way George Hendry suggest. The state spend $4 billion for road, and expect to get extra revenue from land tax. The present value of those extra land tax is expected to be $6 billion.
I can think of many ways. But I think this should be at least tried in the poorest region of the world with sparse population as possible.
Cost of military will decrease
Instead of having it's own Army, the state can just pay for protection from British, or some other powerful countries.
The failure of republic of Minerva is that they're attacked by Tonga, a relatively weak country. If someone want to create another libertarian state, for example, just pay some power to protect the country and that problem would go away. Minerva Reefs - Wikipedia
The british empire has a good history of protecting a group of people well. Qatar used to be a british protectorate and is now a very rich country that doesn't have to "wage war" like the rest of middle east. Hong Kong is a british colony that for years are far more prosperous than other regions in china that is "not colonized".
Most drugs and vice will be taxed for extra revenue
In some democratic regions like California and Colorado, this is actually done. However, in most democratic area, drugs, gambling and prostitution are illegal.
Why?
Simple. Babtist and Mafia combo. People that do not use drugs want it criminalized. People that do not gamble or use drugs have little incentive to get it legalized. People that use it bribe officials. That bribed officials then use religions to trick people to keep drugs a crime.
If the state is governed like corporation, share holders have a strong incentive to legalize and tax drugs and prostitution and gambling rather than prohibiting it. It increases the states' revenue and hence valuation. It increases the shareholders' share.
Those who disagree can simply move to other places and still receive the benefit of the share's dividend. Or they can just sell their citizenship/share and move on.
Those who have a say in the state are those that contribute to it
In corporations, we don't have one man one vote. We have one share one vote. The founder, the CEO, the super programmer, have bigger share than the normal workers. In democracy, every babies born and every refugees have the same number of vote irrelevant of merit.
If countries are governed like corporations, then a person need to contribute something first, or buy shares at market price, before his vote counts.
You do not need to fear that refugees will "change your country". Only immigrants that like your value so much they're willing to pay the market price to get in will join you.
People Coming In Will Share Your Values
There is no one right way to cook noodles. There is no one right operating system. I use windows and android. I don't argue day and night with Mac users.
Those who like android can buy android phone and those who like Mac can buy Mac.
I do not vote in ABC mart or DEF mart. If I do not like the rules in one mart, I buy stuffs from another mart. If I do not like movies in GHI cinema, I wll go to JKL cinema. I don't even care how those marts and cinemas are governed. Yet, as customers, I am de facto king.
Customers are king under capitalism far more than people under democracy. With democracy you got to follow what the majority wants. If the states are like private corporations, you can just move the states you want.
If there is no one right way to cook noodles, why do we insist in one right way to govern countries? Why not just move to the one we like most?
The same with privatized countries/states/cities. Let the cities do it's best to produce environments that best attract productive individuals. Those who do not like it can just go somewhere else. In fact, if the one that go somewhere else is an ex citizen, chance is that person have a share. He could sell those share at increased price.
We are paying those who do not like us to go and we get paid by those wanting to get in. So those who go to the state will tend to have the same values with the states.
Libertarians will go to relatively libertarian states. The muslims go to muslim states. The democratic will go to democratic states. The commies go to commies state. And so on.
We can prevent many mass wars or eliminate poverty in the whole world quickly.
Many people live in extreme poverty. The main cause is mismanaged government. Perhaps, they need investors?
Rich countries or persons can heavily invest in that state and own shares of a state. It's like a very benign colonization. Unlike Gengish Khan that mass murders cities and use forces, the arrangements can be far more consensual.
Rich countries can invest in the private vasal state, and get voting power. When land price increased, they then sell the share to other states.
We can see the better ideologies by comparing results
Which ideology is the most right? Theocracy? Democracy? Capitalism? Libertarianism? Georgianism? Will legalizing drugs cause societies' collapse? Will tolerating gays make societies' collapse? Is diversity good?
If there are many competing states, we can just see the valuation of the shares of those state. It goes up, somethings goes right. If it goes down, then something is wrong. We no longer need to consult scriptures on how to govern well. Just look at what's working.
You know what?
Just like noodles, what's best for a person may not be the best for another. Why not try them all and move to where you like?
Not much change.
One man one vote becomes one man one share, one share one vote.
The small differences are
1. With shares, people don't just get more shares if they produce more children. This solves the main cause of poverty. Poverty happens because welfare parasites keep producing large number of cradle to grave welfare parasites. Parents that produce more than 2 children will have to buy more citizenship share to ensure that their kids have citizenship too. If they can't pay or unlikely to be able to pay after 1 children, government can require them to do some semi permanent contraception till they can.
2. Refugees coming do not get more shares (in democracy, population have voting power. Children of refugee have the same right to vote as children of original citizens. In ancient Rome, only "founders" family can vote. Then the rest can vote. Then all Rome's colonies get Roman citizenship.).
3. Shares can be inherited. It can be bought and sold (perhaps with some restrictions)
4. Rich investors that want to build massive infrastructures can buy more and more shares. So, the small town or provinces can "go IPO". Even very backward and poor country can benefit from well managed investments.
5. Some restrictions on buying and selling stocks may exist. For example, each population must have a minimum of 1 share. The state's decisions must still be approved by at least 30% of the population. Residences that do not like new rules should have ample of time to leave, and so on...
6. We will call our leader CEO, instead of President. The function is the same. Like all CEO, the CEO of the state will worry about increasing valuation of the state and maximizing share holder value.
7. Shares will have valuation. We will have market for citizenship/shares.
8. Like corporations, the state will have strong incentive to produce maximum "value" at the least cost. Is this road worth building? Well, if we build this road, how many people would want to live here? How much would they be willing to pay for residency permit? All those are answerable questions.
9. Residency permit, like shares, can also be bought and sold. If I prefer to live in normal states, I can rent my residency permit to foreigners for extra cash.
Some possible immediate "decisions" by share holders would be
Most governments' benefit will be replaced by standard dividend like in corporation.
Share holders will be obsessed with return of capital (dividend + increased valuation of their share) rather than how the state is run.
Under democracy, when your government is rich, you tend to get the benefit of your country's economic success in the form of "higher wages" in government "created jobs." That means to reap the benefit of your country's economic success you need to stay in the country.
That means a lot of resources are spend by bickering voting blocks to get more share of the pie often at the expense of other voting blocks. Some voters want their country to move toward secularism. Another voters want their countries to be more religious. Most of the debate in democratic countries revolves around that.
Imagine if Microsoft told the shareholders that it will create jobs for every share holder. It doesn't make sense right? It will benefit share holders that are good at programming. The opposition will then demand "affirmative action" to ensure the job goes to them. Microsoft will then have worse programmers because it has to take into account low IQ programmers that are now protected under "anti discriminatory laws".
You got the point. All those are typical problems in democratic countries. Government benefits tend to benefit some people more than the other and the whole politic in democracy is each group of people try to get more benefit at the expense of other citizens. At the end, benefits of each citizen is roughly the same actually. They each can vote once. Most of the benefits go to lying politicians though that keep gaming the system.
In corporations, it's simple. Every share gets the same dividend. Equal share for everyone. Okay, corporations is a bit commie in this regard. You have the same share, why should you get more or less than other share holders? If other share holders, or other people work more, then they get more, but that's usually come as salary instead of more dividend. Is it a good idea to pay workers with dividends than just salary? Well, we got stock options for that. It could be, but that's not the norm in general.
The CEO of Microsoft concentrate on making the "pie" bigger than figuring out how to share the benefit of the pie.
If states/provinces/countries are governed like companies, a share holder does not need to reside in the states/provinces/countries. Anyone that doesn't like the way their states are governed can simply move somewhere else. As long as the states are governed well they will still reap the benefit of those.
Say 90% of the population is secular. Say the state decides that being even more secular will attract more secular investments, like science. That move, if done correctly, will improve the state's valuation in stock market. A religious people in that state can simply move to another place and still enjoy the benefit of increased valuation.
The same way, if 80% of the population is religious, a secular person doesn't have to argue about how wonderful a secular state is. If the state goes toward more religious direction, it may attract investments from arab, again increasing the valuation. That secular person can move somewhere else and still receive the benefit of his well managed state.
It's similar with stocks. You don't need to buy microsoft stocks to enjoy Bill Gates' leadership. If you own microsoft stocks, you will receive the benefit of Bill Gates' leadership in the form of higher stock price whether you use linux, max, or windows.
Customers' interests are protected by buying others' product. The same way, a residence interests are protected by simply moving to other states. In democracy, it's difficult because most benefit of being a citizen of a rich state comes only when the person live in that state. Giving dividend instead of "creating jobs" would eliminate that issue.
The state may have a stake at market price of land in that state.
Well governed states are attractive to investors and people. That will increase land value.
Infrastructure, for example, improves land price. If an infrastructure cost $4 billion and the total land price increase by $6 billion, the whole thing should be done. Usually, the state pays for the infrastructure cost and the land owners enjoy the increased land price. So a decision to spend $4 billion on infrastructure becomes complex even though the "pie" got bigger by $2 billion.
One ways to do this is the company/state will buy an option to buy land at some locked in price. Say the price of a piece of land is $1k in 2018. The state have a right to buy that land for $1.1k for 100 years. Now the state can spend $4 billion on that infrastructure, the land price improved to $6 billion. The land owners, whose land price increase, just buy the option back from the state. $2 billion profit for the state.
Another way would be to simply tax land the way George Hendry suggest. The state spend $4 billion for road, and expect to get extra revenue from land tax. The present value of those extra land tax is expected to be $6 billion.
I can think of many ways. But I think this should be at least tried in the poorest region of the world with sparse population as possible.
Cost of military will decrease
Instead of having it's own Army, the state can just pay for protection from British, or some other powerful countries.
The failure of republic of Minerva is that they're attacked by Tonga, a relatively weak country. If someone want to create another libertarian state, for example, just pay some power to protect the country and that problem would go away. Minerva Reefs - Wikipedia
The british empire has a good history of protecting a group of people well. Qatar used to be a british protectorate and is now a very rich country that doesn't have to "wage war" like the rest of middle east. Hong Kong is a british colony that for years are far more prosperous than other regions in china that is "not colonized".
Most drugs and vice will be taxed for extra revenue
In some democratic regions like California and Colorado, this is actually done. However, in most democratic area, drugs, gambling and prostitution are illegal.
Why?
Simple. Babtist and Mafia combo. People that do not use drugs want it criminalized. People that do not gamble or use drugs have little incentive to get it legalized. People that use it bribe officials. That bribed officials then use religions to trick people to keep drugs a crime.
If the state is governed like corporation, share holders have a strong incentive to legalize and tax drugs and prostitution and gambling rather than prohibiting it. It increases the states' revenue and hence valuation. It increases the shareholders' share.
Those who disagree can simply move to other places and still receive the benefit of the share's dividend. Or they can just sell their citizenship/share and move on.
Those who have a say in the state are those that contribute to it
In corporations, we don't have one man one vote. We have one share one vote. The founder, the CEO, the super programmer, have bigger share than the normal workers. In democracy, every babies born and every refugees have the same number of vote irrelevant of merit.
If countries are governed like corporations, then a person need to contribute something first, or buy shares at market price, before his vote counts.
You do not need to fear that refugees will "change your country". Only immigrants that like your value so much they're willing to pay the market price to get in will join you.
People Coming In Will Share Your Values
There is no one right way to cook noodles. There is no one right operating system. I use windows and android. I don't argue day and night with Mac users.
Those who like android can buy android phone and those who like Mac can buy Mac.
I do not vote in ABC mart or DEF mart. If I do not like the rules in one mart, I buy stuffs from another mart. If I do not like movies in GHI cinema, I wll go to JKL cinema. I don't even care how those marts and cinemas are governed. Yet, as customers, I am de facto king.
Customers are king under capitalism far more than people under democracy. With democracy you got to follow what the majority wants. If the states are like private corporations, you can just move the states you want.
If there is no one right way to cook noodles, why do we insist in one right way to govern countries? Why not just move to the one we like most?
The same with privatized countries/states/cities. Let the cities do it's best to produce environments that best attract productive individuals. Those who do not like it can just go somewhere else. In fact, if the one that go somewhere else is an ex citizen, chance is that person have a share. He could sell those share at increased price.
We are paying those who do not like us to go and we get paid by those wanting to get in. So those who go to the state will tend to have the same values with the states.
Libertarians will go to relatively libertarian states. The muslims go to muslim states. The democratic will go to democratic states. The commies go to commies state. And so on.
We can prevent many mass wars or eliminate poverty in the whole world quickly.
Many people live in extreme poverty. The main cause is mismanaged government. Perhaps, they need investors?
Rich countries or persons can heavily invest in that state and own shares of a state. It's like a very benign colonization. Unlike Gengish Khan that mass murders cities and use forces, the arrangements can be far more consensual.
Rich countries can invest in the private vasal state, and get voting power. When land price increased, they then sell the share to other states.
We can see the better ideologies by comparing results
Which ideology is the most right? Theocracy? Democracy? Capitalism? Libertarianism? Georgianism? Will legalizing drugs cause societies' collapse? Will tolerating gays make societies' collapse? Is diversity good?
If there are many competing states, we can just see the valuation of the shares of those state. It goes up, somethings goes right. If it goes down, then something is wrong. We no longer need to consult scriptures on how to govern well. Just look at what's working.
You know what?
Just like noodles, what's best for a person may not be the best for another. Why not try them all and move to where you like?
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