Twelve Visions World

How To Fund Government In A Completely Free Society
By Michael Dilworth, August 2008

These are not concrete answers or the official position of the Twelve Visions Party. They are ideas to build on. From this point it is impossible to determine exactly how it will be paid for in the Twelve Visions World. The point of this presentation is to give ideas and eliminate false ones.

First we need to define what government is: An entity that has the responsibility to make and enforce laws for a geographical location.

Government’s only valid purpose is protection of its citizens. Government is to protect every individual human being equally. When you live in a society with a government like this you live in a completely free society.

What protection entails exactly is creation of laws, enforcement of laws, punishment for violating laws and military protection. In essence government can only protect the individual from other human beings who are initiating force. Government is our agent for protection and self defense.

Government will provide a service of protection. However, it is not a service like we have in the marketplace; it is not a service like we generally think of the service. In a proper society government can not only provide the service of protection to those individuals who pay for it. Every individual should pay for it, it’s like paying for insurance, but they don’t have to pay for it and can’t be forced to pay for it. Even though they’re not forced to pay for it most will recognize the need for it and will voluntarily pay, just like insurance.

Since individuals do not have to pay for the service, that means there’s a chance that there will be people who will not pay for no matter how much they should. If government did not protect these people and only protected those who pay there would be a chance that people would take the duty of protection and self defense on themselves, which would have disastrous consequences. It is OK for a person to take measures to protect themselves from imminent threat of injury or death but everything else has to be left to the government. In a proper society there has to be order and those who have the responsibility of protection must operate by the rule of law. There has to be due process, predetermined laws, predetermined means of proof that a crime was committed, predetermined appropriate punishment and means of enforcement. Law cannot be left to the whim of man! As we know, man is inherently subject to misjudgment, prejudice and generally flaw filled. The same reason that we have for the Prime Law and the TVP contract is the reason protection must be the government’s responsibility. If we did not have due process then the rights of the individual would be violated even if the individual is guilty of a crime. Equal protection is important; this fact is implied in the Prime Law. Government has to be our agent of self defense and protection to ensure that.

I’ve heard people say and even had this idea myself before I knew better, that it would be like hiring Brinks or some other security agency. You pay for service and they provided it to you. This is not completely the right idea. Of course government can hire private contractors to carry out their business, but the responsibility and must lie on the shoulders of the government that operates by the rule of law and it’s authority given by the citizens. Only government can do that appropriately. By definition government is responsible for making law, so even if government is a hired service it would still be government, but keep it in mind it’s not a government or service provider like we know them today.

OK, so now we know government has to be responsible for our protection and every citizen gets equal service no matter if they paid for it or not. Government cannot force anybody to pay for anything and they cannot impose a tax without violating the Prime Law.

If people have the choice to pay for government service how would government get the revenue needed to function? This is a very good question and it has a complicated answer. As I said earlier is no way to determine exactly how we will fund government until we have a completely free society.

Would government just collect the revenue it needed by people voluntarily paying for at their discretion, by those people who feel obligated because it’s the right thing to do, like a charity. No, that would be too erratic and whimsical, there would be no way to budget or determine how much revenue would be collected at any given time.

One way to raise funds is a way that we already have in place to some degree; the lottery. I mean state sanctioned lottery. This idea is viable because of the fact that people are going to gamble whether it’s legal or not, whether it’s ethical or not. That is in fact the main reason that we have state lotteries today. Government came to the realization that they cannot stop gambling, so since they couldn’t beat them, they joined them. They give people who are going to gamble the choice to do it respectably by using the money raised for government functions. In a free society there’ll be no control of gambling, but the idea of raising revenue by a lottery is still valid.

Lottery isn’t a perfect plan but it is a way to raise some revenue. The main problem with a lottery being the sole means is that it would mean government is endorsing irresponsible use of money. That would be people using money in a way that doesn’t promote value production and creation not to mention that it would require a huge sum of money going through the system and an incredible amount of gaming options. Yes, lottery is a way but it is not perfect we still need another way to properly fund government.

So what is a way to properly fund government? Some people, even people in the Twelve Visions Party, believe that a sales tax would be a way to replace compulsory taxes. They say that the fact that nobody is ever forced to buy anything and they make the decision to purchase things by choice. They have a choice to spend whatever amount of money they wish and when. People have the choice to buy items they want whether it’s a luxury item or a common item. So it isn’t force.

Yes, this form of tax is probably the fairest method of taxation because people buy goods and spend money on goods proportionate to their income which would eliminate the tax gap and other reasons. Everyone would indeed pay a fair amount which is why it’s called the “Fair Tax”. Yes, this idea is already been c conceived and there is a movement trying to implement this form of taxation to replace all forms of taxation that are collected by force such as the income tax or property tax etc. The organization I’m talking about can be found on the web. http://www.fairtax.org

I’ve checked out that web site and the proposal and didn’t see anything that has impressed me. Actually most of it doesn’t really make sense when looking at it from a Twelve Visions World perspective. There’s things such as a prebate determined my income level, a 23 to 30% additional tax on top of the state and local sales tax, taxation of all goods including groceries medicine and other necessities. Also, what they’re proposing is all based on the budget of today’s government. In the Twelve Visions World, when we do have a completely free society where governments only function is protection, the budget would be nearly half of what today’s budget is which would mean an 11 to 15% sales tax which is more reasonable, but it’s still a tax.

Either the “Fair Tax” or any sales tax is still a tax. It is a tax that is still imposed by force. Yes, it is imposed by force still even though people have the choice to spend what they wish when they wish and on what. It is still forceful because the fact that man in today’s society has to purchase goods and services to survive. We live in advanced society with a division of labor that allows individuals to work on a focused production and creation of specific goods and services. People create and produce values for other men and then sell their goods and services by use of a monetary system. With the money that people make they go and buy goods and services from other men. This is what we call capitalism. When those goods and services are traded by the use of money is when the sales tax would be imposed. Since man doesn’t produce and create the things needed for mere survival himself solely, that in essence means he has to buy those things from other men. That means that buying goods and services is required, taking away the choice to buy goods to an extent, so a sales tax on that is a tax imposed by force. To say that man doesn’t have to buy things is saying that man should produce everything needed to survive himself. That’s not a civilized concept. The division of labor is what makes things advance because it supports creation and higher productivity, so the “Fair Tax” is out the door in the Twelve Visions World.

One idea that was conceptualized by Ayn Rand in 1964 and can be found in her book titled the “Virtue of Selfishness”. That is raising revenue from a function of government that is given by right today with the Seventh Amendment. The right to settle civil disputes in a court of common law. She proposed charging a fee for that service to the people who use it instead of compulsorily by taxes paid by everyone. A fee would be collected beforehand like insurance for the ability to have a contract dispute heard in a court. Whenever a contract is created the people in the contract would pay a fee that is a percentage of the total value of the contract. Most of the time there’ll be no need for the service but the service will be there when it’s needed just like insurance is. The service will not be available unless the contract was bonded when created.

This is a good idea, because the Seventh Amendment as it is now violates the Prime Law because it is using tax money to fund functions that are not in the interests of every individual. Yes the ability to have disputes heard in a court of law is needed and government is the only entity that can do it properly. However, having it as a service by right paid for by taxpayer’s sums up to being a subsidy to businesses because businesses are the ones who use this service most of all. This service needs to be in place because of the Prime Law because it is the means to protect the integrity of contracts, but it shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be a right. Instead it should be a right to have the choice to use this function of government by paying for it on an individual basis.

People will still have the choice to use the service or not, but in most situations it will be in the best interest to pay for it, just in case. There will be no penalty for choosing not to use the service. The only circumstance of not paying the fee would be that the contract would not be enforceable in a court of law.

The percentage of the fees will be determined as needed by the government that functions like a business. The rate can be lowered in times of surplus revenue and raised in times of need such as time war. The government will be just like any business because it will have to justify the rates and if they fail to provide the best service for the lowest cost an alternative will replace them. Keep in mind the new structure of government that Mark Hamilton has theorized. Everything will be accountable.

The amount of revenue collected by this mean should be plenty because of the sheer number of contracts and amount of money involved in contracts. Our economy and financial transactions are mostly in terms of credit. Credit, meaning the payment for goods and services over a period of time. Every time there’s a credit transaction, that is a contract, so there is a lot of contracts going around and there’s a lot of interest in protecting those contracts. People will gladly pay for the service which will be very reasonable in cost because of the sheer number of contracts out there and the minimal amount of money needed to fund government when it’s ran like a business, very efficiently, and doesn’t have anything other than protection incorporated into it.

Another thing that will make this idea fair is that people who have larger amounts of money and contracts have more of an interest in protecting themselves and protecting their country because they have more to lose, so they will gladly pay more. Almost all of us will pay these fees either directly or indirectly because credit and contracts do have such a great role in our economy and marketplace, so technically we will all be paying for government, but not by means force imposed on us.

Like I said earlier there’s no way to tell exactly how to fund government when we will live in a free society because there’s so much change from where we’re at now needed for that to be the case, but these are some ideas to build on. When considering methods to fund government we have to keep in mind the Prime Law and how it incorporates into every situation. It’s like the sales tax (Fair Tax), it seems fair and isn’t directly force, but in essence it is force. And also, the Seventh Amendment, it can view interpreted as a protection function, but if you think about it and look at it objectively the way it is now, it is a subsidy because it’s not in every individual’s interest, it’s in the interest of the businesses that use it. Every other function of government as a protector other than that is in the interests of every individual, if someone tried to argue that then that person doesn’t deserve to live in a society with other men. To be a civilization means to care about the safety of every individual because of the value that every individual has to offer to other men, which is the prime reason to live together in a civilization.

I will be presenting more on this topic and ones like it in the future, one being the transition of government provided services we have now to the private sector. That presentation will explain how it will happen smoothly and be much better for us. Another presentation I’m working on is free trade and why it should be completely free, how it affects our economy and livelihoods.

-Michael Dilworth

Why not just advise the public that protection costs and the quality of that protection will only be provided on the basis of the voluntary contribution and the budget that contribution dictates?