Interesting ideas but wouldn't work because human nature is what it is. All those 'independent' bodies that you mention would swiftly be corrupted into an additional layer of unaccountable monopolists.
I'm generally bemused that many folks are quick to criticise Big Tech / Oil / Pharma but don't seem to have any problems with Big Ed / Defense / State Department.
It has long been popular to refer to governments (states) as “monopolists” or “monopolies”. True, there is only one of them; the “mono” coming from “monos” (single, alone). But they are not, for the most part, selling anything: the “poly” coming from “pōlein” (to sell). They are, usually, dictating the rules. So “monopolist” doesn’t make etymological sense here. Then what are we to call them? They are single—or are at least overwhelmingly dominant—aggressive rulers or powers. So perhaps “monocratists” is better: with the latter part coming from “kratos” (rule, strength); as also found in “democracy”, for instance. Don’t put an innocent monopoly in the same category as an aggressive monocraty.
An excellent idea! I've never known anyone to advocate regulating government before. There's at least one problem with your proposal: making governments provide restitution to victims of government. That would seem to make innocent taxpayers pay for harm they didn't cause. I'd prefer guilty government agents be held financially responsible. That would give them a stronger incentive to avoid violating the rights of others.
Your opening comment on allowing/encouraging separatism makes me think of Jane Jacobs work in "Cities And The Wealth Of Nations" and "The Question Of Separatism." I personally feel that her ideas were very underrated and that she is often unfairly lumped in with various political movements that don't seem to reflect her reasoning process.
It seems to me like de-federalizing the United States should have bipartisan appeal, yet somehow, it seems hopeless.
It seems like so much of our inability to effect change, like you describe here, on our governments is due to a combination of its size and the lack of competition. I suspect that this is why we see smaller, more independent states constantly outcompeting larger nations on key metrics despite not having the scale or other advantages of large nations. (Thinking about Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, etc.) It isn't that they don't make mistakes, but that affecting change in a smaller state is so much more efficient/effective.
From my biologist perspective, it makes me think of how cells tend to have practical limits based on the rate of signal propagation, and ratio of internal volume to external surface area. Cells across all animals tend toward a pretty specific size range outside of specialized applications (like neurons) because above that size they are unable to effectively respond to signals/maintain equilibrium, and below that size they are too inefficient.
Clearly, nation-states have a fair bit more flexibility in their size than cells do, especially with the help of enhanced signaling technologies. (electronics, internet, wireless signals etc.) Still, I wonder if the large size of many of today's nation states could analogously explain why our modern nations have so much trouble regulating themselves, and are therefore prone to drift and overcorrection.
Jane Jacobs argues in "Cities and the Wealth of Nations" that City systems having their own currency is a critical feedback mechanism that allows a cities economic system to self-regulate. When a city is economically depressed, the currency will fall in value, encouraging exports and mitigating the depression, and when a cell-I mean city-- is growing and the currency is strong it encourages more imports. I am not an economist, so I don't understand that system well (and I may have explained it backwards for all I know) but it does seem like system complexity and system size is an important aspect of system health. The increasingly centralized role of the federal government in the United States governance system would predict trouble if this is true.
>Almost nothing stops governments from negligently killing innocent foreigners. This has to end. For example, governments could be required to prove that any foreigners they kill in military action were in fact hostile combatants. An outside body, not dependent on the government, should weigh this evidence. Any government that fails to meet this burden should be forced to pay millions of dollars of restitution per presumed victim.
Would not work. Take an obvious example. Al Qaeda does the 9/11 attacks, then hides in Taliban controlled Afghanistan. Now obviously Al Qaeda has violated the rules- but good luck ever trying to get them to pay billions in restitution. No, the only reasonable option is to go into Taliban territory and kill Al Qaeda. And you can't just let Al Qaeda hide behind human shields. And even regular civilians who aren't human shields will end up dying, because Al Qaeda does their very best to disguise themselves as civilians. So there'll be significant overlap between the most innocent looking terrorists and the most suspicious looking civilians. Maybe the guy who's scrabbling around in the field outside the outpost at midnight really is a civilian who lost his wallet earlier. But 99.9% it's a terrorist setting an IED, so you take the sniper shot and accept the 1/1000 times that you kill a civilian.
I don’t think this was parody. It *may* be satire, but even so, I think Caplan is correct. Government is inherently monopolistic, abusive, and unregulated. We may have more constraints on government than many here in the US, but they are thin at best.
Adam Smith had the answer - land values reflect the good government of the Sovereign so just collect the rent, provide essential services and leave people alone to get on with their lives - just like a sensible shopping mall owner.
It is part of the reason I think any ethical governance should be run something like Georgism - If the only taxes a government can collect are from land value it creates an effective feedback loop on government economic policy. Maybe there is evidence from this from states like Singapore or Hong Kong who's only government income came from leasing land?
So long as the rent charge is based on the market price of either rent, or more simply land value, the Crown cannot charge more than the land is worth. The market drives the market price (not its economic value) down as the prior rent charge is capitalised into a lower market price - you pay less the more land is subject to a prior charge.
Smith is referring to the lands specifically owned by the crown/state, not land owned by private individuals. You ought to read to the end of that section, where Smith recommends selling the lands owned by the crown and state and using customs duties and excise taxes instead to make money, which are more efficient and more closely tied to the well being of the people. Smith is no Georgist, and certainly is not operating under a model where the state owns all the land it controls and so can rent it out.
That isn't the same thing, however. Smith recommends taxing the value of what people are doing, essentially a VAT or sales type tax, because that sort of tax scales with the quality of government as you say. Smith does not advocate taxing the land itself, and arguably he doesn't believe the government has the right to do so. The problem with land taxes is that they don't necessarily scale with the quality of governance, as many (most) people don't rent their land to other people, and in fact most places don't differentiate between the improved and unimproved aspects of land, e.g. the buildings are owned by the landowner. All such taxation schemes are thus quite arbitrary, relying on imputed values for the majority of assessments. A mall owner has to negotiate rent prices to be in their mall, but governments don't.
No Smith denounces sales taxes and notes the Spanish turnover tax as a cause of the decline of Spain.
As for land value charges unimproved land values are easier to appraise than improved values. Every demolition and re-use of land gives you a benchmark for that area. Australia had been doing it since 1906.
Yes, but it doesn't work because government interprets it; government defines its own limits. One of my pet examples is how illegally obtained evidence is thrown out and the cops and prosecutor are not punished. Why? Because police, prosecutor, and judge are all government employees and protect each other.
The Supreme Court "confirmed" the common law judge-made judicial absolute immunity in 1967, invented qualified immunity for all government employees the same year, and invented prosecutorial absolute immunity in 1976. I was shocked when I found out how recent these are, but they serve the purpose of government defining government and protecting its own.
One of many fantasy fixes I have had is to allow any citizen to challenge a law as defective. Collect a jury of 12 random adults who are covered by the law. Put each in their own room with a pad of paper and a pen and the law in question. No eraser, no pencil, no wastebasket. Tell them to write down what they think the law or regulation does, and whether they think it is constitutional.
If more than one or two cannot agree on what they think the law does, or think it is unconstitutional, throw it out as incomprehensible. No appeals. No lawyers. Just 12 random adults.
And those 12 summaries now define the law. No action taken on behalf of that law can assert it has any other meaning -- not learned lawyers, not judges, not even the legislators who wrote it and debated it and passed it.
Applies to all regulations, executive orders, etc. Every single thing the government wants to do is subject to this review.
In the consciousness of mankind, under the influence of incorrect upbringing and education, there is an imbalance: there are no goals, but there are mechanisms for achieving goals. And the mechanism requires action. Including, like animals, mass, herd action. One wolf howled - everyone picked up. The question "why" is for a select few. Society is programmed to act without a goal. And a person begins to act, and the meaning of his action is not a result, but a reflexive state - or a feeling, or participation, or presence. The absolute majority of the modern population respond to challenges from the outside world and their own body, without even trying to analyze these challenges. They live exclusively based on external factors. They do not have their own aspirations and in all their actions use information received from the outside about what to do and what not to do. They do not have their own motive; any of their motives is borrowed. The source of true happiness is revealed to a person only if he follows the appropriate rules, applies them in life and sees positive results, which motivate him to follow these rules. True norms of behavior are recorded in the memory of Nature and can only be accessed through knowledge. Based on scientific laws and examples from everyday life, it is well understood that we do not live as befits a Reasonable Man, and, intuitively sensing this, we experience anxiety, not knowing and not understanding how to achieve happiness, how to help ourselves and others. To begin with, it is necessary to at least temporarily leave our prejudices and free ourselves from all the false ideas that have accumulated throughout the history of mankind over the past 6 thousand years, since the emergence of the civilization of profit and bandits.
Man differs from plants and animals only by his Special Mind, and the essence of this Mind is the collection, accumulation, analysis of information for further personal intellectual progress! The appearance of a special, human Mind on Earth speaks of the need of Evolution-Nature to have exactly such a Mind. And this means that Homo Sapiens has a MAIN and UNIVERSAL Purpose, like the Meaning of life, and absolutely for all people! This is new Knowledge, and as a consequence. and Skills! Everything else is secondary. In all the troubles, wars and genocides of the world, always and only the government elected by us is responsible, and of course we ourselves. Until people understand that electing power from representatives of organized groups - political parties, is absurd and suicidal, there will be wars, and from time to time, Hitlers, Stalins and Putins will visit us. Humanity is fooled by the idea of imaginary democracy. What kind of democracy is this if power is not elected from the people, and does not belong to the people, but to representatives of organized groups, under the common name of political parties. All parties in the world are created for only one purpose - to seize power in the state, with the purpose of personal enrichment of politicians. There are exceptions, when power is gained by fanatics of an Idee Fixe or Faith in Gods, and blood flows like a river. It seems that the absolute majority of people were born only yesterday and opened their eyes, completely unaware of where they are and why. I cannot understand why people refuse to apply their mind, analysis and logic to what surrounds us, what is familiar and normal to us. People are accustomed to straining their intellect only if personal gain is expected, not realizing that this is a direct path to degradation. Humanity lives incorrectly, not rationally, not sensibly, with incorrect ideas of what is good and what is bad, what is important and what is of secondary importance, people do not know why and for what they live, and therefore happiness is unattainable for them, and the only life is wasted, in the name of false and imaginary priorities and goals.
Out of curiosity, what is your preferred system for electing representatives/human governance? Anarchy is an acceptable answer if you have reasoning behind it, just curious.
Of course, anarchy. In Britain, members of parliament were once polled to find out where money comes from. 7 out of 10 confidently said that it is printed only by governments. Only 1 out of 10 knew that it is mainly private banks that do this, every time they issue a loan. It follows that in a representative democracy, people who know as much about the real world as the voter, or even less, get into parliament. Therefore, the simplest and most rational choice of the country's leadership should be carried out approximately as a jury is selected in the USA, by drawing lots with testing of candidates for cognitive abilities. Other options are possible, the main thing is that representatives of power are not members of organized communities and groups, and are not bound by mutual responsibility, common goals, ideas and their own morality.
No matter how one looks at this kinds of issues--always will content with the problem of who watches the watchers, who guards the guards, who monitors the monitor. How one is to hold government accountable goes back to at least Socrates and Plato. The search continues.
That's what I try with my Chartertopia by having a core government which is literally powerless other than setting policies. It has no enforcement powers. All enforcement, all prosecution, is by private parties. People who want more coercive government can sign up contractually with "associations"and can quit at any time if the association gets abusive. But that's a long story.
Imagine that the only change in the US is that government has no prosecutors. The governments still pass all the laws like now but the only enforcement is from ordinary people.
* Loser pays everything, not just attorney fees -- lost wages, travel, investigation, forensic labs, everything that was spent because of the prosecution.
* If a law is not often enforced, or only enforced sporadically, it is thrown out.
Chartertopia goes a lot further, but that alone would go a long way towards defanging government.
Interesting ideas but wouldn't work because human nature is what it is. All those 'independent' bodies that you mention would swiftly be corrupted into an additional layer of unaccountable monopolists.
Yeah, independence is no tip that moorland, what we want is impartiality. And that is hard to get.
I'm generally bemused that many folks are quick to criticise Big Tech / Oil / Pharma but don't seem to have any problems with Big Ed / Defense / State Department.
Yes, like asking the local Mafia Don to take care of a dispute with a neighbor.
NOT MONOPOLISTS, BUT MONOCRATISTS
“governments … the monopolists par excellence.”
It has long been popular to refer to governments (states) as “monopolists” or “monopolies”. True, there is only one of them; the “mono” coming from “monos” (single, alone). But they are not, for the most part, selling anything: the “poly” coming from “pōlein” (to sell). They are, usually, dictating the rules. So “monopolist” doesn’t make etymological sense here. Then what are we to call them? They are single—or are at least overwhelmingly dominant—aggressive rulers or powers. So perhaps “monocratists” is better: with the latter part coming from “kratos” (rule, strength); as also found in “democracy”, for instance. Don’t put an innocent monopoly in the same category as an aggressive monocraty.
An excellent idea! I've never known anyone to advocate regulating government before. There's at least one problem with your proposal: making governments provide restitution to victims of government. That would seem to make innocent taxpayers pay for harm they didn't cause. I'd prefer guilty government agents be held financially responsible. That would give them a stronger incentive to avoid violating the rights of others.
Your opening comment on allowing/encouraging separatism makes me think of Jane Jacobs work in "Cities And The Wealth Of Nations" and "The Question Of Separatism." I personally feel that her ideas were very underrated and that she is often unfairly lumped in with various political movements that don't seem to reflect her reasoning process.
It seems to me like de-federalizing the United States should have bipartisan appeal, yet somehow, it seems hopeless.
It seems like so much of our inability to effect change, like you describe here, on our governments is due to a combination of its size and the lack of competition. I suspect that this is why we see smaller, more independent states constantly outcompeting larger nations on key metrics despite not having the scale or other advantages of large nations. (Thinking about Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland, etc.) It isn't that they don't make mistakes, but that affecting change in a smaller state is so much more efficient/effective.
From my biologist perspective, it makes me think of how cells tend to have practical limits based on the rate of signal propagation, and ratio of internal volume to external surface area. Cells across all animals tend toward a pretty specific size range outside of specialized applications (like neurons) because above that size they are unable to effectively respond to signals/maintain equilibrium, and below that size they are too inefficient.
Clearly, nation-states have a fair bit more flexibility in their size than cells do, especially with the help of enhanced signaling technologies. (electronics, internet, wireless signals etc.) Still, I wonder if the large size of many of today's nation states could analogously explain why our modern nations have so much trouble regulating themselves, and are therefore prone to drift and overcorrection.
Jane Jacobs argues in "Cities and the Wealth of Nations" that City systems having their own currency is a critical feedback mechanism that allows a cities economic system to self-regulate. When a city is economically depressed, the currency will fall in value, encouraging exports and mitigating the depression, and when a cell-I mean city-- is growing and the currency is strong it encourages more imports. I am not an economist, so I don't understand that system well (and I may have explained it backwards for all I know) but it does seem like system complexity and system size is an important aspect of system health. The increasingly centralized role of the federal government in the United States governance system would predict trouble if this is true.
>Almost nothing stops governments from negligently killing innocent foreigners. This has to end. For example, governments could be required to prove that any foreigners they kill in military action were in fact hostile combatants. An outside body, not dependent on the government, should weigh this evidence. Any government that fails to meet this burden should be forced to pay millions of dollars of restitution per presumed victim.
Would not work. Take an obvious example. Al Qaeda does the 9/11 attacks, then hides in Taliban controlled Afghanistan. Now obviously Al Qaeda has violated the rules- but good luck ever trying to get them to pay billions in restitution. No, the only reasonable option is to go into Taliban territory and kill Al Qaeda. And you can't just let Al Qaeda hide behind human shields. And even regular civilians who aren't human shields will end up dying, because Al Qaeda does their very best to disguise themselves as civilians. So there'll be significant overlap between the most innocent looking terrorists and the most suspicious looking civilians. Maybe the guy who's scrabbling around in the field outside the outpost at midnight really is a civilian who lost his wallet earlier. But 99.9% it's a terrorist setting an IED, so you take the sniper shot and accept the 1/1000 times that you kill a civilian.
Pretty sure this is parody? Love the passive “could be required” language.
I don’t think this was parody. It *may* be satire, but even so, I think Caplan is correct. Government is inherently monopolistic, abusive, and unregulated. We may have more constraints on government than many here in the US, but they are thin at best.
Adam Smith had the answer - land values reflect the good government of the Sovereign so just collect the rent, provide essential services and leave people alone to get on with their lives - just like a sensible shopping mall owner.
It is part of the reason I think any ethical governance should be run something like Georgism - If the only taxes a government can collect are from land value it creates an effective feedback loop on government economic policy. Maybe there is evidence from this from states like Singapore or Hong Kong who's only government income came from leasing land?
Sadly Hong Kong and Singapore have other taxes but much lower than most places and it is collecting land rents which allows low taxes.
Who monitors the "rent collectors"?
So long as the rent charge is based on the market price of either rent, or more simply land value, the Crown cannot charge more than the land is worth. The market drives the market price (not its economic value) down as the prior rent charge is capitalised into a lower market price - you pay less the more land is subject to a prior charge.
Where does Smith give that answer, precisely?
At the start of his discussion of the revenues of the Sovereign he discusses the Own revenues of the Crown.
Ahh I see, thank you.
Smith is referring to the lands specifically owned by the crown/state, not land owned by private individuals. You ought to read to the end of that section, where Smith recommends selling the lands owned by the crown and state and using customs duties and excise taxes instead to make money, which are more efficient and more closely tied to the well being of the people. Smith is no Georgist, and certainly is not operating under a model where the state owns all the land it controls and so can rent it out.
But you can sell and collect a tax (in effect a collection of rent as JS Mill recognised)
That isn't the same thing, however. Smith recommends taxing the value of what people are doing, essentially a VAT or sales type tax, because that sort of tax scales with the quality of government as you say. Smith does not advocate taxing the land itself, and arguably he doesn't believe the government has the right to do so. The problem with land taxes is that they don't necessarily scale with the quality of governance, as many (most) people don't rent their land to other people, and in fact most places don't differentiate between the improved and unimproved aspects of land, e.g. the buildings are owned by the landowner. All such taxation schemes are thus quite arbitrary, relying on imputed values for the majority of assessments. A mall owner has to negotiate rent prices to be in their mall, but governments don't.
No Smith denounces sales taxes and notes the Spanish turnover tax as a cause of the decline of Spain.
As for land value charges unimproved land values are easier to appraise than improved values. Every demolition and re-use of land gives you a benchmark for that area. Australia had been doing it since 1906.
Isn't that exactly what the U.S. Constitution is for? To regulate what the government can do?
Yes, but it doesn't work because government interprets it; government defines its own limits. One of my pet examples is how illegally obtained evidence is thrown out and the cops and prosecutor are not punished. Why? Because police, prosecutor, and judge are all government employees and protect each other.
The Supreme Court "confirmed" the common law judge-made judicial absolute immunity in 1967, invented qualified immunity for all government employees the same year, and invented prosecutorial absolute immunity in 1976. I was shocked when I found out how recent these are, but they serve the purpose of government defining government and protecting its own.
One of many fantasy fixes I have had is to allow any citizen to challenge a law as defective. Collect a jury of 12 random adults who are covered by the law. Put each in their own room with a pad of paper and a pen and the law in question. No eraser, no pencil, no wastebasket. Tell them to write down what they think the law or regulation does, and whether they think it is constitutional.
If more than one or two cannot agree on what they think the law does, or think it is unconstitutional, throw it out as incomprehensible. No appeals. No lawyers. Just 12 random adults.
And those 12 summaries now define the law. No action taken on behalf of that law can assert it has any other meaning -- not learned lawyers, not judges, not even the legislators who wrote it and debated it and passed it.
Applies to all regulations, executive orders, etc. Every single thing the government wants to do is subject to this review.
"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!".
--Andrew Jackson
Nother words, "What causes the words on parchment to leap up and smite the abuser?
In the consciousness of mankind, under the influence of incorrect upbringing and education, there is an imbalance: there are no goals, but there are mechanisms for achieving goals. And the mechanism requires action. Including, like animals, mass, herd action. One wolf howled - everyone picked up. The question "why" is for a select few. Society is programmed to act without a goal. And a person begins to act, and the meaning of his action is not a result, but a reflexive state - or a feeling, or participation, or presence. The absolute majority of the modern population respond to challenges from the outside world and their own body, without even trying to analyze these challenges. They live exclusively based on external factors. They do not have their own aspirations and in all their actions use information received from the outside about what to do and what not to do. They do not have their own motive; any of their motives is borrowed. The source of true happiness is revealed to a person only if he follows the appropriate rules, applies them in life and sees positive results, which motivate him to follow these rules. True norms of behavior are recorded in the memory of Nature and can only be accessed through knowledge. Based on scientific laws and examples from everyday life, it is well understood that we do not live as befits a Reasonable Man, and, intuitively sensing this, we experience anxiety, not knowing and not understanding how to achieve happiness, how to help ourselves and others. To begin with, it is necessary to at least temporarily leave our prejudices and free ourselves from all the false ideas that have accumulated throughout the history of mankind over the past 6 thousand years, since the emergence of the civilization of profit and bandits.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION.
Man differs from plants and animals only by his Special Mind, and the essence of this Mind is the collection, accumulation, analysis of information for further personal intellectual progress! The appearance of a special, human Mind on Earth speaks of the need of Evolution-Nature to have exactly such a Mind. And this means that Homo Sapiens has a MAIN and UNIVERSAL Purpose, like the Meaning of life, and absolutely for all people! This is new Knowledge, and as a consequence. and Skills! Everything else is secondary. In all the troubles, wars and genocides of the world, always and only the government elected by us is responsible, and of course we ourselves. Until people understand that electing power from representatives of organized groups - political parties, is absurd and suicidal, there will be wars, and from time to time, Hitlers, Stalins and Putins will visit us. Humanity is fooled by the idea of imaginary democracy. What kind of democracy is this if power is not elected from the people, and does not belong to the people, but to representatives of organized groups, under the common name of political parties. All parties in the world are created for only one purpose - to seize power in the state, with the purpose of personal enrichment of politicians. There are exceptions, when power is gained by fanatics of an Idee Fixe or Faith in Gods, and blood flows like a river. It seems that the absolute majority of people were born only yesterday and opened their eyes, completely unaware of where they are and why. I cannot understand why people refuse to apply their mind, analysis and logic to what surrounds us, what is familiar and normal to us. People are accustomed to straining their intellect only if personal gain is expected, not realizing that this is a direct path to degradation. Humanity lives incorrectly, not rationally, not sensibly, with incorrect ideas of what is good and what is bad, what is important and what is of secondary importance, people do not know why and for what they live, and therefore happiness is unattainable for them, and the only life is wasted, in the name of false and imaginary priorities and goals.
Out of curiosity, what is your preferred system for electing representatives/human governance? Anarchy is an acceptable answer if you have reasoning behind it, just curious.
Of course, anarchy. In Britain, members of parliament were once polled to find out where money comes from. 7 out of 10 confidently said that it is printed only by governments. Only 1 out of 10 knew that it is mainly private banks that do this, every time they issue a loan. It follows that in a representative democracy, people who know as much about the real world as the voter, or even less, get into parliament. Therefore, the simplest and most rational choice of the country's leadership should be carried out approximately as a jury is selected in the USA, by drawing lots with testing of candidates for cognitive abilities. Other options are possible, the main thing is that representatives of power are not members of organized communities and groups, and are not bound by mutual responsibility, common goals, ideas and their own morality.
No matter how one looks at this kinds of issues--always will content with the problem of who watches the watchers, who guards the guards, who monitors the monitor. How one is to hold government accountable goes back to at least Socrates and Plato. The search continues.
That's what I try with my Chartertopia by having a core government which is literally powerless other than setting policies. It has no enforcement powers. All enforcement, all prosecution, is by private parties. People who want more coercive government can sign up contractually with "associations"and can quit at any time if the association gets abusive. But that's a long story.
Imagine that the only change in the US is that government has no prosecutors. The governments still pass all the laws like now but the only enforcement is from ordinary people.
* Loser pays everything, not just attorney fees -- lost wages, travel, investigation, forensic labs, everything that was spent because of the prosecution.
* If a law is not often enforced, or only enforced sporadically, it is thrown out.
Chartertopia goes a lot further, but that alone would go a long way towards defanging government.