h a l f b a k e r yMagical moments of mediocrity.
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The United States of America, as may be inferred from
the
name, is a collection of individual states in which there
is a
degree of governmental autonomy. Some states collect
lots
of tax, some less, some let you do some things, some
don't.
You may wish to live, for example, in Colorado.
However
your job is in Philadelphia, and as such you are faced
with
either an impractical commute or a job hunt. Now, what
if
states were allowed to franchise themselves. For
example,
a county in say, Pennsylvania, could elect to become a
franchise of Colorado. They would be subject to
Colorado
laws and taxation. As such the former Pennsylvanians
could
enjoy the sheer unadulterated liberty of buying a bottle
of
wine, a case of beer and some tonic water in fewer than
three stores. Hell, even in one store.
Eventually, popular state franchises may start to fill up,
driving up tax revenue, and encouraging neighboring
counties to start thinking about their own franchise
status.
Conversely, a state that starts losing territory may think
about sorting out the more ludicrous of its laws before it
finds itself erased from the map.
Other folks think like this also...
http://www.antipope...-question.html#more
[normzone, Sep 10 2014]
Our current system is nearly 400 years old...
http://en.wikipedia...phalian_sovereignty
[normzone, Sep 10 2014]
[link]
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Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, courtesy of Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash. |
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Taxation would be interesting. |
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Not really, Federal and state taxes are already separate.
People routinely work and live in different states and file
returns for both. The biggest problem would be a critical
mass. You'd have to have enough people that it'd be worth
administrating. |
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When are you people going to gather your 50 asses
together and become a real country? |
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Actually, it goes a lot further than [bs]
suggests ... |
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"The service provider model as a sucessor to
the nation state" ... |
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What is a government, after all ? It's a service
provider operating in a
fixed geographic area. |
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If you live in, say, Freedonia, you pay taxes to
the Freedonian
government. In return, you're supposed to
get, at a minimum, external
and internal security, i.e. the state protects
its own existence; if it
ceases to do this, it ceases to be an effective
state. Things like roads,
education, healthcare and drains are tacked
on the back end. |
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But the question remains; in a connected
world with free moverment
of goods, services and people, the nation
state in its fixed area
becomes an anachronism. |
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Effectively, this is the logical extension of
cellular phone roaming. You
pay a monthly fee to your cellular service
provider, and wherever you
go, you can access cellular services. |
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When you're in a "foreign" country, you get
"consular help" from your
homeland, but the point-of-use services are
provided by the local
administration. |
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So, instead of paying tax to an organization
tied to a bit of land, what if
you paid a proportion of your income -
probably a large proportion too
- to a service provider who guaranteed that
wherever you were, your
safety, health and welfare would be
protected ? |
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This would have the added advantage of
making conventional warfare
impossible, since currently enemy assets are
location-bounded. When
infrastructure is shared, any attack is self-
defeating, literally. |
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We suggest wise investors should put their
money into Tyrell
Corporation, Umbrella, Omni Consumer
Products, Cyberdyne Systems
and of course Disney. But to hedge your bets,
stock up on "canned foid
and shotguns". |
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Sorry old chap, but your keyboard defaulted to Bronx accent just there. |
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normzone, you beat me to it. And conventional states seem to getting bigger, the UK is part of the EU, Russia etc. |
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This would just intigate a 'race to the bottom', with no states wanting to charge any taxes, etc. for fear of losing voters, and force the federal government to step in and do all the things the franchised states are too scared to do. |
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This is feasible if, say, New Jersey was declared a Native tribe's second reservation. |
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//This would just intigate a 'race to the bottom', with
no states wanting to charge any taxes, etc. for fear of
losing voters// |
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Yes, I think that's the point, and I wholeheartedly
support it. |
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//and force the federal government to step in and do
all the things the franchised states are too scared to
do.// |
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Ah, but they can't, thanks to federalism. It's in the
Constytooshun! |
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Isn't this effectively managed already (after a fashion at least) by having both property tax (paid were you live) & income tax (collected from the employer)? |
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Have to admit to a degree of ignorance on the tax set up your end (haven't read the other anno's either so sorry if already mentioned). |
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Hmm... but it's the commute that bothers you, you want to live same place as work but pay as if you lived where you want to, in that case why bother with this, what your really after is federal control of taxes so everyone pays the same. |
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Umm... no that's not it either, you want them all competing for your tax dollars so they enter a price war leading to falling taxes ;) nice idea. |
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So how are you going to avoid the different states getting together & forming a cartel to fix tax 'prices'? |
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// your keyboard defaulted to Bronx accent /
/ |
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We should have put quotes round it … it's the
'brain Gremlin' … |
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//So how are you going to avoid the different states getting together & forming a cartel to fix tax 'prices'//
Capitalism encourages (or at least is conducive to) cartel behaviour, so the solution is built in, though only it must be said, each state's likely perception of the "problem", rather than each taxpayer's view. |
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//So how are you going to avoid the different states
getting together & forming a cartel to fix tax 'prices'?// |
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There are, quite a lot of states. There are very few
markets with 50 equally placed players. Cartels tend to
form with relatively few players where each member can
quickly detect any other member's departure from the
agreement. Given that states are supposedly run by
elected officials, who are swapped out frequently, and
the fact that there's a lot of them introduces too many
variables for cartel stability. |
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Furthermore, the tax/services ratio is not fixed. States
can effectively offer no services for no taxes. I'm not sure
a cartel could exist where some members don't even
bother selling a product. |
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The barriers to entry to market are sufficiently great (that is, they are total) that this 50-party market could tend cartelwards relatively easily, particularly as public policy has to be public. Changes in personnel at the top politcial level are as unlikely to discourage cartelisation as changes in CEOs and management teams. |
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