where votes are adjusted according to the taxes you pay?
Those in the uppermost house could be only voted by those in the 40% bracket.
Those in second uppermost could only be voted by those in the 30% bracket.
Those in the third uppermost house could only be voted by those in the 20% bracket.
And those in the last house can be voted in by those who don't pay taxes.
Assuming only income tax is levied.
From top most house to bottom, the weight of every vote could be in 4:3:2:1 ratio, having equal number of seats in each of the houses.
What do you think? Would it prevent the problem of debtors being able to outvote creditors because debtors outnumber creditors? Would it prevent the situation of tax receivers (public sector workers) outnumbering tax payers (private sector workers) and a Greece like situation?
Why have a government at all?
If we're taking government as granted (i.e. not considering the possibility of a natural order society), then I think the least-bad alternative is fully-privatized government titles which can be bought and sold. Basically, take the idea of European titles to nobility but allow these to be bought and sold by anyone (no class restrictions). When Vanderbilt has built his railroad and shipping empire and is wondering what to do with all his spare cash in his old age, he can go into the market for titles and buy an "earldom" or whatever. This entitles him to collect the tax revenues in the territory over which his title ranges and pay those up the hierarchy, with the king or whoever sitting atop.
And the "ideal taxation" as I've explained in another post would be fully random:
Flat, wealth tax performed in the manner of a lottery. Basically, the government draws a bunch of names from a hat. Then, the government raids the properties of the hapless victims whose names it drew from the hat and takes X% of all the wealth they can find. No penalties for tax evasion, so it would be catch-as-catch-can. Most citizens would not have to pay taxes most of the time. This would be a massive boost to the economy since the economic distortions created by taxation are probably more costly to the economy than the actual revenues lost. If the government starts getting too greedy, people will take more pains to hide their wealth better, reducing the government's effective revenues. It's not a pretty system, but it's at least honest about what taxation is and it would manage to free most economic activity from taxation most of the time. Because of the random nature of taxation, there would be no systematic effect on the economy so being a victim of taxation would be more like suffering a natural disaster or random criminal violence than central-planning.
Most citizens would not have to pay taxes most of the time. This would be a massive boost to the economy since the economic distortions created by taxation are probably more costly to the economy than the actual revenues lost. If the government starts getting too greedy, people will take more pains to hide their wealth better, reducing the government's effective revenues.
It's not a pretty system, but it's at least honest about what taxation is and it would manage to free most economic activity from taxation most of the time. Because of the random nature of taxation, there would be no systematic effect on the economy so being a victim of taxation would be more like suffering a natural disaster or random criminal violence than central-planning.
So, if we must have government, let us at least have government that minimizes the harm to the individual citizen. Titles which can be bought and sold combined with a lottery-tax would come as close as anything can to accomplishing this under a system of dual-law.
Clayton -
If we're taking government as granted
How about government based on a consensus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrent_majority John C. Calhoun was on to something. He based his theory on the Poland-Lithuania commonwealth which survived for hundreds of years, only to be undone by coordinated political attacks from 3 of the most powerful states in Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth The most common complaint is that "nothing would get done" or "it would be total gridlock Man" but in my opinion that would be a good thing.
Why not adjust votes based on much capital you put in, like a corporation?
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Timocracy and Plutocracy certainly have advantages in stability over direct or representative democracy, but you are going to end up with people voting for the wealthiest to keep and increase their holdings through interventionism.
How about government based on a consensus.
Well, I think that any government in a natural order society must be of this form. But that's exactly the problem - people tolerate the existence of governments and government-by-consensus is inefficient at exploiting people's toleration for government. Hence, forms of government which are more efficient at exploiting the tolerance of the masses for the existence of a government can extract more revenues from their subject populations, make war, and eliminate governments in surrounding territories that are more conscious of the rights of their subjects.
The root problem, of course, is that people will tolerate government. However, nothing can be done to change this beyond spreading the word that the supposed 'need' for government is a superstition and hoping it catches on.
In the meantime, we should prefer government which minimizes the amount, extent and number of privileges and privileged individuals to the greatest degree possible. That is, since the defining attribute of government is the existence and maintenance of a moral/legal double-standard between individuals of equal standing, we should prefer that this double-standard be minimized. The best way to do this is to privatize the power of governance since retention of the proceeds of governance relies on the same legal theory as the retention of any property, except that the proceeds of governance were originally expropriated. So, in the act of expropriating, the government acts by a dual-law ... but since those enjoying the government privilege retain the proceeds of the expropriation by virtue of private property protections, the law will in all other ways enforce a unitary law.
If we take the states as a necessity, than whichever commonwealth allows every village to secede is good. Competition between said villages and cities would gibe us the ‘best’ political system. I myself would say that it would turn out to be either an elective monarchy or something along the lines of your idea, but with general vote weighted by how much taxes (VAT taxes are good for many reasons) you paid since the last elections. Of course one could also sell his votes to someone else, and voting would be open. This could work bearably well I think. But again, that is if we say we need a state at all.
I prefer a parliamentary republic to any other form of statist bullshit, but i think that monarchy isn't that bad. Check out this video I did on the idea of libertarian monarchism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWs5ozU7owc
That said, ABOLISH THE STATE.
Prateek Sanjay:What do you think? Would it prevent the problem of debtors being able to outvote creditors because debtors outnumber creditors? Would it prevent the situation of tax receivers (public sector workers) outnumbering tax payers (private sector workers) and a Greece like situation?
What makes you think debtors outvote creditors now?
I don't see how it would prevent the situation of tax receivers outnumbering tax payers. Like Edmund Carlyle said, the wealthy will simply vote for political controls that allow them to keep the existing values of their assets.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
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