How would you folks feel about a parliamentary system...

[ClaytonB]

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.

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 -