Looking to the Future – Government

The next article in our series ‘Looking to the Future‘ is Government.

Eventually we will reach the stage where we start to become affluent. One of the side effects of that is we start to look around and want a little bit more peace, a little bit more control and we want to help others less fortunate and, of course, we want to leave someone else to take that role so we can sit back and relax. We don’t want a dictator or a baron businessman, we want a government. Now despite what I think about this one, and the last couple actually, even as a Libertarian I do believe that there is a place for a government. A small efficient government that is under our control and working for our benefit.

Structure
In my view we will inevitably create one so we may as well put a structure up now as a pro forma. These are my views;

A Government has few roles;

• Foreign Affairs
• Defence
• Justice System
• Welfare
• Education
• Tax

Foreign Affairs
We need someone to represent us to other countries. This should handle our affairs regarding treaties, our allies and foreigners we want to trade with. They would also represent us in the individual countries and be available to us when we go abroad.

Defence
This is where we have a standing army set up to defend our country from foreign invaders. We need to supply the tools and the training for them to do so and manage and prosecute a war as necessary. Wars are not initiated by the government but only initiated when defined criterion is met. e.g. We are attacked by an enemy. The Army then swings into action led by a trained warrior and the enemy persecuted until other defined criterion is met and the war is finished.

Justice System
This is where there is a Police force set up as per the Peelian principles of Policing to take the load from the ordinary citizen. They are however simply just us doing a job and they still have to conform to the laws of the land. People accused of any crime have to face a jury and if found guilty face the penalty for that crime. The penalty takes into consideration the crime and the guilty person’s history. See proposals in ‘Looking to the Future – Justice‘

Welfare
As we become more affluent we want to help others who are less well off. It is in our nature. Unfortunately over the last 40 years this positive trait has been abused and used for political ends so to prevent this we need to look at the best way to do this. A Citizens Income is one such way. It is sufficient to cover the basic minimum required to live.

Education
To ensure that people have some chance in life we should ensure that everyone has a basic education. This must be funded in the same way as a Citizens Income. Each child’s parents would be given an allowance to spend at the educational facility of their choice. The curriculum being;

• Mathematics
• English
• Language
• Written
• Science
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Biology
• First Aid
• Hygiene
• Basic survival
• Thinking
• Morals
• Ethics
• Logical Thought

As outlined in ‘Looking to the Future – Education‘
Once they hit 16 (or whatever) they are on their own, they can go to work, further education or anything they want but they must fund it themselves. If they have passed all the basic tests before 16 they can leave the education system or go on to further education as they wish.

Tax
Taxes in some form are necessary if we are to fund a foreign service, a standing army, a justice system with jails, police, etc. and an education and welfare capability. However, taxes should not exceed a certain percentage, say 5% (10% max but only if justified). Obviously that depends on the number of people contributing and there will be certain base costs associated with these.

The Government itself
Personally after the last few years I’m of the opinion that the Government itself should have no real power. It should be tightly bound by rules so that the public servants should never be in the position to ignore the will of the people. Government should be run like an ordinary company. It should follow the rules of law and have to have its books audited and in addition the board, the people we have selected, should be replaced often, none serving more than 2 years concurrently. The board will be made up of people selected by us in the same way we would select the board of a major company we have shares in, by votes after they have applied for the job and presented their CVs for our perusal. They should not be allowed to borrow any money under normal circumstances and if they need to, for emergencies, they cannot borrow more in total than they made the last year in taxes. Any surplus will result in a corresponding tax reduction and any debt has to be repaid within two years. If they break these rules they face fines and could even go to jail. In addition there will not be any centrally controlled departments, the departments management will be sub contracted out and contractors replaced if they fail certain criterion. Those criteria are going to be outcomes not checkboxes. The staff being made up of civil servants performing the work we want. They can pay sub contractors for running the jails, they can monitor the SLAs for that service and they can negotiate replacement contractors if the service is not up to scratch or due for renewal.

Accountability
By having to follow the rule of law we should not be in the position where the government is bankrupt or they have too much control. We don’t need any politicians just civil servants to enable our decisions. The board would propose and any major decisions, outside their remit, would be voted on by the owners of the company, us.

All minutes, emails, expenditure, SLAs, contracts and everything should be made available for any citizen to access after a few days and failure to do so will result in warnings followed by dismissal of the guilty staff. The only area excluded from this is the Defence area and even there only in defined areas that would compromise our ability to defend ourselves. So defence plans, spies, patrol routes and tactical information would be protected but not how much we paid for equipment and who supplied it.

This is not a Libertarian policy
I know, as many of you will know this is not a Libertarian proposal. I believe that we will never get a true Libertarian government in, the US nearly managed it, but look at where it is now and nobody, except for die hard Libertarians, really wants a Libertarian government. This is, imo, the nearest they will get and this would only be after a collapse.

Manifesto
Sorry, don’t have one. This is what I would like to see but I doubt it would ever happen and certainly not put in by Western society who now needs to be mollycoddled and protected because they have rights you know. After an event we could put something like this in place but it really needs technology to enable it.

Next up the Future.