| | "1. It is said that a national lottery was one of the early suggestions from some of the founders of the republic.
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3. Personally, I have no problem with a national lottery. I do not care if gambling is a vice. However, it does put the government into the gaming business."
Far more importantly, for funding a noncoercive government a national lottery simply wouldn't work. I hadn't heard of any founding fathers who proposed it, but know Rand has suggested it in her essay 'Government Financing in a Free Society'. She seemed naive in this suggestion and I don't think she had thought it through.
Many state lotteries operate at <50% payout, taking the remainder to pay for x government program, administration, etc. By comparison, casino slots typically are at 85%-97% payout, and (assuming basic knowledge of the game) most dice or card table games are high 90s. It's not plausible that if casino and other gambling was allowed that there would still be a market for a woefully low paying lottery (or government-run 50% payout slots, etc.). Lotteries are only viable now because states coercively prevent most competing forms of gambling.
"4. Ayn Rand suggested that corporations could pay a fee to have their contracts certified. ... That means that we are not entitled by right to protection via the courts, but must pay for it up front. It would make "handshakes" unenforceable -- and as Alan Greenspan (and later Newt Gingrich) pointed out in touting the ethics of capitalism, much business is done on the telephone, i.e, via "handshake." Further, it would make the government aware of every transaction -- whether or not the deal ever generated a problem requiring adjudication."
I do recall Rand's general idea of funding all (valid) government operations via service fees on contract enforcement. She was on the right track since it is linking funding directly to services. However, her scheme would also have the overhead of supporting police and military in those fees. So again, unless coercion were used to prevent competition (from the private arbiters you enjoy mentioning :) ), the government could easily find few people paying for its justice system. I'd expect most would choose arbiters except in criminal or last-resort (ie. if there is an unresolvable conflict between arbiters) cases.
The specific concerns you mention though are due to an overly restrictive view of how they would have to work. Verbal agreements are not enforceable now if there's a misunderstanding or outright dishonesty. In a 'he said, she said' situation, the courts now cannot reasonably decide - without other written or recorded evidence. I don't see how the service-fee based approach could be held to a higher standard than that.
As for requiring all contracts be filed+certified with the justice system up-front - why? I don't know exactly what best form a minimal service-fee funded justice system could take, but we can certainly be more creative than requiring such a limitation. How about:
- Contract certification (and payment per contract) is required as you say, but instead of the privacy concerns of filing the whole contract upfront, only a hash and digital signature is filed. If a lawsuit arises, then the document must be revealed (matching the hash+signature of course).
- Contracts are created essentially as they are now, without filing, no upfront fees per contract, but essentially an arbitration clause that states the parties will seek and pay for enforcement if a conflict arises, along with a note of what those fees would be based on a government service fee schedule at the time. Payment for enforcement would then only be needed when a lawsuit arises. Presumably in many cases only one party would want to sue, so they'd pay for the enforcement up front (which may be ordered from the other party based on the outcome).
- Contract filing is done with documents or hashes, but on a subscription basis of x documents, y words, etc. per year. Presumably at a discount relative to filing individually, more streamlined if you can plan ahead, etc.
- Contracts are similar to above and payment occurs only on dispute/enforcement, but again a subscription can cover fees for up to expected x suits.
There's surely many other possibilities. I just don't see there being any necessary restriction necessitating pre-filing or creating a privacy concern.
"2. I do find this from objectivisit Amber Pawlik:
Many Objectivists claim that in a "rational" society; all individuals should be allowed to initiate payments to the government of their choosing thus exchanging money for governmental services in a free market transation. This method of voluntary taxation is the arbitrary method. ... Who will determine what the government is? The customers. If the customers want to prohibit drugs, tax the rich, or institutue slavery -- that is what will happen. ... Indeed, arbitrarily paying for the government and free-market anarchism are not merely similar, they are exactly the same. This method is free-market anarchism."
Amber's paragraph simultaneously manages surprising astuteness and naivety. She recognizes that the Objectivist ideal of contractually/voluntarily funded services of a legitimate minimal government is not of significantly different nature than market anarchism. This is insightful given that many Objectivists incorrectly view market anarchism as having some radically different form, requirements, underlying ethics, or tactics of being reached. However, her insight there is unfortunately marred by it being in pursuit of a misguided attack on voluntarily funded government.
If 40% of the population of a society desire some heinous initiation of force - forbidding drugs, robbing the rich or keeping slaves - so badly that they are willing to directly pay for this coercion, then any voluntarily funded minimal government would indeed be terribly unstable. Factional power struggles for control of the government, armed conflict, and either instituting those oppressive policies or revolution or civil war could all be likely. Of course, any government (or government-less system) would be unstable in such a situation, prone to factional struggles, oppressive policies being instituted, or civil war. The real question Amber's scenario blanks out is "Given such a society - how could also giving that minimal government the power of coercive taxation possibly make anything better?"
Fortunately the current world I don't think is bad to that degree, but likely does need more rational people (or at least, fewer dangerously irrational ones) to have much chance of a minimal system not becoming abusive or otherwise breaking down. One factor that Amber-like arguments often tend to ignore gives me some reason to be optimistic: What people say they want does not constitute demand.
Poll the current US population and you'll find about 40% who say they oppose abortion or who support banning drugs (at least those harder than marijuana). In a system where money is collectively taken from their pockets anyway, and money collectively spent on law enforcement of some kind anyway, it costs them individually almost nothing to express that corrupt desire - essentially the effort to vote for the candidate supporting abortion bans or war on drugs. However, consider if they actually had to choose to put their money where their mouth is.
How many people who say they are against murder or theft would be willing to voluntarily pay for law enforcement to combat them? I'd suspect almost all - i.e. that its true demand is very closely related to what people say their preference is. How many people who say they're against abortion or drugs would choose to send the money from their own pocket to enforce such prohibitions? Undoubtedly some, but here I doubt its remotely close to the number of people who claim they support such causes. With a minimal government and voluntary funding making funding more directly and personally linked to spending on law enforcement, real demand in the economic sense would dominate instead of peoples' stated personal preferences. I find this cause for hope, as I do think most people would choose to pay for enforcing good laws, and relatively few for the bad.
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