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America used to have a system that was almost voluntary taxation. It was called associations. Whenever people wanted to get something done for the community, such as building a library or starting a fire department, they would form an association. The Smallburg Library Assn would go around hat in hand asking for donations, and if people liked the idea and thought it was being reasonably managed they would give a few dollars. Basically, people pay "taxes" voluntarily for individual projects provided 2 basic conditions are met: 1) They agree with the basic need, and 2) the project is being responsibly managed. Those who want a library will donate to the library, those who want a fire department will donate to it. Few will donate to support parasites.
The government subverts this idea by having only one tax pot and paying for all projects out of that one pot. People then have no control where their money goes nor how foolishly it is spent. The politicians control the tax money and use it to buy votes to stay in office. Likewise, since the tax is enforced at gunpoint people cannot control how much they give. You will never see voluntary taxation until the individual people can control how taxes are spent. This means taking control of the tax purse away from politicians.
If you would like to see voluntary taxation, the route is simple in theory; Cut off projects one by one from the tax budget and establish a voluntary association to do the job. Expect to see many projects starve since few people will be willing to support them, at least in their current bloated state. Politically, it probably would be easiest to cut off most projects in a single swipe. Then cut the rest after things stabilize.
I used to live in Merritt Island, FL, and the voluntary method seemed to work well while I was there. The large bustling town was unincorporated and had no mayor or police (shoot your own burglars). I think there was only one traffic light in town, installed by the state road department at the intersection of two state highways. The library existed only on donations, and was forever building larger buildings to house its collection. The fire department was self supporting - the first Sunday of every month they fried and sold more chickens than there were residents in town ($1 for a box of 1/2 chicken and all the goodies - 1960's price). The sewers were privately owned, most builders installed sewer pipes to spec and gave them to the Sewer Co (my trailer park had its own septic processor).
Completely voluntary taxation may or may not be feasible, but it can be approached in a logical manner. What is necessary is to treat government as an experiment and try various approaches. The experiment should NOT be controlled by politicians (that's how we got here!), but by a natural aristocracy (Electorate?) of the people.
Only the limited government needs actual taxes, and even that can be reduced a lot. A Courthouse committee can raise a courthouse, a Jail association can build a jail. What takes big bucks is fat salaries. If you replace salaried people with unpaid volunteers you can cut the need for taxes in a major way.
Suppose the community passed the hat and collected $1000 to give to a homeowner who shot (and killed) a burglar - how many police would be needed that year? (would YOU give your share?) What if the Sheriff was an unpaid honorary office, a director of volunteer posse raised to fight crime? The Judge as well as the Jury could be temporary unpaid help. Would McDonald's volunteer to feed them for the advertising value? Here in Tennessee (the Volunteer State) we see people and companies and clubs volunteer to keep a mile or two of roadway free of litter.
Supporting the military is another matter entirely. Planes and ships are too expensive to support haphazardly. OTOH, the military could be supported by customs duties; it can be argued that customs duties are voluntary since you can avoid them by buying American. The duties are principally collected from corporations.
The major problem in approaching voluntary taxation is reducing the bloated bureaucracy. Large numbers of civil servants soak up not only large salaries but retirement and fringe benefits as well. The best way to get rid of the involuntary taxes required to support these bureaucrats is to transfer their functions out of government to private enterprise. Some functions are easy to transfer; for example park rangers could simply become employees of a park company that pays their salary from admission fees.
Let us look at some functions that seem harder to transfer; prison administration for example would seem difficult to staff with volunteers. Justice requires courts, and courts require a penal system to have teeth. The problem is the huge amount of $$ that the penal system costs for each prisoner; it looks a lot like welfare in terms of costs and benefits. If we are ever to approach voluntary taxation a way must be found to administer "jail" that is inexpensive or preferably profit generating.
It is easier to solve this problem if we logically break it down into smaller parts. Convicted criminals can be violent or non-violent, and they can be convicted beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt, or beyond any doubt at all.
Non-violent criminals should be made to pay back the damages they caused or stole. Since they are non-violent little security is required, especially if escape comes to be considered a violent crime. Work houses and electronic monitoring should do most of the job, with many white collar criminals supporting themselves in their own home under house arrest.
Clearly, violent criminals convicted beyond any doubt are best executed. Rather than paying for an execution, it would be better to declare the criminal legally dead, and auction the criminal off with the stipulation that he be certified biologically dead within say three months. The buyer could sell off the convict's organs for transplants, or sell raffle tickets to shoot him, or even use him for dangerous work or experiments (or a combination thereof).
Violent criminals need to be put away permanently, but if there is any doubt (even unreasonable doubt) it might be wise to keep them alive but safely separated from society. The reason for this is not out of sympathy for the felons, but as a concession to the human nature of jurors deciding the convict's fate. Doubts seem more reasonable when the penalty is death, and we all know a certain percentage of innocent men will be convicted in any system. The trick is to find a jail that is secure, humane, and costs little or nothing. Imagine a 'reservation' that is virtually escape proof but requires few guards because all escapees are killed by bounty hunters - say $10,000 reward for the dead body of anyone caught off the reservation. The felon's body could be an additional reward or part of the reward. The prisoners would be marked by permanent tattoos or transponders, etc., to make capture quick & identification certain.
With the guard costs reduced, the prisoner would be put to work to (at least) pay for his upkeep. Some reservations could be fairly pleasant factories with attached housing or farms; those requiring extra security would be correspondingly less pleasant; still nothing like the jails we have today. Today's jails teach the staff to be sadists and the inmates to be worse criminals. By making detention permanent and living conditions tolerable (and improvable) there is no incentive to learn more criminal talents.
This improvability of conditions warrants further explanation. Normally the jury would send the convict to a particular 'reservation' depending on the perceived risks and costs, taking into consideration any requests from the convict and his working skills. Once inside the system, the convict might develop new talent (like repairing cars) and request transfer to a different reservation that would reward his talents with better living conditions. If new evidence is ever developed that proves the inmate innocent, he has suffered less and has had the chance to develop working skills to boot. The purpose of the penal system should not be to punish but to separate; a secondary objective is to warehouse those prisoners who may eventually be found to have been improperly convicted.
Parole would be eliminated. Petty non violent criminals (like thieves) would be released when they had repaid the victim twice and reimbursed the police & court expenses. Violent criminals (muggers & worse) would be detained for life, or until their work output was no longer sufficient to feed them.
Nick Hull, < [email protected] >
Secretary, Committees of Correspondence
2702 Kimbrell Road, Lenoir City, Tennessee 37772
865-856-6185
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