jkreznar@ininx.com (John E. Kreznar) asks:
Mike Duvos, how I wish I had the time to try to understand how you reconcile these seemingly incompatible sentiments!
How can you achieve ``egalitarian societies with strong social safety nets'' without using ``powerful centralized authority''? As a proponent of ``high taxes'', how can you also favor strong cryptography? Do you doubt that expropriating ``high taxes'' from your neighbor will be made more difficult in a world with strong cryptography? In view of the natural diversity among people, how can you achieve an ``egalitarian society'' without someone who says ``Do What We Say Or We'll Kill You!''?
Excellent questions! I view society as a collection of services provided to individuals. Things like education, housing, medical care, food, legal services, locating appropriate employment, and others. To the extent that these services are provided in an efficient manner at a reasonable price, citizens live well. I also think these services should be provided by the private sector and not by any centralized government. In fact, I think the centralized government should be as small as possible and reduced primarily to ceremonial functions. An egalitarian society can then be achieved by simply not making certain groups of people, like the young, exceptions to the laws which protect everyone else, and giving them equal access to the courts and other social institutions. Egalitarianism should always be approached by providing "equality of opportunity" and never by legislating "equality of result." Taxation should be small, uniform, and applied to transactions and never to the earnings of individuals. Income tax is not necessary to generate revenue and exists primarily to justify government snooping into the private business of citizens and secret police organizations like the IRS. A VAT would do the trick nicely and could be easily built into the DigiCash system of the future. I also favor a small guaranteed annual income which would allow citizens to live just slightly better than they do in prison. Incarceration can never be a deterent if it is a step upward in ones standard of living, something the US seems to have lost sight of. As for strong cryptography, it should be unrestricted and used whenever approprate. If individuals wish to go to the trouble of avoiding taxes setting up secret businesses that encrypt all transactions, more power to them. The small number of people who will bother to do this will not have any real impact on taxation. If taxes are reasonable and the money is used for things that people support, people will be suitably incentivised not to avoid them. Thus strong crypto, egalitarianism, less government, and tolerable taxes can all live happily together in our future. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $