RE: Government as a Service; A new perspective on Governments and taking the best of the two worlds of Anarchy and Minarchy
Your perspective is interesting and unique, but I find it hard to reconcile one concept that I think is fairly fundamental to the rest of the theory:
How can the State-as-Justice-Provider be an ״opt-in only״ system while also ensuring there is a system to assist the poor?
In other words, if the various “states” are never organizations that violate the NAP for their funding (which i think would take them outside the definition of what a State “is” and basically put them into the “private security organization” category) then what mechanism ensures that poor people have what to rely on for their own Justice.
But, if these “states” start to tax people by collecting funds by violating the NAP, then what makes them different in any way from regular old crappy States today?
I happen to fall into the category that believes, similar to the conclusions—if not fully the methods—of David D. Friedman, that the poor would actually be much better off in a system with private security (and private polycentric law and private everything else).
But I’m just not sure that a non NAP violating organization offering legal adjudication or the package of services that today fall under the concept of “justice” or “law” could be considered “States.” Or, if organizations that offer “law and Justice” services end up violating the NAP by attempting to collect taxes or in any other way, then I’m not sure how that is any different then what we live in today.
Think of an exchange like Binance. They charge a flat percentage from everybody who choose to take part in their exchange and everybody there receives the exact set of features and security. Nobody gets a better or worse service than the other. When you engage in an action of buying and selling you are charged a percentage to fund the operations.
A person who benefit more from the system is bound to end up paying more in exchange fees (Pretty much Value Subtracted Tax or something like credit card fees) But the basic security and peace of mind will be same for everybody.
This is what I mean by state as service. Private security needs people who can afford it just like cryptocurrencies need people buying it. But steemit gives a bit of free STEEM to everybody who sign up allowing them to start from scratch with zero investment. This has obviously been greatly beneficial to the platform.
It's not a violation of NAP when an exchange or a credit card charge you a percentage. You can choose to use or not use.
When it comes to helping the poor, my philosophy is feed them for a week and leave them to die. You can't think on an empty stomach and it's fine if you are broke. If you can't think when its full, then you can't think at all. Those who could think but was on an empty stomach would rise up and the rest who cannot think will die after the first week.
It's pretty much what steemit is doing.
This is great because really, there are no “taxes” in the sense of the word as it’s used today. The taxes are just fees charged by the “Justice and law” service providers which any person can choose to opt into or opt out of at any given time.
Calling these organizations “States”, I think, is a kind of semantic misfire, but it could have some value in convincing minarchist, libertarians, Georgists, etc...to come on board with the plan.
It really isn’t much different than the private security company model except it would necessarily add in a few more layers on top of those companies and around them (law and justice providers, security insurance providers, law and Justice insurance providers, etc...)
The great thing is that this would be just one very cool way to structure part of a stateless society, and lots of people would choose to live this way, yet lots of others would choose to live differently, which would all be possibl because there’s no State wannabes being allowed to acquire enough legitimacy and power and wealth to becom actual States.