How would opt-in government work?
Political, Economics ·Sunday January 30, 2011 @ 15:22 EST (link)
If people could decide what government services they wanted to buy (and what they wished to forgo, up to all of it and never dealing with the state except possibly when they deal with others that do so), how would it work?
You would need two passes: first you need to figure out how much people will pay for a given service. In pass one, you need to present the service and find out which people in the area of interest will pay and how much. In the second, you need to find a price point at which you will provide the service: anyone willing to pay less doesn't get it; they can possibly offer to pay the price point, wait until the next offering, do without, or buy it elsewhere. Those that are willing to pay at least the price point pay that point, and get the service. Why don't you need two passes with current private service providers? Two reasons: because they grow organically (starting with little capital and clientele) and/or because they know in advance (based on similar demographics from other areas) what their customer base will be, so can plan their services along those lines. But switching to opt-in requires doing quickly what businesses do over time. Another solution of course would just to auction everything (building and supplies) off and start from scratch, but this seems like a more painful transition.
However, this plan has a few implicit assumptions which effectively has already reduced the system to anarchy (in the sense of statelessness, not chaos), following Roy A. Childs' argument in his open letter to Ayn Rand. That is, we have assumed that (1) the state can no longer violently exclude competition—there are no more forced monopolies; you can buy police service from whomever you want. (2) Taxation—forced taking—is no longer used to fund anything. These two requirements are the same as that which Childs latched on to in his letter: if you don't forcefully exclude competition, and you don't force payment, then you don't have a state. Effectively, all the "government services" people would be buying into would just be the legacy providers, competing against a host of businesses that, no longer excluded by force and competing against subsidies extracted by force, can go head to head on merit. (Do brick-and-mortar libraries need to exist? Perhaps not when they're unsubsidized and e-versions are much cheaper.)
The "margins" are interesting too just because of the implications. Can a government cop from a department that you don't contract with pull you over for speeding? No, because you've caused no harm and not consented. Can they arrest you for murder? It depends. Acting as an agent of the victim or their heirs, they could, but if wrong any violent acts they did to bring you in would be initiatory rather than "postponed defensive" (restorational) violence and they would be liable for it just like any assault or battery.
So if anyone agrees with an opt-in state, congratulations: you're a fan of the stateless society. Welcome to voluntaryism!
