Best Way to Fund a Minimalist State? How About Charity?

This is something that I've been mulling for a while now and thought it might be something worth discussing. I've usually considered things like tariffs protecting industries vital to national defense to be the best method, but yesterday I had a thought.

I think most people in favor of a minimalist state believe that it's human nature for people to take care of themselves first and then, if they have the resources and inclination, help those they consider most needing. We've seen examples of this in history in places with virtually no government, and we see it all the time today under a bloated high tax state. Is it then out of the question to think that a minimalist state can be funded entirely through the charity of its people? While the officials are still elected through democratic process, funding is determined by vote through people's donations, and if popular opinion of the way government is operating is low, the state is easily reigned in. It's also likely that the state could only wage justified wars, since who donates capital with the intent of it just being destroyed?

I can see a few problems with this, however. With the state actually caring about public opinion, one would expect the level of government propaganda to be very high. But is this any different from a corporation trying to sell a product or service through advertisement? Also, there's the problem of special interests hijacking the government with their money, but that's not really a problem exclusive to charity funded states. At least under a state funded through charity, a special interest would have to spend much, much more money to accomplish their goals, and once they are out of money, so too are they out of influence.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this idea and other ideas for funding a minimalist state.

You assume the existance of a government to be benficial.

The reason that governments have to take the money they want is precisely because they are not beneficial.

JonBostwick:

You assume the existance of a government to be benficial.

 

I'm not really assuming anything other than the existence of a minimalist state. I appreciate your sentiment, but you're off topic.

John Gorman:

JonBostwick:

You assume the existance of a government to be benficial.

 

I'm not really assuming anything other than the existence of a minimalist state. I appreciate your sentiment, but you're off topic.

He's more on a realted tangent than off-topic in challenging the premise of a minimalist government, methinks.

John, the issue is that there aren't many people here who will argue for a minimalist state.  It's actually an oxymoron.  A limited state can't have the ability to grow.  That means that it can't be allowed to interpret the laws (the rules) that keep it from growing.

But a state that can't interpret the law, isn't a state at all.

 John,

Since you are concerned about voluntary funding my first reaction is to ask why not go all the way and advocate voluntary government (i.e., an anarchic or polycentric legal system with private provision of law, judicial services, and security)?

Taxes aren't voluntary. Tariffs aren't voluntary. Indeed, the state itself is not voluntary. So even the seemingly voluntary ways of funding it, like the one you mentioned - charity, aren't really voluntary because the state's subjects aren't allowed a real alternative provider.

However, other "voluntary" ways of funding the state include user-fees and lotteries.

I don't believe any state would subsist on "voluntary" funding for long though.

You might check out Rand's essay "Government Financing in a Free Society" in The Virtue of Selfishness. She too argued that the state should be funded "voluntarily" and suggested a sort of government insurance for private contracts which is essentially a kind of user-fee for the courts. Unfortunately, she thought that fully voluntary financing of the state should be the last reform to make, and unfortunately she had a knee-jerk reaction against the very idea of anarchism and didn't realize that her own natural rights position made the state illegitimate.

liberty student:

A limited state can't have the ability to grow.  That means that it can't be allowed to interpret the laws (the rules) that keep it from growing.

I don't follow this reasoning. Can you please clarify?

 

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

Since you are concerned about voluntary funding my first reaction is to ask why not go all the way and advocate voluntary government (i.e., an anarchic or polycentric legal system with private provision of law, judicial services, and security)?

Taxes aren't voluntary. Tariffs aren't voluntary. Indeed, the state itself is not voluntary. So even the seemingly voluntary ways of funding it, like the one you mentioned - charity, aren't really voluntary because the state's subjects aren't allowed a real alternative provider.

However, other "voluntary" ways of funding the state include user-fees and lotteries.

I don't believe any state would subsist on "voluntary" funding for long though.

You might check out Rand's essay "Government Financing in a Free Society" in The Virtue of Selfishness. She too argued that the state should be funded "voluntarily" and suggested a sort of government insurance for private contracts which is essentially a kind of user-fee for the courts. Unfortunately, she thought that fully voluntary financing of the state should be the last reform to make, and unfortunately she had a knee-jerk reaction against the very idea of anarchism and didn't realize that her own natural rights position made the state illegitimate.

First, let me thank you for recommending the article. I've read Rand's fiction but wasn't comfortable with her premise of human nature, so I didn't read anything else.

Let me preface by saying that I'm as skeptical of the state as I think most of you are. However, I do think that there are services that can be provided by government adequately enough to foster full production and individual liberty--so much as it exists under the state (which I think herein is where you all understandably take issue). And I would define a minimalist state as providing only these services, although in my original post I was allowing for the fact that the state could reach beyond these limits.

 

With that said, it was never my intention to discuss this, as my interest was on funding. If there isn't a market here for this discussion, then let's end it here. You've all made your point clear.

John Gorman:

liberty student:

A limited state can't have the ability to grow.  That means that it can't be allowed to interpret the laws (the rules) that keep it from growing.

I don't follow this reasoning. Can you please clarify?

I'm not quite sure what he means there myself. Anarchists here tend to see the idea of limited government as utopian because no limited government will remain limited for long. The state by its very nature inevitably grows into Leviathan (if it isn't overthrown from without or within first). I think what he might be saying is that the state to remain limited would have to be prevented from interpreting its own constitution and judging cases in which it itself is a plaintiff or defendant. But any form of government so structured wouldn't count as a state; we'd have an anarchic society. Part of the problem with the state is that it itself interprets the very rules that are supposed to limit it. Another part of the problem with the state is that although its alleged legitimacy rests in part on the very real need to have an unbiased third party deciding disputes, a monopoly 3rd party cannot possibly be unbiased because it will inevitably have to decide cases in which it is involved as a plaintiff or defendant. People shouldn't decide their own cases, but the state always does. To have an unbiased third party arbitrator you need anarchy (a polycentric legal order).

John Gorman:

With that said, it was never my intention to discuss this, as my interest was on funding. If there isn't a market here for this discussion, then let's end it here. You've all made your point clear.

I wouldn't give up just yet. I think there are still minarchists on the forum. They might be interested in discussing this issue with you. We anarchists probably won't be. Beyond what I've already written, I'm not. I'm more interested in figuring out what would take shape in a anarchic polycentric legal order. So, for all the anarchists, let's please not derail the thread into a discussion about the legitimacy of the state. Keep that in a separate thread and let this one be about what the OP wanted it to be about. If you're not interested in discussing "voluntary" financing of a state, then just ignore the thread.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

I think what he might be saying is that the state to remain limited would have to be prevented from interpreting its own constitution and judging cases in which it itself is a plaintiff or defendant. But any form of government so structured wouldn't count as a state; we'd have an anarchic society. Part of the problem with the state is that it itself interprets the very rules that are supposed to limit it. Another part of the problem with the state is that although its alleged legitimacy rests in part on the very real need to have an unbiased third party deciding disputes, a monopoly 3rd party cannot possibly be unbiased because it will inevitably have to decide cases in which it is involved as a plaintiff or defendant.

Yes, this.

John, sorry about taking your thread off topic.  I was for a minimalist state at one time, but once I figured out that the only way to fund it is by tax and coercion, then despite the fact I didn't know how the services the government provided could be obtained in the free market, I realized that the institution of government doesn't promote liberty if it has to steal from the very people it is supposed to be defending.

 

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

I'm not quite sure what he means there myself. Anarchists here tend to see the idea of limited government as utopian because no limited government will remain limited for long. The state by its very nature inevitably grows into Leviathan (if it isn't overthrown from without or within first). I think what he might be saying is that the state to remain limited would have to be prevented from interpreting its own constitution and judging cases in which it itself is a plaintiff or defendant.

That's a selfdefeating statement. In that case anarchy is utopian, because no anarchy would/did stay without a government, dictactor for long. The burden of proof is on the anarchists to show that it will be otherwise. 

For future reference: all mentions of the state, minimal or otherwise, are heresy in this forum and will elicit non-responses denouncing the state.

Anyway, I played around with the idea of a minimal state being funded through land rentals. Not in the Georgist/geoist sense that the state would own all land, but merely rent the land it already owns. Since states already own large tracts of land, the income might be enough to fund a minarchy. But obviously I haven't done the math on that.

You might want to finish reading his post, Libertas.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

I wouldn't give up just yet. I think there are still minarchists on the forum. They might be interested in discussing this issue with you. We anarchists probably won't be. Beyond what I've already written, I'm not. I'm more interested in figuring out what would take shape in a anarchic polycentric legal order. So, for all the anarchists, let's please not derail the thread into a discussion about the legitimacy of the state. Keep that in a separate thread and let this one be about what the OP wanted it to be about. If you're not interested in discussing "voluntary" financing of a state, then just ignore the thread.

 

In any case, to address the OP, Objectivist sites and forums generally have some speculation on the voluntary funding of the state, and some of them go farther than Rand.  Just go to Objectivism Online, Objectivist Living, The Atlas Society, or Rebirth of Reason and search for it.  Or ask (but make sure you don't say anything "irrational" in your post ).

I am sticking strictly to the idea of minarchism in this post and I am not going to argue between Anarchism or Minarchism.

I have heard of some effort (bear with me I read about this many years ago) of a business man in Pennsylvania who was setting up some trust fund that would be large and continuously self funding so that the state could be financed without taxation but the power of taxation had to be abolished along with the set up of this finance regime. Of course the finance was adequate for the role of a limited state back in the late 1800's not for the mega state of today.

Since it would be a trust and the government being the recepient the state could not actually manage the fund itself so it would be up to the trustees to manage it who cannot use the funds for themselves in anyway. They could screw up of course as they are human. Plus the relationship between the trustee committee and the legislature and or governor may develop into harsh rivalry in an ideal situation for instance if the state passes laws that harm economic growth their trust fund would dwindle and they cannot use coercion to gather funds, or if they pass laws to hurt or try and take over the trust fund by targeting the the trustees the trustees could choose to poorly manage the fund. Also depending on how this trust was set up the board of trustees could appoint their successor or it could work in some other way. But it is illegal in a trust for the trustee to divert the funds that in anyway directly aid him or her, such as investing in stock in his or her company etc etc.

Of course the trustees and politicans might take part in collusion and corruption such as sweet heart laws for the trustees and in that case it would be up to a supreme court (funded by the trust fund) to strike down those laws or an angry public that did not like the special priveleges being granted to a few men at their expense to vote the politicians who passed the laws out of office. However stringent, and very short term limits might limit the cozy relationship between the politicians and the trustees since very short term limits (in sense of total years) makes it harder to form legislative coalitions due to high turn over.

All in all this proposition was rejected and crushed by the Pennsylvanian government who did not want to be dependent on the market like everyone else and especially did not want to lose their taxing power.

 

Personally I am not sure of this plan since it is so hypothetical. It has even less historical and empirical testing behind it than does Anarcho Capitalism (which has a few prototypes in the past). But it is a proposal for the most limited minarchial regime I can think of.

Of course the Supreme Court in the above scenario could be protected by changes in it's pay much like they are protected in the present constitution from wage flucuations. Also they could be a volunter supreme court that is not paid seeing that in such a government as that their would be little the government could do so there MIGHT be less legislation to review or maybe they could be paid in court fees who knows.