Voluntarily funded government

[progressiveman1]

If your question is:

"If the state is permitted to run a lottery at a sure profit for the sole purpose of raising funds and that it did not compete with any private enterprises, would that make any state-run, not-for-profit venture morally permissible so long as profitability was almost certain?"

Then my answer is absolutely not. Even if a state-run lottery is acceptable (I am still ruminating over it myself), that does not give the government a blank check to do whatever it can to maximize its revenue. A state-run lottery would presumably (in a quasi laissez-faire society) be to fund a proper function of government. Government should not be expanded just because it can.

I'm glad you agree with that, but my question, to be more exact, is, "What grounds could a gov't lottery be created on that wouldn't have some loopholes which would allow other gov't businesses to be created on?" Hypothetically(and based on what you have said), the gov't lottery would be created on the grounds that it is a sure profit and a means to generate revenue for the gov't. Given that, why couldn't a multitude of gov't businesses be created on those grounds? You know how politicians are.

Also, if you think the gov't lottery wouldn't need to compete with other companies because the majority of buyers of their lottery tickets main intention is to fund the gov't, why is the lottery needed at all? Why not just have donations?

[DarkWaters]

"What grounds could a gov't lottery be created on that wouldn't have some loopholes which would allow other gov't businesses to be created on?" Hypothetically(and based on what you have said), the gov't lottery would be created on the grounds that it is a sure profit and a means to generate revenue for the gov't. Given that, why couldn't a multitude of gov't businesses be created on those grounds? You know how politicians are.

This sounds like a question for legal experts. At the very least, legislation could explicitly codify a specific, well-delineated lottery as opposed to making broader statements that are easily contorted to allow runaway government expansion.

Please keep in mind that designing mechanisms to permit the voluntarily financing a government would most likely be step 99 in a 100 step process of transitioning to laissez-faire Capitalism. If Objectivist ethics are not generally accepted, which would be the case if there was great risk of elected politicians attempting to champion unnecessary government expansion, then discussing how to voluntarily fund government should not be at the top of the agenda.

Also, if you think the gov't lottery wouldn't need to compete with other companies because the majority of buyers of their lottery tickets main intention is to fund the gov't, why is the lottery needed at all? Why not just have donations?

I think straight donations would be better. However, a lottery, if properly done, could be a possible alternative if the level of donations is truly inadequate to run a just government. A similar rhetorical question would be, why have a city police force if everyone is going to be rational and not violate anyone else's rights?

Edited December 11, 2007 by DarkWaters

[agrippa1]

This sounds like a question for legal experts. At the very least, legislation could explicitly codify a specific, well-delineated lottery as opposed to making broader statements that are easily contorted to allow runaway government expansion.

Please keep in mind that designing mechanisms to permit the voluntarily financing a government would most likely be step 99 in a 100 step process of transitioning to laissez-faire Capitalism. If Objectivist ethics are not generally accepted, which would be the case if there was great risk of elected politicians attempting to champion unnecessary government expansion, then discussing how to voluntarily fund government should not be at the top of the agenda.

I think straight donations would be better. However, a lottery, if properly done, could be a possible alternative if the level of donations is truly inadequate to run a just government. A similar rhetorical question would be, why have a city police force if everyone is going to be rational and not violate anyone else's rights?

A gov't lottery, to be profitable, would require laws to prevent private businesses from competing in the lottery business. What would be the justification for this use of force to limit ostensibly legitimate business?

Voluntary donations are problematic. From game theory you quickly find that most people will try to give less than the average, if anything at all.

An exchange tax could work, but then you would find that all black-market products (prosties, drugs, etc.) would be purchased with pre-tax dollars.

The only answer I can think of is to make public, and easily discoverable, the amount of donations each person/business makes. Then you can support your gov't with your purchases, hiring decision, friendships, job searches, etc. Anyone not paying a fair share would be shunned, but only if the majority found that donated dollars were well spent.

[progressiveman1]

Voluntary donations are problematic. From game theory you quickly find that most people will try to give less than the average, if anything at all.

The only answer I can think of is to make public, and easily discoverable, the amount of donations each person/business makes. Then you can support your gov't with your purchases, hiring decision, friendships, job searches, etc. Anyone not paying a fair share would be shunned, but only if the majority found that donated dollars were well spent.

If the people in the society recognize the necessity for a proper gov't then I don't see how there would be under-funding from voluntary donations and seizures. I'm not sure if the records would be public or not, but I don't think making them public for the reason to try to humiliate people is a very good idea.

I'm wondering, given those two ways to fund the gov't(voluntary contributions and seizure), if this somehow didn't raise enough money to fund a complete gov't, does that society even deserve a proper gov't? The majority isn't showing interest in the gov't necessity, so why should the gov't go out of its way to exist? The gov't doesn't exist for the sake of itself, it exists for the people.

Edited December 12, 2007 by progressiveman1

[DarkWaters]

A gov't lottery, to be profitable, would require laws to prevent private businesses from competing in the lottery business. What would be the justification for this use of force to limit ostensibly legitimate business?

Voluntary donations are problematic. From game theory you quickly find that most people will try to give less than the average, if anything at all.

An exchange tax could work, but then you would find that all black-market products (prosties, drugs, etc.) would be purchased with pre-tax dollars.

The only answer I can think of is to make public, and easily discoverable, the amount of donations each person/business makes. Then you can support your gov't with your purchases, hiring decision, friendships, job searches, etc. Anyone not paying a fair share would be shunned, but only if the majority found that donated dollars were well spent.

All of these points (i.e., would a state-run lottery need to compete with a private lottery, dealing with "free riders" and disclosing contributions to the government) have already been addressed earlier in this thread. If you have questions on the previous discussion, I am sure someone will be happy to further explore the issues with you. However, please do not expect the same responses to be reiterated here.

I'm wondering, given those two ways to fund the gov't(voluntary contributions and seizure), if this somehow didn't raise enough money to fund a complete gov't, does that society even deserve a proper gov't? The majority isn't showing interest in the gov't necessity, so why should the gov't go out of its way to exist? The gov't doesn't exist for the sake of itself, it exists for the people.

I would say no, meaning that even if a population of individuals will not voluntarily contribute enough money to support a just government, they still might be deserving of a rights-protecting institution that has a monopoly on the retaliatory use of force. Most likely strictly voluntary government financing would not work until there is another philosophical revolution where Objectivism becomes widespread amongst the general populace. But even today in the United States, property rights are still generally respected, there is freedom of speech, most people are still decent to eachother; this country is still deserving of a rights-respecting government.

Even in a near laissez-faire capitalist society, I am sure there will be individuals (e.g., Market Anarchists, Conspiracy theorists, etc.) who would still refuse the fund the government for a wide variety of reasons.

Edited December 12, 2007 by DarkWaters

[agrippa1]

All of these points (i.e., would a state-run lottery need to compete with a private lottery, dealing with "free riders" and disclosing contributions to the government) have already been addressed earlier in this thread. If you have questions on the previous discussion, I am sure someone will be happy to further explore the issues with you. However, please do not expect the same responses to be reiterated here.

Thanks. (newbie)

So, this is an intractable problem so far. Rand's solutions don't seem workable; even Greenspan gave this particular issue as his one reason for disagreeing with Objectivism.

It sounds like we haven't yet discovered the principles under which gov't should properly be funded. Voluntary donations seem at odds with Objectivism's enlightened self-interest. It seems that any solution would base payment on the value on receives from proper government, and the cost one incurs on others through your violation of their individual rights. Not paying at all could be construed as taking value from others (by accepting the value of government resources that they paid for), which could be grounds for retaliatory force.

An analogy would be an honor-system store, where you pay whatever you think is a fair price for your purchases. If you walk out without paying, you're not technically breaking the rules, but you are stealing. The punishment would be banishment from the store. Would a proper objectivist government consider banishment from a country as the means of enforcing "voluntary" contributions? It certainly would put pressure on other governments to establish similar principles.

[softwareNerd]

Voluntary donations seem at odds with Objectivism's enlightened self-interest.

That's a claim you need to support with some sort of argument.

Are you saying that there no instances in history where people have volunteered to do things for their country, or give money to support their country, or buy war bonds that they were not sure would be repaid, or build ships and give them to their country's navy, and such things?

Edited December 13, 2007 by softwareNerd

[progressiveman1]

So, this is an intractable problem so far.

Not really. I think it's solved already.

Not paying at all could be construed as taking value from others (by accepting the value of government resources that they paid for), which could be grounds for retaliatory force.

If someone can afford to contribute money to the gov't and they want their rights protected, then they probably should give some. However, there wouldn't be valid grounds for retaliatory force against the people who don't contribute. Those people aren't stealing(legally speaking). They aren't violating anyone's rights.

Edited December 13, 2007 by progressiveman1

[softwareNerd]

I can hardly drive a mile without seeing a church. I often wonder how much money goes into building all these (in my view, redundant) churchs for all sorts of denominations. Yet, people give willingly. There is much evidence to suggest that people will support causes that they support, not just with words, but also with deeds and cash.

Similarly, look at the universities with their huge endowments. Why, even look at the money that people like Gates spend on far off Africa. Surely it's obvious that people would give their own security (via government) a higher priority in their lives.

[aequalsa]

If someone can afford to contribute money to the gov't and they want their rights protected, then they probably should give some. However, there wouldn't be valid grounds for retaliatory force against the people who don't contribute. Those people aren't stealing(legally speaking). They aren't violating anyone's rights.

I once heard Craig Biddle in a speech recommend "vouchers" for people or companies that donated money to the government. A restaurant could hang it on the wall to show that they were supporting the protection of rights and so forth. The hope(and I believe it is justified) is that the resultant social and economic sanctions of customers would pressure profitable companies to realize how tied their profits were to the protection of liberty-economic and otherwise. So a successful restaurant would be expected(not required) to donate while a starving college student would not be held irresponsible for not contributing. Customers who liked freedom could vote with their dollars to pressure continuance. This of course is all dependent on having a mostly rational populace, which is what would be required to get anywhere near laissez faire in the first place.

[fletch]

This of course is all dependent on having a mostly rational populace

Any guesses as to when we might see that happen? We seem to be headed in the wrong direction.

[aequalsa]

Any guesses as to when we might see that happen? We seem to be headed in the wrong direction.

Well, if socialism is an addictive narcotic, which i think it is, then not before hitting rock bottom.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Well, if socialism is an addictive narcotic, which i think it is, then not before hitting rock bottom.

In my more pessimistic moods, I tend to agree. Too many people out there just want their free whatever it is (food, medicine, shelter) and once they have been getting it, don't even TRY to take it away from them. The purveyors of our culture (i.e., main stream media and Hollywood) will whip them up into a frenzy and whatever politician is brave enough to make the suggestion gets hammered.

It's just *barely* possible a less socialist news media would not amplify this tendency and would educate people on how bad the programs are. Imagine exposes on 60 Minutes of how our health care is in fact fucked up by the existing government intervention, rather than the usual tack of blaming doctors, insurance companies, and pharmaceuticals. If our human ballast were fed that on the Boob Tube instead of the crap they actually are getting, they might actually see reason.

Of course the media is educated in the universities and is therefore greatly influenced by the philosophy departments and [insert ARI Book Project leading to more Objectivist Philosophers on College Faculties plug HERE].

It's going to get worse before the ARI strategy--which is the long-term cure--has time to work. I wish I could think of a short-term holding strategy to keep things from getting absolutely starvation/survivialist hideous before the ARI strategy has time to work; *both* would have to be implemented. The best I could think of would be a concerted effort to put O-ists into the media: broadcast and print journalism and Hollywood.

[Rourke]

It's hard to believe that with such a fundamental tenet of Objectivist politics, a voluntarily funded government, there isn't more evidence that it in fact would work. All I've seen here is speculation on reasons it might work. I would think that human behavior studies might yield some answers.

There's a great section in the book Freakanomics that tells the tale of a bagel vendor in New York City, and his inadvertant social experiment in honesty and integrity. He wouild leave a tray of bagels and a basket for money in many offices throughout the city, using the honor system to collect payment. Over time he able to see quite a few trends in who would pay and would wouldn't, and to see what factors affected people's willingness to pay. The bagel data reflected variances in payment based on weather, time of year, size of the office, morale of the office, and even heirarchy in the office. As it turned out the executives were more likely to pilfer. Overall the average collection rate was 87 percent. Not bad, but far from perfect.

It's possible that once we're all grounded in the Objectivist ethic, this won't be an issue. But does anyone have any data to back this up? Studies?

[agrippa1]

That's a claim you need to support with some sort of argument.

Are you saying that there no instances in history where people have volunteered to do things for their country, or give money to support their country, or buy war bonds that they were not sure would be repaid, or build ships and give them to their country's navy, and such things?

No, I'm not saying there are no instances. I'm also not claiming that if you can find one instance of a thing, then it is true generally.

One problem with voluntary donations is that one of two systems must be worked: Either your government's size is dependent on the amount of money donated in any given year, in which case government service becomes a very unstable proposition, drawing only the dregs; or, you set a level of government funding and appeal to the masses until you reach your goal, in which case a small percentage of objectivists eventually donates the lion's share in order to save their philosophy, while the rest of society, knowing that that will happen, sits back and has a good laugh.

One thing you must understand from Objectivism is that it rejects living your life (e.g., donating the results of your life's efforts) for another. Giving an amount larger than your share amounts to donating your efforts for the benefit of those unwilling to pay their fair share. I don't see any way around this and it is a fundamental flaw in the plan. (Unless you can show that a gov't is worth significantly more than its cost - enough to offset the unfair share)

The church example was given. Seems reasonable at first glance, but there's a big difference between a church, which represents a very small slice of the populace, who each gain value from the donation to the church of their choice, in the form of a stable place to worship and a reinforcement of their personal faith; and a government, which people don't have a choice in (once it's been established) and must fund or - or what? Or someone else who believes in the government funds it for you?

And how do you deal with the inevitable situation in which a small group of people funds the gov't, and the gov't finds itself reliant on that minority of the populace? How do you ensure that the government won't become biased towards the needs of its donors in order to maintain its funding? (I"ll give you that it's a huge step up from the current system, which benefits those who donate to the candidates - but not to the government)

Another daunting point: how do we divy up our donations between local, state and federal gov't? As you all know, protection from force begins in the neighborhood. You've just added three layers of complexity to the problem.

I'd like to see someone provide a microcosm example of this concept working in practice. That is, posit four people: maybe a wheat farmer, a baker, a beekeeper and a cop get shipwrecked. Work through the complexities of this simple example, and assume that at least one person does not buy into Objectivism. If you can't make it work with four people, you have no chance of making it work with 400 million.

Until you can do that, you're just talking Utopian dreams, not unlike a lot of other people in history, some of whom have unwittingly unleashed a living hell on their fellow humans. (Ayn Rand could attest to that)

[aequalsa]

Until you can do that, you're just talking Utopian dreams, not unlike a lot of other people in history, some of whom have unwittingly unleashed a living hell on their fellow humans. (Ayn Rand could attest to that)

You seem to be looking at this issue empirically rather than conceptually. Rather then looking for examples of strict adherence to objectivist policies, look for examples of pieces of objectivism or even just capitalism at work. Without exception that I am aware of in every country and every time, the wealth and overall well being of people corresponds extremely closely to the degree of liberty(especially economic liberty) present. The more free a place is the more wealth is produced.

Occasionally circumstances can prop up immorality(like oil in Venezuela), but those exceptions only exist because of its value to people to free peoples elsewhere who need to move their products back and forth and because someone built it for those dirt bags to steal. Usually these anomalies don't last long, historically speaking.

[agrippa1]

You seem to be looking at this issue empirically rather than conceptually. Rather then looking for examples of strict adherence to objectivist policies, look for examples of pieces of objectivism or even just capitalism at work. Without exception that I am aware of in every country and every time, the wealth and overall well being of people corresponds extremely closely to the degree of liberty(especially economic liberty) present. The more free a place is the more wealth is produced.

Occasionally circumstances can prop up immorality(like oil in Venezuela), but those exceptions only exist because of its value to people to free peoples elsewhere who need to move their products back and forth and because someone built it for those dirt bags to steal. Usually these anomalies don't last long, historically speaking.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in Objectivist political philosophy, and I believe the evidence clearly supports the benefits of individual freedom. I'm focusing here strictly on an objectivist method for financing gov't. I see only two options to meet this: an exchange tax (either flat or based on value added) based morally on a fee for the efficiency of monetary exchange; and a fine system to levee taxes on those who cause the need for an enforcement organization. (if you've ever served jury duty, you've seen that our court system exists for a very small, costly slice of the population) The voluntary donation scheme advocated by Rand seems to be fraught with practical complexities and does not seem workable to me.

[Clawg]

No, I'm not saying there are no instances. I'm also not claiming that if you can find one instance of a thing, then it is true generally.

One problem with voluntary donations is that one of two systems must be worked: Either your government's size is dependent on the amount of money donated in any given year, in which case government service becomes a very unstable proposition, drawing only the dregs; or, you set a level of government funding and appeal to the masses until you reach your goal, in which case a small percentage of objectivists eventually donates the lion's share in order to save their philosophy, while the rest of society, knowing that that will happen, sits back and has a good laugh.

You are speaking of the 'free-rider' problem which I have discussed earlier in this thread.

Large enterprises will have an incentive to donate because the only place where they can get legal protection is from the state. They can't hire a private police force and enforce their own law - provided that people believe in having a government with the monopoly of force.

One thing you must understand from Objectivism is that it rejects living your life (e.g., donating the results of your life's efforts) for another. Giving an amount larger than your share amounts to donating your efforts for the benefit of those unwilling to pay their fair share. I don't see any way around this and it is a fundamental flaw in the plan. (Unless you can show that a gov't is worth significantly more than its cost - enough to offset the unfair share)

An objectivist state is a value in itself. Donating for the government is actually an investment into creating that value. In the long run any investment is returned to you over time because any investment will help rational people within the state with which you will trade sooner or later. The benefit of a government is not just protection of your property but the protection of all rational people. A donation to an Objectivist government equals to a donation to all rational people according to their productivity, i.e. the best donation you could do.

The church example was given. Seems reasonable at first glance, but there's a big difference between a church, which represents a very small slice of the populace, who each gain value from the donation to the church of their choice, in the form of a stable place to worship and a reinforcement of their personal faith; and a government, which people don't have a choice in (once it's been established) and must fund or - or what? Or someone else who believes in the government funds it for you?

Criminals don't profit from a donation to an Objectivist government. Only rational, productive people do. This is different to a government that distributes the money (welfare state).

And how do you deal with the inevitable situation in which a small group of people funds the gov't, and the gov't finds itself reliant on that minority of the populace? How do you ensure that the government won't become biased towards the needs of its donors in order to maintain its funding? (I"ll give you that it's a huge step up from the current system, which benefits those who donate to the candidates - but not to the government)

This is a general problem when people are involved. For this you need a working democracy and people who control the government.

[softwareNerd]

... posit four people: maybe a wheat farmer, a baker, a beekeeper and a cop get shipwrecked. Work through the complexities of this simple example, and assume that at least one person does not buy into Objectivism.

Okay, they're ship-wrecked, what's the big deal with that? You want us to assume that they agree that they will (say) each take a turn staying up at guard duty nights? What's so hard to imagine about that?

[softwareNerd]

Overall the average collection rate was 87 percent. Not bad, but far from perfect.

You've just provided an anecdotal clue that voluntary funding works fairly well even in a system that has not designed to thwart "free-riders", and one in which the stakes are extremely low and short-term!

People (I'm not talking of Objectivists, but people across the centuries) have already devised mechanisms of alleviating the problem of having some people donate only to find that others will not. For instance, it is easy enough to have schemes where money is returned if a goal is not met. There are "peer pressure" ideas like AequalsA mentioned. There is the idea that some services are of a type that people can pay-for-service. All these taken together, make me pretty confident that some scheme of voluntary payment can be designed. Personally, I think a lottery-type scheme can also work at the margin.

I do think that it is a fool's game to detail any such system in great detail. It's like the early internet guys using FTP trying to predict how the pricing will work on today's internet. [Of course, "futurism" like that can be a cool hobby to some; I don't grudge that.]

The way politics is today, the issue of tax and funding sources is a marginal one. The real issue is: the nature and role of government. Consider a situation where government gets restricted to what it ought to be, and taxes consequently lowered (assuming no huge changes in the tax code other than the percentages). [Call this the "minimal tax state"] Frankly, I would be surprised to see that much happen in my lifetime. Give me that, and I'd be happy to let others worry about how they can transition from there to a more voluntary system.

Any such transition would require experimenting with various types of voluntary funding schemes, seeing what works and what does not, seeing which ones might lead to corruption, figuring out how the government might build a corpus of wealth that can provide some funding and yet have that wealth managed in some form of a blind trust, figuring out how a scheme of binding pledges might work (for instance people not simply donating money one year, but pledging a certain stream of contributions). Human creativity is pretty great. So, I'm pretty confident that the kinks will be worked out of some of the ideas, and --- as long as they don't -- we still have the "minimal tax state", which looks like Utopia compared to today.

It is a mistake to think that the role of government should not be limited, just because some aspects cannot be figured out. If particular knots seem intractable, untie the others first. As the ball starts to look more like a string, untiying some knots will give you ideas about untying the others. If not, at least you've untied most of the knots. The anti-Objectivist arguments go like this: until you've got a fool-proof and time-test plan to unravel those 5 knots at the core of the universe (the ones that nobody has never thought of unravelling before), why would you unravel the others? Well, who died and said those particular knots were fundamental to the others?

[agrippa1]

Okay, they're ship-wrecked, what's the big deal with that? You want us to assume that they agree that they will (say) each take a turn staying up at guard duty nights? What's so hard to imagine about that?

No, I'm saying one of them (okay, the cop) will take the government role. He's skilled at resolving disputes and he can protect them from external threats. So he decides that he needs some resources to build a wall around their camp. The other three aren't willing to donate - how to proceed? So, they establish a democracy, and they vote 3-1 to build a fence. The dissenting voter doesn't think a fence is a good idea either, so he decides not to donate. How do you get all citizens to donate for something that they don't all think they need - I'm talking the specifics of the expense, not the general good, i.e., protection. (it's the transition from abstract needs, which people can agree to, to concrete needs, which they probably won't, that poses the problem)

Now, extrapolate that out to our current gov't's budget. Would you be willing to pay your share of everything the government now does? (It's over 20% of GDP, as the fair-taxers will illustrate in stark terms) How do we whittle down to just those things you feel are worthwhile to donate to? Perhaps you establish a true democracy in which we each get a list of of proposed budget items and we either vote on them or donate to them. How does a single gov't entity resolve competing projects voted for or funded by different swaths of the populace?

It sounds like a lot of people are hoping that the populace finds Jesus (Ayn?) and decides that the good of the nation outweighs a possibly better solution privately funded and focused on their individual needs (for instance, a neighborhood security force). Okay, so neighborhood security is a good example of enhancing the efficiency of your donations, and could be considered a gov't entity. (Do we have a precise definition of "gov't"?) Maybe an Objectivist political system would naturally lead to a fracturing of society into smaller groups, with concentration of power closer to the individual. If the neighborhood/city/county/state can start providing most services, then the fedgov shrinks and efficiencies should increase.

The bagel study illustrates something - 87% is probably as good as it gets, and that's at the very, very local level. As you widen the scope, the percentage will drop precipitously as anonymity becomes dominant.

Maybe the fracturing into very small gov't units provides a means to create a hierarchy of donations to stave off anonymity, for instance, everyone on a block donates to the block fund. The block representatives donate from that to the neighborhood fund, which donates from that to the city fund, etc, all the way up to the federal gov't. At each level there's just enough familiarity between the reps to keep folks honest. That's just an idea, but it's not a complex detailing of the mechanisms, it's an establishment of a principle - maybe I call it "bottom-up gov't funding."

The principles behind the mechanism are what are missing. Without them the concept is just a floating abstraction, and not ready for prime time. As an engineer (assumption), I think you would agree that you don't just start hacking away at code without discovering and understanding the principles of software design. The same is true for this. I don't get a good feeling from hearing that a concept that's been thought about seriously for over forty years hasn't yielded even rudimentary principles of practical operation.

[softwareNerd]

Would you be willing to pay your share of everything the government now does? ...

Of course not; and that illustrates why the question of government role is fundamental, while the details of taxation are barely worth arguing about today.

[JacobR]

I don't mean this as a critique, but I was just wondering wether statistically speaking is it realistically possible for a monopoly of coercion to be purely voluntarily funded? I mean even government limited to police courts and military would still have allot of people working under it who need paychecks. I guess what I'm asking is wether anyone can show me how much money the government actually takes in and spends and how much can be voluntarily obtained.

Supply and Demand – No one funds the government, the government lays off employees. Crime and unemployment rise, citizens realize the importance of funding the government. And the government receives more funding and begins hiring again.

That doesn’t answer the original question in name, but it does answer it in form. The government would theoretically only be able to sustain itself as much as its citizens as a body would allow it to. However, there is a danger of its assets depressing so completely that it can’t be resuscitated quickly enough.

Edited December 13, 2007 by JacobR

[progressiveman1]

Personally, I think a lottery-type scheme can also work at the margin.

I can't see how a gov't lottery isn't a contradiction to the separation of state and economics. That is a principle you accept, isn't it?

[agrippa1]

I can't see how a gov't lottery isn't a contradiction to the separation of state and economics. That is a principle you accept, isn't it?

Is it moral to base government funding on an irrational human tendency?