I have been thinking about this recently, what funding schemes could replace violent taxation in a voluntary society. We all know taxes are highly immoral, violent schemes, that have no place in a civilized voluntary society of the future.
Thus we have to come up with voluntary funding schemes that would replace taxation, since the abolishment of taxes doesn’t necessarily get rid of the daily costs that would come upon a community, but their funding must be voluntary, so let’s see what kind of options do we have.
Donations
The most basic and simple one is the donation system. People will donate towards a cause, whether they will get something out of it or not. Like donating to orphans, you may not get any benefit from that, but it might make you feel better as a person, or who knows one of the orphans might grow up to be an important person. So certainly there are hidden benefits that happen a donation even if it’s not that clear at that point in time.
- Example: Donating to EFF, might not be a direct help for you personally, but it might save the internet from tyranny in the long run, so worth doing it.
Sponsorship
The other method would be sponsorship whereas a commercial entity would give money to another entity and in return the entity would feature it’s sponsor. Kind of like a marketing arbitrage, the sponsor will get well known for it’s philanthropy and the organization would also get funding (from multiple sponsors as well) in order to operate. It’s a win-win.
- Example: Like the sponsors of Linux Mint, many companies sponsor them either with offering some kind of help or direct financial support. In return the companies get either marketing benefit or become associated with the success of LM, thus it’s a good image boost in the end. A win-win.
Affiliate System
The affiliate system it not just simply helpful but it’s even commercial in nature, so it’s self-sustainable even without altruism. In an affiliate system the organization chooses a partner which they would vouch for, since it’s in the same industry area, and then the company offers affiliate partnership to the organization, where they would earn direct commissions for each product or service they sell. They vouch for that product so their users would know that they place their trust in them, thus more likely to buy that product using the reputation of the organization as leverage. The product gets sold, the organization gets funds, and both the user and the commercial entity is better off. Sort of like forging loose alliances between participants in the same industry, commercial and non-commercial.
- Example: Best example is MyEtherwallet, which is the best and simplest online ETH wallet. Although they are a commercial LLC entity, the website is free to use and very privacy friendly, they don’t even need your e-mail. But they fund themselves with affiliate links from (their referral links): Ledger, Trezor , DigitalBitbox and bitly businesses. A simple alliance, the website gets funded so it can remain free, the products get sold, which are also useful for securing the money, and it’s a win-win for all participants.
Ads
Last but not least, advertising is a pretty good option as well. People say, well how will firefighters and ambulance services be funded without taxation? Simple, ads and sponsorship.
Like how soccer players put their sponsor’s brand on their outfit. Similarly ambulances and firefighter trucks could be decorated with ads. But that is just one source of funding, it might not be enough, of course insurance could compliment that.
If people don’t have money for an insurer, then they could cut a deal, saying that we will put out your fire, but in return you will have to decorate your house from outside with our sponsor’s banners, or put a giant banner in front of your house for say 1 year. Putting out a fire is not that costly, so this would be an alternative payment method for poor people.
If it’s like an apartment complex, then it’s in everyone’s interest for the fire to be put out, so people will not be incentivized to buy insurance, but in this case the neighbors can resolve this in a different way, say cut off his electricity until he doesn’t pay, an apartment complex is collective property, so everyone must cooperate there, or move to a house.
If we are talking about ambulances , those could be decorated too with ads, so if people don’t have enough money for health insurance, a portion of that funding could be used to pay poor people.
Another way would be to cut a deal with news organizations who would write sentimental stories about poor people not having money for healthcare, so their audience would donate to the health services up to the level so they can take care of poor people as well.
Transparency
So it can be done voluntarily without taxes. The biggest problem is not even having charity systems and voluntary funding schemes, it’s more like the transparency.
Money would be gathered, it’s not an issue. Most people are good, and they would either donate, or help out charity organizations by other means.
The big problem is that most of these charity organizations are run by con artists who just embezzle the funds. You donate millions of dollars to a charity, and it gets lost in the bureaucracy. Everyone chips out a little bit until it’s all gone.
I mean it’s well known that most major charity organizations are fraudulent. They are run by complete scammers that steal most of the money, and then they say that there is not enough money to feed the poor. Of course there isn’t if most of it gets stolen.
Transparency is imperative. And not just verbal transparency, like they promise they will be good boys, I mean literal transparency up to the point that every transaction can be tracked and cataloged. A charity organization doesn’t need privacy, transparency there is more important.
So the only way this can be done is through blockchains. Voluntary and transparent. For example like how the DASH community has organized charity for the recent Hurricane Katrina disasters to help out people:
No taxes needed, and they have been much more efficient than the “authorities” funded by taxes.
Conclusion
So as you can see taxes are not needed, at all. Everything that is needed can be funded by much better ways. There will always be people who will donate or fund good and helpful ideas. Most people are good.
If something is really needed, then it will be funded. If it’s not needed, then it should be abolished anyway.
People are all scared that if not for taxes then all the stability elements in a society would be gone like: pensions, healthcare, firefighters,etc…
But in reality it’s the Government that is destroying these:
- Pensions in their current form are unsustainable ponzi schemes, bound to collapse. If you would want a real pension system, it would be blockchain based and transparent.
- Firefighters and ambulances can just be funded like I described above
- Education needs a massive reform, mostly a cut, it’s it’s current mandatory-coercive form it’s barbaric. Plus the internet and online free seminars would lower their costs massively anyway.
- Charity for the poor is also possible and would be much better than a welfare system, it would be more transparent and more efficient
As for military spending, wars, bailouts, and other immoral elements, no thanks. Not just not needed but very very counterproductive for humanity.
Sources:
https://www.pexels.com
