Today I have been working on my income tax returns. That brings to mind the relationship between a Copiosis citizen and the government of a Copiosis state.
Every nation state in the history of man has used a money represented as a physical object. Money which is or represents physical object(s) can be taken from you against your will. It can be used to buy any goods or services from anyone. Therefore, everyone wants the the money you have or might have some day. The “everyone” includes your neighborhood government. From the township or county level through the state to the federal level of government there are a wide variety of taxes and fees which the various governmental units levy upon the citizens and anyone else who happens their way. This is motivated by the nature of our money and is made possible by the nature of this money. This money is also used to collect your money as well by appropriate means and otherwise.
Copiosis economies will not likely have governments. Even if they do (temporarily) will it need to collect taxes?
Net Benefit reward people earn and use to consume luxuries is not a physical object and it does not represent a physical object. When earned, it simply comes into existence in the Producer’s account. That increase doesn’t come from any other source. The people whose decisions result it being there do not lose any of their reward income as a result of crediting the earner’s account. When the account owner spends it, their Net Benefit Reward is deducted from her account balance. It is not transferred to another account it is simply deducted from the owner’s account. That’s it. No more, no less. Thus money spent simply ceases to exist.
Therefore, even if a Copiosis government wanted to take Copiosis “money” from a citizen (or someone else) it would have no way of doing so. For one reason, only individuals are account owners. There is no “Uncle Sam” account representing the government. For a second reason, Net Benefit Reward can’t be moved from one account to another.
So how does government pay its bills?
The government has no bills. The Copiosis “government” has no Net Benefit Reward Account and no budget. The Copiosis government cannot loan or borrow Net Benefit Reward. If some office of government needs a desk for performing its paper work and someone chooses to give to that office worker (not to the office but to the person using that office or occupying that office) some desk and if that worker uses that desk to do work which deserves to be paid, then the person who provided the desk will also be paid. So long as that desk is useful in producing benefits to others, the person who gave the desk will be paid. The office worker doesn’t pay that person. The government doesn’t pay that person. Those whose job it is to appropriately reward Ned Benefit Value to the accounts of people who deserve such reward are the ones who have the power / ability to increase the account balances. And these “Payers” are not a part of the government. They take orders from no one since they are the only ones who can pay. What about the persons who provided the wood and metal and tools to make the desk? Yes, they get paid also and in the same way, as do those who moved the desk from the desk factory to the office. Of course the government worker also is paid in that fashion. Therefore, the government functions just fine without “money.”
In fact it functions much better without funds because all those “desk people” get paid only if that government worker is doing something which actually produces a Net Benefit. Enforcing silly rules where they really don’t apply produces no benefit. Adding miles of red tape to procedures produces no benefit. Being rude or insolent to the citizens who need the services of that worker reduces the Net Benefit. In other words the better job that worker does the more the worker gets paid and the more all those who contributed to that work getting done get paid. Workers who do well will have suppliers of equipment and other resources asking them to accept their materials. Workers who perform poorly find they have nothing to work with and someone else doing the work in their place.
(As an aside, there would be remarkably few government workers since there would be almost nothing for the government to do but that’s a subject for some other article. Suffice it to say this is why there likely are no governments of any kind in Copiosis)
So what taxes are collected? What about import or export taxes? Nope. No taxes of any kind. What about property tax? No taxes of any kind. What about inheritance tax? No taxes of any kind. What about… Didn’t you hear what I said? No taxes of any kind at any time for any reason by any level of government under any circumstances.
Government in a Copiosis economy has no taxes, no need for taxes, and no means by which to collect taxes because no Payer is going to pay for anyone to try to collect taxes. Taxes just don’t happen.
I hope that’s clear. NO TAXES.
