My Utopia

Election's here again, tomorrow. And I'm really glad that polls pointed to a major defeat for Labor which has been a major fuck up to Australia in the past 6 years. But let's not talk about it. Instead, let's talk about what sort of society do I actually want but none of the current sitting parties would deliver?

First, we do not need 80% of the public servants (including police force and government officials) that we currently employ. Yes that's huge cuts to jobs but think of it this way, public servants are not really the jobs you want in growth, which would mean heavier tax on tax payers. And by freeing up that sort of human resource into the work force, we will have much more people that pay tax instead of sucking up on tax payers, of course tax rate would only need to be a fraction of what it is now, or even voluntary.

Next step would be compressing regulations, abandon any victimless crimes such as speeding and marijuana, abandon anything that is no business of the government (defining who you can marry etc). The idea is, you are free to do anything you want unless you're you are harming someone else by doing so. For example there won't be speed limits (red circle signs) on any road, only yellow triangle signs of a recommended but not enforced speed for technical reasons. You can legally be drunk and drive 200 kph in a 40 zone as long as you don't hit anyone or anything, in which cases you'd receive heavy penalties, but for the people or property you hit and not for being drunk or speeding.

Finally, Islam will be banned, it should be considered a cult and not a religion as it preaches hatred. Any religious institute will not receive a single cent of government funding and no religious practise can be practised without the consent of that person (e.g. in schools or to new born babies). Commissioning should be limited too. People should develop their own world view without any influence of others.

That's probably the closest to a perfect world I can imagine.

A Thought On Voluntary Taxation: Give It A Go

No one whole-heartedly loves tax, except those who collects them of course. Taxation is necessary to keep a government functional and that's fair enough. What is not fair is that we do not have enough control over the government's spendings. We paid our tax to the government according to our income, end of story. How that money was spent was never revealed (you wouldn't know whose money exactly these were, but the cases that did reveal spending of taxation money were scary, Craig Thomson uses it for his prostitutes, $16m stolen by a Queensland Health officer, millions spent on Labor's home insulation program which electrocuted a few workers and eventually more was spent to pull them all out, the list goes on). This tax system is corrupt and we need to demolish it and build it from the ground up again. This is where voluntary taxation should come in.

Of course a voluntary system would sound like no tax for you on first impression, but there are driving forces that would motivate people enough to pay (very realistic projects such as fixing the flood damaged road that you drive on every single day, installing seatbelts on your kid's school bus or funding research on breast cancer which just took the life of your aunt etc). The benefit is very obvious: you are only paying for what you would like to contribute to (often what's genuinely and promptly benefiting yourself) instead of what the government forces upon you, and the amount is completely up to you. Of course the more funds a project gets the quicker it would proceed, that, on itself, prioritizes what people wants the most to be accomplished sooner.

Think any aspect of a government function (diplomacy, defence, health, welfare, education, research, infrastructure or even the green movement), there should be people passionate enough to contribute their tax money for it. If no one's contributing to it, no one needs it. It's that simple.

People vote by their money, not a ballot. There is no need for empty election promises, because under the current system the elected candidate get control of your tax money and does whatever he/she wants with it, not under a voluntary system though. The account of any project should  be available to be reviewed by everyone, or detailed to the ones who contributed and briefed to the ones who didn't.

Getting a project going is easy. When interest is expressed on a certain project, an empty account can be created by the government. People will contribute to this account until it gets enough money to kick-start, then it is the government's sole responsibility to get it done in a timely manner. There should be a time limit for raising funds though, preferably set case-by-case. If not enough fund was raised during that period (people are not interested enough to get it done at this stage) the money should be returned (without interest). Of course this failed project could be started again at a better timing.

As taxation is no longer enforced, the government body of enforcement of taxation (ATO in Australia) might even become redundant. The statistic work can be taken over by ABS.

Yes we might still be better off with a government to manage all those projects, a very restrictive one though. How do you restrict a government? Cut on the money given to it and refuse it to run into deficit. In a totally voluntary system, the surplus of any project can go to the everyday operation of a government, and that's it. If they do want some sense of security then a say 1% flat rate income tax/profit tax can be applied for individuals/companies. No people with higher incomes does not deserve to pay tax at a higher rate, they are paying a larger absolute amount already, and people with lower income do need to have a sense of responsibility to contribute to the society instead of winging and hating on the better-offs.

I think I ran into a bit too much detail on some of my points and not enough for some others, but this ideology has only recently hit me and I will need a bit more time to think about it more thoroughly. Hopefully I'd come back to this topic at some point with better sorted opinions.