A Small, Efficient Government

My vision is a small, efficient government that does only the minimum necessary that cannot be done by private actors. 

Milton Friedman is an economist who has inspired me a lot.  

He breaks down the four essential government functions to these:

  1. Border & military: Defend the nation 

  1. Police: Protect citizens against abuse and coercion by other citizens 

  1. Laws: Define the rules of the game we play, eg. private property 

  1. Justice: A mechanism for adjudicating disputes about the meaning of the rules 

That’s it. That’s all the government needs to do, and by extension, that’s all the government should do. 

Everything else is better done by private citizens. 

What about a fire department? That could be private too. If you want protection from a fire department, shop around for one. Maybe it comes bundled in with your insurance. 

What about health care? Well, we’ve already seen how well that works when the government meddles with it. 

This vision is obviously a radical departure from where we are today. 

What About All the People? 

If we did drastically reduce the scope of government, what would we do with all the current government employees, contractors, and welfare recipients? 

Great question. We’d obviously need to have a transition period. We wouldn't want to just dump them on the street. That would be inhumane. 

I think for a large number of them, just continuing to pay them a decent salary but having them stop doing any work would be a major improvement for everyone. That’s always an option.  

This is not an indictment of them. It’s an indictment of the system they’re operating within. Remember: same people, different operating system, vastly different result. 

But I also believe that people want to be useful. So let’s help them find good jobs or start businesses. This doesn’t have to be something the government does. With all the money that citizens would get to keep, I bet a bunch of them would be happy to contribute to organizations that did coaching or job training to help former government employees and welfare recipients get going. 

And all the extra money in people’s pockets, combined with all the reduction in regulations, would unleash a wave of innovation, entrepreneurship, productivity improvements, and additional demand that would create so many new jobs that I believe most would quickly find something new to do. 

They’d probably have to get used to working in a private company that has actual customers to be responsible to, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out  fairly quickly. It feels good to do something you know makes a positive difference to people. 

My Platform 

If I were running for office, this is the platform I'd run on. 

My vision for politics is to create a well-reasoned, logical, practical, simple set of guidelines for how to govern a city, state, or nation, and open source it. Any society that wants to adopt it in whole or part is welcome to. 

Just like an open source project, we can share our experiences and submit “patches”— ie. proposed updates—to the source document. And if it’s agreed that the update is generally valid, then the source document may be updated. 

The idea is to derive from a clearly outlined set of values, and then logically arrive at each element. And each element will have to be validated by reality, including their second, third, and fourth order consequences, and beyond. 

The goal is to arrive at something that’s simple, clear, and sound, and will stand the test of time, like the US Constitution has. 

The Platform 

I’m just going to present a very rough list of bullet points to give you an idea. You may disagree with some of these principles, and that’s okay. This is precisely the kind of conversation we need to have. 

Immigration Policy 

  • It’s not our job to solve problems in other countries. It is our job to not make problems in other countries (or our own). 

  • The best way to help people around the world is to be a great example, and to open source our findings about how individuals and nations thrive, knowing that everyone has the power to do what we’re doing. 

  • Therefore, immigration policy should be designed to do what’s best for us. Who do we want to bring in? Under which conditions? We define the rules, and stick with them. 

  • In order to enter the country legally, you have to at a minimum be in good health, be able to support yourself financially, and also contribute to our nation in some way. 

  • We may in addition to this also add provisions for humanitarian based immigration at our own discretion. Still with criteria, rules, and limits. 

  • Anyone who breaks the rules will be sent back at their own or their families’ expense and prevented from entering again. 

Economic Policy 

  • Price is the magic invention that allows a market to efficiently allocate scarce resources where they can do the most good. We never interfere with prices. No rent control, price control, none of that. Ever. 

  • Never allow money to buy influence into policies that govern how markets function. That’s a recipe for big players to squeeze out smaller players and upstarts. We want healthy competition, because we understand that’s how we all get better together. 

  • When the market isn’t producing the desired results, we identify the underlying root cause and solve that. For example, maybe we have put too many restrictions on innovation or competition? 

Education 

I’m not sure this is a government function at all, to be honest. Possible state level if at all. If so, here’s my list. 

  • Make sure everyone learns some basic skills and foundational principles: 

    • Reading & writing in at least 2 languages. 

    • Reasoning and logic, deductive and inductive thinking 

    • Meditation and connecting with a self beyond your thoughts 

    • Thoughts and beliefs, and how to notice and question them 

    • Conscious vs subconscious mind 

    • Feelings & how to feel them without identifying with them 

    • Learning and retention 

    • Math 

    • The scientific method 

    • Problem definition, and how to come up with and evaluate many different possible solutions 

    • Innovation and play 

    • Health, diet, toxins, and the principle of giving the body optimal conditions to heal itself 

    • Movement and breath 

    • Music and art 

    • Entrepreneurship and business 

    • Economics 

  • In general, we want to instill the joy of learning and growth, not kill it 

  • All government-mandated education listed above is offered to everyone, child or adult, via a voucher that you can use to purchase education with any provider that’s been licensed to teach based on the principles laid out. You will have lifetime access to whatever you purchase, including updates. 

  • Outside of the basics, trust the market to create lots of other educational products and services, so people can learn whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. 

Science

  • We will encourage and possibly conduct, for taxpayer dollars, foundational scientific research into what creates the optimal life of health, love, and prosperity. 

  • What type of diet is ideal, based on whatever criteria determine your ideal diet. 

  • What about movement and exercise? 

  • What factors cause disease vs health? 

  • Eg. things we put in our mouths, things we put on our skin, things we breathe, things we inject, things we think, things we feel, things we do, etc. 

  • What are the factors that cause people to get healthier, stronger, more prosperous, more loving, more content, more accomplished, year after year? 

  • Let’s research, document, and shout it from the rooftops (and teach it to kids) 

Regulation 

  • We want to ensure some basic level of safety. We want people to trust that the building they live in isn’t going to collapse, or the car they drive won’t break down, or the food they eat won’t kill them. 

  • Outside of the basics, we will take an education-first approach. Ensure people learn how to read & reason, ensure they are properly informed, and let them make their own decisions. Allow public review sites like Yelp to help educate people, and hit down hard on any pay-to-play or other deceptive practices. 

  • It’s tricky, because the incentive for certain players to lie and deceive will be high, but that’s the nature of humans. Even in today’s highly regulated world, big pharma will say one thing to your face, and put another in the fine print to skate the rules. Educate people better and trust them to make better choices that way. 

  • As little licensing as possible. You don’t need a license to cut hair. 

Drug Policy 

  • Anytime something’s illegal, it creates a black market, which opens the doors to organized crime and cartels, so we want to be careful with drug policies. 

  • The most important side of the drug issue is the demand side. If there’s no demand, there’s no market. Why do people demand drugs? To get away from themselves. They feel like shit, drugs make them feel better, they get addicted, they feel even more like shit, they need more. 

  • By teaching people how to relate to their thoughts & feelings, and to take care of their bodies, the demand for drugs plummets. 

Integrity & Transparency 

  • Everything the government does needs to be transparent. Are there things that need to be done in secrecy? Of course, yes. But very little. 

  • In general, every dollar spent needs to be accounted for. Even if it’s for “black ops,” we need to know the total amount spent. 

  • Use blockchain and bitcoin to track all the money that flows through the government. Where does it come from, and where does it go? The public blockchain will tell you. 

  • Crowdsource research into where the money is going, how we can allocate it more efficiently, and where there’s evidence of fraud or bribery. 

  • If you’re a government employee or contractor or subcontractor and you withhold, obfuscate, or destroy evidence, intentionally or accidentally, that’s instant jail time. Fuck around and find out. 

Legislation and Policy Making 

  • Every policy needs to have a clearly stated & measurable problem definition and intended outcome, which needs to be agreed upon first. What’s the real problem, and what’s the outcome we’d like to see instead? 

  • Each proposal needs to address a single issue, and a single issue only, except if there’s an obvious reason to put them together, ie. the same solution knocks out multiple problems. Even so, we still want to be clear about each problem separately. 

  • Then we crowdsource ideas for how to solve the problem and achieve the intended outcome from our entire citizenry, and even the world beyond. Proposed courses of actions should be backed up by evidence based in experiments as much as possible, and we need to also look at what are the second, third, and fourth order consequences of any proposed solution, and what other consequences might come as a result of this. We need to look out for these later. 

  • We then evaluate the options and pick the top three to conduct further experiments, if necessary. 

  • Then and only then do we pick a policy to implement. 

  • Once we do, we monitor the results closely: Does it solve the problem? Does it deliver the desired outcome? Are there other consequences that we did or didn’t see coming? Are those desirable or not? 

  • We need to reason about and document all of these things, so we force a rigorous process, and learn from our experience. And we want to involve the best minds into the process. 

  • Every once in a while there will be a situation that requires a more rapid response. Those situations are rare, but in that case, we can skip the additional experimental phase, if there’s enough evidence in the crowdsourcing ideas phase. But generally, it’d be a lot better to come up with a way to conduct rapid experiments. 

Environment 

  • The principle is to account for externalities. You’re not allowed to pollute, and if you do, you pay for it. If you can’t pay, because you went bankrupt, we’ll have to clean up after you. 

  • Ban known toxins, and the government can help pay to remove toxins that we didn’t know were toxins at the time, so they were used through no fault of whoever did it. 

Labor laws 

  • Allow any citizen who wants to work to work and get paid whatever they agree to get paid. No minimum wage.  

  • Not sure about minimum age, given that minors obviously cannot consent under a certain age. 

Poverty 

● Poverty is a matter of mindset and opportunity. Ensure everyone has equal opportunity, and that basic productive mindset is taught in school. 

Taxes 

  • Flat tax rate with high deductible for everyone 

  • No itemized deductions, period. 

  • Not sure about business taxes. Do companies get to take deductions? How are they taxed? I still have a lot to learn here. 

  • Any fines collected go first to pay for the damage, then pay down debt, then the rest is given back to the citizens as an additional deduction the year after. We do not want fines to be a sneaky way for the government to raise more money.