Government data collection
 --------------------------

In this system, the Government ought to be an absolute and absolutely
transparent democracy, and since there seems to be a real chance this
will actually be achieved most of the time. Because the system is
so radically different from the semi-democracies under which those
goals fail, the past experiences of Government growing into a state
tyranny may not be applicable for the most part.

In principle the Government should have as little information about the
people as possible, only what it really needs and/or the people really
are willing to give it. To contrast the people must know absolutely
everything and more about the Government, there is no limit to this.

The voting system presented here in a Constitution (www.socialism.nl),
may not require a complete collection of unique names / identifiers of
all people because you can handle the size problem by only counting
delegates. If the nation needs to be divided into 50 equally sized blocks,
one would only need to count the delegates and divide the nation based
on those numbers.

On the other hand vote fraud needs to be prevented, which means it needs
to be prevented that persons join into multiple voter-groups. The
responsibility for this falls to the vote-block housekeepers (not one
person registered twice/more), chair-persons of councils (not one person
registered in multiple of its voter-groups), the way to the country council
chair person. In principle the country council chair person is responsible
to check all names / identifiers (if any) against each other, so that
no person is registered in multiple provinces as a voter. This would yield
a method of knowing all voters names / identifiers (using the word identifier
because names aren't unique thus would not serve as a bureaucratic method
of distinguishing voters on paper). On the positive side, this leaves all
the non-voters.

The issue of taxation and land distribution requires the state to know
a person. How can a person be given land, or be demanded to pay its taxes,
if the state is unaware that person exists.

Maybe this can still be done in a minimalist way:
- No person has to be declared to exist to the state, until it wants to
  use government services as an adult, because only adults are required
  to pay taxes. In theory this may seem sweet, but in reality people want 
  to walk over streets and so on, they use state payed infrastructure all
  the time and can hardly even escape it.

  Maybe in that impossibility to escape it lies a justification that hard
  to escape usage of common infrastructure must be a reason for a person
  to be declared to the state to exist (and be registered by the state
  somehow, for taxation, vote-verification, etc).

  In that sense one could for example say: a person only has to declare
  its existence and be state registered, once it starts to use voluntary
  parts of state services. Only by that means does the person then also
  have to pay taxation (for what is uses), and can be awarded their
  land-right and vote-right. Wanting to be a voter, wanting their land,
  wanting to use the justice system in a voluntary way.

  This could mean that if a person commits a crime and gets prosecuted
  and jailed, these are still involuntary services used, rather they are
  done on behalf of those who want criminals off the streets and punished.
  These services are then already payed for by others, done at their behest.
  I suppose in reality though, certainly if a person must be put in prison,
  then that person will have to be known bureaucratically by the state.
  One could see that as part of the punishment. The registration may for
  example be kept local to the system used: for example only the prison
  used, the police station, the police file.

  One could also use a system where a person who is fined is only registered 
  temporarily (only on paper, not electronically because of its tendency
  to get copied and stored) for the duration until the punishment has been
  completed, and then the record removed (unless the person is using the
  Government voluntary services).

  Insurances a person might be able to obtain in a private sector. But
  if these are not obtained, and person wants to use public facilities
  (such as hospitals), then this person will have to register its existence
  and pay the insurance perhaps all the way back (or a guess of adulthood),
  and then have to pay for the rest of their lives the associated insurance
  fee, or until the cost of the operation was payed down, plus an additional
  fee because many such persons won't be able to pay down their treatment.
  People get treatment who never payed their share of cost of the health
  care system, then they get sick, register, and then maybe they are already
  very old ? They behave parasitically on other people then.

    In the ultimate case this could lead to a system where you can only
    get health care if you payed for some insurance.

- If a person can get registered for using voluntary state services,
  it might also want to get de-registered once it stops using them.
  However many state services can cost a lot of money suddenly (such as
  a court case), and then over long periods people don't use any services
  of the state. This could then for example lead to the same as with
  health care: a person uses a voluntary state service, and then pays
  the cost twice for example, and remain registered until it is payed
  down.

  I suppose the additional costs the Government makes because of the
  non-registered people using voluntary Government facilities, would
  need to be taken out of those same people when they do use Government
  facilities. This would be a simple matter of mathematics.

I doubt that it is necessary to be paranoid about Government knowledge
and registration of whatever data of people in this system, because
where data is being abused the essential problem is that the state is
detached from the people and then starts to attack people.

Then again, it is always wise to distribute as much power to the people
and take as much power away from Government as possible. The more helpless 
the Government feels against the people, the better.

It seems that such a system where the Government does not have a full
record of all who are its citizens, or temporary records, makes the 
Government less likely to turn into a tyranny, but at the same time
it opens holes that individual people could use easier to game the
system and try to get some things for cheaper then they are really worth.
For example maybe they want to bribe a doctor for 150% of the cost of
a procedure, knowing he'd have to pay 229% of the procedure to the state
because he is unregistered and that is the cost multiplied to cover all
additional costs of servicing non-registered people. Then the doctor
illegally does the operation, for instance. If everyone was forced to
pay for basic life saving medical treatments (up to a certain point),
and those persons where simply forced to pay these costs through taxation,
then that patient would not have a reason to try to play the system.

So I guess it is a bit of an unknown matter, the question is what would
you be more afraid of: state tyranny, or some additional costs from
non-registered people trying to game the system. What would you feel
better under: that the state knows you, or that the state does not know 
you; that the state knows all or that the state only knows the people
that actively tend to use its voluntary services.

Personally I don't have much of an opinion on this, the system should
at least register as little information as possible but how far that
should go I don't know. In theory it would be most elegant if people
don't have to register, as long as this doesn't cause strange problems.
I don't dare to speculate without attempting both ways what it would do.
If it can work with only voluntary registration then that would be nice.
Then the state would be far less tempted to over-reach its power, because
it would feel an instinctive fear for the unknown (for those that are
not registered that it simply doesn't touch, thus it can not compute
through how an attempt at tyranny by the state would likely go, and 
therefore it might cower away from the attempt.)


PS  I've always thought that this was a bit of a difficult issue.
    From a Government bureaucracy it is much easier to just enlist
    everyone, then hand out services and demand taxes in return.
    From the point of view of the people willing to pay taxes it is
    also a little bit awkward that there may be people using the
    infrastructure and services they payed for, who are not paying
    their share. From the point of view of those who want no Government
    to exist, or want Government to feel a stronger market pressure on
    its own revenue, a Government that demands them to register their
    existence with them is totalitarian and opressive. From the point
    of view of the danger of state tyranny the object must be to strip
    the Government of every power possible, until it has just enough
    left to service some public tasks that the people like.

    Obviously the non-registration option carries with it an interesting
    path toward diminishing / sinking the Government by cutting its 
    taxation revenue.

    On the whole I have to say that the way that registration of a
    person is only possible by adults for themselves, does seem to
    emanate a great calmness doesn't it ? Because it diminishes the
    greatest threat of all: corrupted Government, its armies, its police, 
    its lying and highly professional scheming against the peopele & war.
    We don't need to know everything, we can by not registrating
    everyone as a matter of principle create that sector of the unknown,
    and put trust in it. Then we don't know everything, we don't
    control everything. Light is moderated by darkness giving way to
    colors, to life. Life doesn't thrive much in total darkness and 
    total cold, and neither in total heat and light, but in the lively
    interval between the two ...

    Sorry to try to be poetic. The non-totalitarian registration way
    seems attractive. It also happens to be the Torah. People who don't
    register and therefore don't pay taxation, also have no land and
    no vote, so in that way they also pay (in the case of land it is
    a true economic loss for them). This compensates for the involuntary
    non-personal (public) Government services they'd use, one could say.
    Leaves more land and power for other people.

    The more I think about the non-registration method the better it seems.

What do you think. It seems so calm, so true, so beautiful, doesn't it ?