Philosophy Now Forum

Let me give you a few examples:

1) The government should not force employers to collect income tax from their workers.

2) The government should not force retailers to collect sales tax from their customers.

3) The government should not force employers to provide health insurance for their workers.

4) The government should not force citizens to join the military.

That's absolutely right.
Each level of government should have its own assigned tasks and all of the resources and manpower to carry out those tasks, without relying on private enterprise for any of it.
Federal government should own and operate eg for the armed forces, all the factories that make weapons, rations, vehicles and uniforms and have [enlisted, not conscripted] personnel working there.
State government should own the roads, prisons, colleges and hospitals, and employ all of their staff directly; it should probably also produce the vehicles and equipment for public transport and other civic functions.
Municipal and county government should operate its own maintenance and public services (schools, daycare, libraries, subways, police, health and safety inspectors, water, etc). They would need some reciprocal agreement with the state for major equipment like fire-trucks and snow-ploughs.
All citizens should contribute directly, in money, goods or service to each level of government.

Only after all government functions that are necessary to the welfare of all the citizens are taken care of should private enterprise get access to resources and employees. Then businesses wouldn't need to collect tax or administer insurance; they could simply pay a yearly license fee for being allowed to use the roads, mails, legal protection, currency, etc. and punitive damages for whatever environmental harm they might do.

Under Evensonomics, the government does not own, operate, support or promote anything. Everything, including war armaments, is privately owned by companies that carry out the government's directives.

Ah. Afghanistan.

Skip wrote:Ah. Afghanistan.

Under the American Energy Party (AEP), the U.S. would immediatey end all foreign aid and all involvement in foreign uprisings. We would not have military troops stationed anywhere in the world outside of the USA.

Not occupying Afghanistan - becoming Afghanistan. Little warlords with their separate fiefdoms duking it out for control of territory and population. Until an empire with big, unified, central government and a big, tax-funded conscript army comes along, bombs the tar out of it and gobbles up whatever's left.

The only proper foreign policy of the U.S. government should be defense and protecting our economic interests. Let the rest of the world fight it out without any help from us.

bobevenson wrote:.... protecting our economic interests. .

is already the only principle of US foreign policy. Government can't help it if American mega-capitalists' economic interests include owning everything, everywhere.

Skip wrote:

bobevenson wrote:.... protecting our economic interests. .

is already the only principle of US foreign policy. Government can't help it if American mega-capitalists' economic interests include owning everything, everywhere.

What are you talking about? China owns a lot of U.S. property, my friend, and what's wrong with that?

China owns a lot of U.S. property, my friend, and what's wrong with that?

That has no effect on US policy, which is largely controlled by the oil and arms merchants (and maybe Israel, just a bit).

Anyway, the Chinese nation doesn't own squat. Some very powerful and wealthy - and very possibly extra-national - men do.
To the extent that the Chinese government controls financial interests, at home and elsewhere, how those interests will be managed is subject to long-term central planning - sometimes pretty good, sometimes very bad. My hope is that they veer off the industrial suicide path, but who knows? So far, they seem to have refrained from dictating foreign policy to trading partners and investment sites, but that's mutable - and I expect a decisive move to counter climate change in the near future. If China doesn't take that lead, nobody will, and we're all cockroach-food.

Skip wrote:I expect a decisive move to counter climate change in the near future.

Cimate change is merely the latest left-wing bogeyman against free-market capitalism.