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I disagree. That's just allowing people to vote other people's money away. The point of having rights is that my property is mine and the majority can't vote

I disagree. That's just allowing people to vote other people's money away. The point of having rights is that my property is mine and the majority can't vote it away. In your system, where does it end? The US is a republic (nation of laws), not a democracy (nation of people) - democracy is a good mechanism for electing the government and, hopefully, keeping is relatively clean. The bonds you describe may be a smart improvement to less-controlled taxation, but it's still having the state control the economy. Using the analogy to the church, that's like not outlawing other religions or atheism, but using state funds for one religion of preference - that's still a lot of control and weight the government shouldn't have. I think of it this way: the government has the guns (and rightfully so), so everything they do is ultimately by force. Therefore, we need to severly limit what they can do, leaving the rest of us with freedom.

eru 18y ago
My proposal was meant as a practical interim step. Selecting ends democratically works better than selecting means. While people can agree in a democratic fashion that certain goals shall be reached, the market fares better at choosing the method to execute. In the longer run though, I would like to fund public goods using dominant assurance contracts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contracts#Variants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contracts#Variants). They solve the free rider problem of voluntary funding. And they allow private provision of public goods --- for profit. (http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/PrivateProvision.pdf http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/PrivateProvision.pdf) Of course, dominant assurance contracts and social policy bonds complement each other.