Value and the State (standard:Editorials, 1870 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Jul 25 2007	Views/Reads: 3352/2274	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A State exists in order to maximize value for all of its inhabitants. This value is tangible (goods), intangible, (services) or administrative. Here's how it works.

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long-term disservice to the populace. 

Individuals who live in impoverished States (where the oppression of
misguided leaders may contribute to loss of dignity in the population) 
view wealthy communities as attractive.  This generates great pressure 
for impoverished peoples to migrate from one State to another.  On the 
other hand, if individuals from wealthy States share their know-how and 
cultural values with less fortunate communities, in time the 
impoverished communities become able to generate their own values, and 
reduce the pressure for migration. 

Two factors inhibit the "perfect" realization of value and distribution
of wealth (as measured by media of exchange):  the human failings of 
dominance and dependency with regard to other people.  When an 
individual seeks position and influence over others, this cannot 
contribute to value in the community. However, when members of a 
community seek and choose unanimously an individual to act in their 
behalf and grant that individual special powers to influence others, 
this contributes to value -- so long as the dominant individual is 
representative in character and spirit to the peoples who chose 
her/him.  In like manner, when an individual draws sustenance from the 
State without knowledge or consent of the community, this dependency 
impoverishes the values of that State. 

All value derives from the resources of a planet and from the successful
efforts of its life forms to create order out of chaos.  The residents 
of a State or Community have available a limited supply of resources.  
If they utilize energy effectively -- and in an orderly way -- to 
produce goods and services, the value thereby created is maximized.  On 
the other hand, if resources are lacking -- if energy is lacking -- if 
orderly effort is lacking -- less value is created.  One mission of an 
administration is to insure that all essential elements for maximizing 
value are present.  Another mission is to insure that resources and 
energy are utilized conservatively, so that excess value is not 
wastefully dissipated.  In this context, value is tantamount to 
survival.  It is a measure of survivability.  The creation of value is 
an irreversible process which obeys the second law of thermodynamics. 

In an ideal State, each perfect individual contributes value so that all
needs are met and no administration is needed.  Since States are not 
ideal, the measure of imperfection lies in the quantity of 
administrators needed and in the quantity of value which must be 
redistributed by them in order to approach an ideal community.  When 
30% of all members of a State are engaged in administration, and 
receive proceeds from the wealth of that State, then 70% of its members 
must create 100% of the value.  In another community, where only 10% of 
the members are engaged in administration, then 90% of the population 
is available to create value.  In a State where 30% of the wealth 
produced is garnered for redistribution by the administration, only 70% 
of the State's value is available to the inhabitants who produce it.  
In another State, where only 10% of the wealth produced is garnered for 
redistribution by the administration, 90% of the State's value can be 
utilized for the benefit of people who produce it. 

In a State where the administration garners a portion of the values
produced each time these values are transferred, it is clear that all 
value devolves to the administrators, regardless of who produces the 
value.  This is because the amount of value passed on at each transfer 
is diminished by that fraction garnered by the administrators of a 
community, until no value is left. 

When the residents of a State or Community expend the greater part of
their energy to maintain an administration, this does not contribute to 
survivability of that State.  When the values created must perforce be 
converted to revenue in order to meet the taxation policies managed by 
the administrators of such a State, this does not contribute to 
survivability. 

When administrators of a community -- human or otherwise -- stimulate
its members to consume an excess of resources, expend an excess of 
energy or to undertake less orderly procedures for creating value, this 
becomes a threat to the survivability of that community.  Two examples 
will suffice: 

After locusts have consumed the wheat in one field, they expend energy
by moving to another field.  These actions insure survival of 
individual locusts and -- through fertilization of insect eggs -- 
contribute in an orderly manner to the survival of its species.  Since 
the life of each locust is finite, the process terminates when locusts 
in the first wave have eaten all the food supply or have flown beyond 
its borders (i.e., come to a shoreline).  If significant locusts -- the 
administrators -- were to guide their colleagues to consume the limited 
resources less voraciously, this would multiply the egg-laying and 
hatching capacity of the community (i.e.: create value) and in short 
order, locusts would take over the earth. 

When the administrators of a State attempt to maximize tax revenues
without examining closely whether values are created by this process, 
the result is excessive consumption of resources and energy and an 
imbalance of revenues (as a measure of value) created by the community. 
While individual members of the community may enhance their personal 
survivability as a consequence, this sacrifices the survivability of 
the community as a whole and carries the State more rapidly on its 
irreversible course toward extinction. 

The great arbitrator in this process is innovation.  It enables members
of a community to find new resources, utilize energy more effectively 
and to maximize the production and distribution of values.  If 
administrators of such a State are present in excessive numbers, they 
do not participate in this process of producing and distributing value. 
Instead, they dissipate the values created. 

From these considerations, it is clear that: 

Revenues for supporting the administration of a State and for
redistribution by those administrators in the interests of the State 
can arise only from the values generated by the members of that 
community. 

Revenues for supporting the administration of a State cannot be derived
from the mere transfer of value, but only from the creation of new 
values. 

Based on these considerations, it is clear that a tax statute that
derives revenue from business activity which does not contribute value 
is tantamount to plunder of a State's resources and dissipation of its 
available energies.  It does not encourage the orderly utilization of 
energy and resources, but threatens the potential for survival of the 
individuals who make up that State. 

In order to rectify this misapplication of value, a careful study should
be made of those elements which maximize the production of value in a 
community.  In this way, taxation can then be more effectively carried 
out on the revenues generated by creating excess value, and not on 
"empty" revenues generated by the escalation of prices or the 
zero-value activities created by the tax statues themselves. 

Seattle, November 15, 1990 

Gerald X. Diamond


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