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VoTa is a radical constitution for a state. It is extreme and virtually uncompromising in multiple ways, often at opposite ends of the political spectrum at the same time:
It solves problems that are sometimes thought to be impossible to resolve without compromise:
VoTa reconciles the left and right!
The name is based on "Voluntary Tax" (i.e. choice over which services receive tax funding), and is also suggestive of voting (i.e. democracy).
Under the constitution, property rights are protected, and all rights are property rights.
Property rights give people control over resources and resolve conflicts over their use. Property has one owner. Everyone owns their own body, and people can own personal possessions, land, money and the resources used to produce goods. Agreements allow people to cooperate and establish distinct rights concerning the same resource.
Ownership begins through actual use of an unowned resource, production using resources already owned, or voluntary transfer through trade, gifts or inheritance. First use of an unowned resource is called homesteading. Merely declaring ownership of unused land or resources is insufficient to establish a claim. Abandoned property returns to the commons, where others can put it to use.
Everyone must respect other people's property and agreements. Force, fraud, threats, negligence, pollution that harms others and breach of contract violate this rule, called the Non-Aggression Principle. Anyone can use proportionate force to defend their own property or someone else's. Laws make these rights and violations clear and objective, and citizens amend those laws through direct democracy.
Ideas, discoveries and creative works are freely copyable. VoTa recognises no patents, copyright or other ownership of creations of the mind. People can make agreements about confidentiality or the use of information, binding those who accept them.
Producers supply goods and services through voluntary exchange. Production is untaxed and only regulated according to the general provisions for protecting property rights. Businesses must honour agreements and answer for harm caused by force, fraud or negligence. They are free to choose their products, methods, prices and trading partners. People can establish voluntary standards and certification services, and customers decide which standards matter to them.
The State consists of laws and public services. Citizens govern these directly. There is no political government and the State has no employees: private operators carry out public-service contracts. The State cannot borrow, lend, accumulate financial reserves or manipulate the economy. Tax revenue is allocated during each funding period.
The State holds the monopoly on significant retaliatory force and punishment for property-rights violations. Police, courts and prison services perform these functions under the constitution. People retain their right to defend themselves and others, while punishment follows a legal process.
Every law and public service must follow the Non-Discrimination Principle. The State must treat people equally regardless of wealth, income, beliefs, race or any other personal characteristics. The constitution specifies a short list of permitted distinctions, including suitability for a task, citizenship, residence, violations of property rights and care for people with disabilities or illness.
A public service is defined by a contract stating what it will deliver, who will operate it, how performance will be measured and how payment will work. Each service has a tax budget for each funding period. Its private operator supplies the service under profit and loss and is responsible for meeting the contract.
Anyone can propose a public service. A proposed contract can be registered providing it meets the constitution's requirements. Citizens then decide how much support to give it through their tax choices.
Contracts specify what happens if funding falls short or an operator fails, and how an operator is replaced when continuity is needed. These arrangements make responsibility visible to the people paying for the service.
VoTa has one tax: a flat consumption tax collected automatically when consumers pay for goods and services. Of the tax-inclusive purchase price, 20% funds Universal Basic Income, or UBI, and 30% funds public services. For a $100 purchase, $20 goes to UBI, $30 to public services and $50 to the seller.
Each citizen has a Tax Office account where they score public services. These scores express which services they want their taxes to support. The payment system allocates funding automatically using those choices and the services' budgets. Its water-filling method distributes support across services up to their funding limits. Citizens choose their priorities without having to calculate the allocation themselves.
Business accounts have product categories identifying their role in production and trade. Payments must fit a realistic supply chain or else they are blocked: a bakery can buy flour but not a cup of coffee as an input, for example. Account categories allow the system to automatically tax the final rather than the intermediate products in supply chains.
Citizenship is a voluntary agreement with the State. A person explicitly accepts its obligations and can later renounce citizenship. Resident citizens receive UBI, participate in direct democracy and use the public services provided for them. Adult citizens receive the same basic-income payment; children receive an age-based share.
Citizens agree to use the payment system as required and to respect its consumption-tax rules. They can only work for and supply domestic businesses that comply with those rules. This carries tax compliance through the supply chain, from workers and suppliers to the final consumer. Citizenship can be ended, while obligations already incurred remain binding.
The Central Bank provides a digital fiat currency and a payment system. Accounts are free to create and use. Every account has one owner and a non-negative balance, and transfers require the sender's authority. The total money supply is fixed: payments move existing money between accounts.
The Central Bank protects account holders' privacy and control over their money. Criminal investigations require a justified warrant. The Central Bank carries out payments, tax collection and allocation according to constitutional rules. Lending, investment and currency exchange are conducted through voluntary market transactions.
These are VoTa's theorems in everyday language: the consequences of its constitutional rules for public services, freedom, work and the economy.
Tax choice connects public funding to what people want. Citizens support services they value and change their scores as their priorities or the quality of delivery change. A service that disappoints people loses support and funding. Operators have a continuing reason to provide something useful.
People can support different combinations of services. One person might prioritise medical research and another local transport. Both can direct their taxes accordingly. New proposals give citizens a way to improve provision, and competing operators give them alternatives when an existing service performs poorly. Service budgets put a limit on how much money any one proposal can absorb.
Taxpayers can unionise as consumers, coordinating their tax allocations to create services capable of outcompeting even the largest producer. Their pooled purchasing power lets them fund alternatives while continuing to use existing services until those alternatives are ready. Each taxpayer retains control of their own allocation while exercising collective power over producers.
Research can be funded before the work is done through public-service contracts supported by tax choice. Citizens can back projects investigating diseases, developing energy technology or solving engineering problems. Researchers are paid to undertake the work, with their responsibilities and expected outputs set out in the contract.
Discoveries enter a shared pool of knowledge. Other researchers and businesses can use them, test them and build on them freely. This speeds the spread of useful ideas and allows competing producers to turn discoveries into practical products. Research funding follows public priorities, and successful teams gain support for further work.
Artists can fund new work in advance through tax-supported services and crowdfunding. A film, book, album or software project can gather backing before production begins. Its creators receive payment for making the work, and supporters know what they are financing. Large projects can draw contributions from a large audience.
Completed works can be freely copied and shared. Movies, books, music and software become part of a growing body of culture available to everyone. Audiences can enjoy and recommend them, and creators can adapt or build on earlier work. Physical copies, performances, personal commissions and support services remain things people can sell. Funding creation and distributing copies are separate activities, allowing a work to reach people far beyond its original supporters.
VoTa's rights arise from ownership of your body, property and the agreements you make. These give you freedom of speech, association, religion and personal choice. You decide what to believe, whom to meet, how to spend your time and how to conduct your personal and sexual relationships through mutual consent.
You choose what to buy and whom to buy from, what to sell and whom to sell to. People can form businesses, communities and other associations on agreed terms. Each person's freedom extends to the point where it would violate someone else's property or agreement. Courts protect that boundary, giving people a clear basis for living independently and cooperating voluntarily.
VoTa does not tax production. A business can hire workers, buy equipment and reinvest its earnings without paying tax on those activities. Producers are regulated only by the Non-Aggression Principle: they must respect other people's property and agreements. They need no political favour to enter a market or compete with an established business.
Patents and copyright cannot be used to shut competitors out. Anyone can use a discovery or design, improve it and sell the result. An established producer must keep winning customers even when rivals can copy its ideas.
The Central Bank cannot print money or manipulate interest rates. The currency supply is fixed, and lenders must lend money that already exists. Borrowers and lenders agree on interest rates themselves. The State cannot cheapen money to finance its spending or steer investment with artificially cheap credit.
Citizens vote directly on individual proposals for laws and public services. Anyone can propose an amendment or a new service. Each initiative contains a specific change that people can read, assess and score. Decisions concern the rules and services themselves, giving voters a concrete object for their judgement.
Participation is ongoing and fine grained. People can take part in the matters they care about, leave others alone and update their choices. Tax choice extends this direct participation to public spending: each citizen expresses their own service priorities through the Tax Office.
Citizens exercise this authority themselves. VoTa has no politicians or political parties forming a government. People can support a particular proposal on its merits, independently of their views on other proposals. Optional participation lets them devote their attention where they find it most worthwhile.
Democratic decisions operate within the constitution. Tax rates are fixed constitutional rules, and every proposed law or service must satisfy the Non-Discrimination Principle. A majority's support gives a proposal authority only within those limits. The judiciary rejects provisions that violate them.
Selective treatment is visible in the wording of a proposal. A rule giving an advantage or imposing a penalty because of someone's wealth, religion, occupation or other personal characteristic can be checked against the constitution's explicit exceptions. This makes constitutional review straightforward and keeps laws understandable.
These constraints protect minorities and individuals against majority abuse. They block targeted subsidies, grants, incentives and penalties that privilege selected groups. Businesses gain customers through useful work, and political connections cannot secure special market rights. The same protection limits cronyism, privileged monopolies and market distortions arising from selective state treatment.
VoTa protects both personal possessions and the factors of production. People retain ownership of their homes, land, tools, businesses and productive equipment. They can save, invest, employ others and exchange property through agreement. Public services operate alongside private ownership and voluntary enterprise.
Citizenship supplies the contractual basis for tax obligations. People choose whether to enter that agreement, accepting consumption tax in return for participation, UBI and public services. This joins individual consent with shared provision. Property rights remain binding on the people operating public services, giving them the same duty to respect others as every private person.
Public spending is financed from collected revenue. The State's spending is visible through service budgets and allocations, and its inability to borrow prevents public debt from becoming a future claim on taxpayers. There are no government bonds because the State cannot borrow. The fixed currency supply also prevents spending being financed by newly created money.
Automatic collection makes tax evasion difficult. Account categories and transfer rules block payments that disguise consumption as production. Citizens' supply-chain obligations make tax-compliant businesses the natural trading partners for workers and suppliers. Profits earned in that system remain subject to consumption tax when used for personal purchases, including by wealthy owners.
Citizenship is financially attractive to people with lower consumption. The UBI component redistributes purchasing power from those consuming above the average to those consuming below it. For the latter group, UBI exceeds their contribution to that pool. Public services add further value to citizenship, encouraging broad participation in the tax system.
UBI gives resident citizens a regular income independently of employment. This reduces poverty and gives workers more bargaining power. A person with an income floor has more freedom to leave a bad employer, refuse demeaning work, search for a suitable job or negotiate better conditions. Employers must make their offers attractive enough to recruit people.
That bargaining power reduces exploitation and the need for a statutory minimum wage. People remain free to accept work they consider worthwhile, including opportunities to learn or begin a new career. Basic income also gives them more room to study, care for family, create art, start a business or spend time on activities that make life satisfying.
UBI continues when earnings rise. Everyone faces the same marginal consumption-tax rate, and gaining work does not trigger the withdrawal of basic income. This reduces the welfare trap in which additional earnings are consumed by taxes and lost benefits. People keep the benefit of improving their situation and decide for themselves how to use the additional purchasing power.
Money remains in its owner's account until an authorised payment moves it. Private lenders make loans from existing funds, and borrowers receive money that someone else has agreed to lend. Interest rates emerge from those agreements. Account balances cannot become overdrafts, and the payment system works independently of private lending businesses.
Credit expansion cannot increase the currency supply, removing that source of credit-driven booms and busts. Lenders bear the risk of their decisions and have a strong reason to assess borrowers carefully. The State's prohibition on lending rules out taxpayer-financed bank rescues. Payments can continue through Central Bank accounts when a private lender fails.
UBI reduces people's need to borrow for everyday survival. Saving and borrowing remain personal choices, with lending supplied by the market. Free accounts, protected payment privacy and authority over outgoing transfers give people direct control over their money.
There are no special regulations for commercial banks and they are not bailed out if they fail.
They use central bank accounts like anyone else and therefore cannot create the fiat currency when they extend credit, they can only be financial intermediaries.