Cedar Rapids is a good place to begin a classical liberalism city in this ‘modern’ era of skepticism. I will address this skepticism a little later in this blog entry. Cedar Rapids is being forced to begin from scratch because the entire downtown area was flooded to unprecedented levels. In general all of the downtown area was submerged to the depth of 8 feet of rapidly moving river water.
Every owner of property in the downtown area currently is unsure about the next step. Some will leave, some will stay. Will there be buyers? One thing is for sure, there will be property available for purchase.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog Cedar Rapids needs to be made into a tax free zone. This will provide an extra incentive for property owners to stay and this will attract new property owners. Also providers of services who will replace the ‘public service providers’ will see an opportunity to minimize some of their costs by locating close to their downtown clientele.
Now we begin to get a picture of who will compose the owners of the downtown properties and some of the basic elements of commerce. These property owners are the ones who will become a community, with a common interest in a prosperous city. In a later blog I will discuss the organization of the Association.
The owners of the entire downtown area, including the streets and bridges, will recognize that there will be a need for a capital fund. This capital fund will serve as a resource in case of large expenditures but also as an equity fund. The immediate goal will be to determine its necessary size and find ways to accomplish the establishment of this capital fund. One important beginning point is attaching a percentage on all new sales of property in the downtown area to go directly into the capital fund without discouraging any sales. Eventually fundraising efforts will be an important contributor to the health of the capital fund.
The Association will be able to identify which services are most efficiently provided to all property owners, especially to guarantee that the aesthetic and safety standards established as part of the Association covenant are maintained. These ‘common’ services will be paid for by assessments, probably monthly. A monthly accrual from all owners towards the capital fund will be another source of capital fund growth.
What starts to take shape is a financially sound private city with a valuable and working covenant that makes the city very desirable to visit and to live in and within which to engage in commerce.
Now what is the skepticism of this ‘modern’ era that gets in the way of this way of thinking? It is the socialistic education promulgated by public education. The government funds the education and has a vested interest in telling the children that government is needed and has done this for numerous generations which is why you are probably a skeptic. Write to me if you are wondering if it is possible to discard this debilitating skepticism.
This blog will be a repository of ideas, concepts and principles that support the philosophy of classical liberalism for the purpose of making Cedar Rapids a model city, worthy of emulation.
Submit your ideas to divineeconomyconsulting@msn.com.
1 comment:
Can I assume you are a student of Rothbardian Economics, maybe you made this clear already?
Rothbard and Mises differed (a lot) in their concept of who the individual really is.
For Rothbard it was Individual Sovereignty -- So, if you identified as a worker (worker-individualism) or if you identified as an authority-figure it was (authotarian-individualism).
For Mises it was Consumer Sovereignty -- or consumer-individualism.
I agree 100% with Mises and the distinction is very important.
Whatever a being does throughout the predominance of his life, that's the type of "individual" he is.
What's truly forgotten is that we all are "consumers" regardless occupation or position. We are wasting (using up) this body, we are wasting time, we are wasting/transforming resources.
Without making this distinction you might find the "weeds" of collectivism/gangsterism cropping up in your model city.
Also, there's no smooth way to deal with Naval Fire Power and Army/Air Fire Power during the transition from Corporatism to Anarcho-Capitalism -- that destructive power cannot fall into the hands of recently dethroned "authorities" (in banking, monopolies, ex-CIA, corporatists and especially organizations like PETA, smile).
We need a strict Minarchism to transition from Economic-Fascism to Economic-Individualism (the true individual being the consumer).
Just some Thoughts
Cheers!
Post a Comment