Amerika

If I wanted to design an idealized hybrid between capitalism, socialism, fascism, and democracy, it might take this form.

All citizens would be shareholders in their society and entitled to a certain share of its wealth. This would consist of the wealth not necessary to run the business, much as stocks are today. Society would have a fund which would be used to purchase up shares of every business above a certain size to add to what would essentially be a large hedge fund with all of the citizens as part owners.

When it came to be tax time, citizens would receive a bill that required them to apportion a percentage of their money to each program that the government executes. None would be exempt; to be a citizen, one would have to pay tax at a flat rate, so everyone feels the pain at least semi-comparably.

As shareholders, citizens would vote for those who became CEOs and these people would receive more shares over time for their service. This would entitle them to become part of the legislature and elect a leader for “fast response” problems, sort of like a cross between a president and military leader.

Each person would have a “lot,” that is a paired duty and share. If they failed in their duty, their shares would go away. As shareholders, they would have a vested interest in these companies, and want them to succeed, as well as a pressing need to have the best CEOs possible running these companies.

Such a society would do well to keep its expenses low so that citizens would reap more of the benefits, and any debt taken on would damage payout, so it would have an incentive to avoid going flat broke.

Its major weakness occurs through its reliance, libertarian-style on commerce as the basis for choosing leaders and policies. This does well with a society that is already stable, but will usually like the Republicans bypass defense of culture and civilization, and like the Leftists avoid serious problems so that it can pursue popular fixations.

Nothing can fix democracy or socialism in the end, and the overhead of their systems lives on in fascism, so Lotism by definition would be inferior to a traditional society. However, it would make a lot (heh) more sense than our current socialist hodgepodge of neurotic democratic nonsense.

Tags: capitalism, democracy, fascism, lotism, socialism