Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!decwrl!spar!baba
From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Financing the government of a free society
Message-ID: <316@spar.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Jun-85 14:12:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.316
Posted: Tue Jun 11 14:12:51 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Jun-85 03:21:03 EDT
References: <1340148@acf4.UUCP> <3841@alice.UUCP>
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 21

> One plausible method I have heard of financing the government
> of a free society would be for the government to charge
> for one of the services it provides: enforcement of contracts.
> 
> To wit:  if you and I sign a contract, and we want to be able
> to go to court to force compliance with the contract, we must
> pay some fee up front for that service.  If we are willing to
> gamble on each others' reputations, we are free to decline the
> service.  The government would set the fee as it wished; there
> would be some level that would maximize income and that's
> where the fee would presumably be pegged.  The fact that the
> service is optional would keep it from getting too expensive.
> Since there would be no way to enforce a contract otherwise,
> people would have plenty of incentive to use it.
>

Doesn't this mean that the poor are thus going to be denied
the protection of contract enforcement?  Justice for those 
who can afford it is nothing new.

				Baba