To all Americans,

You are about to make the single most important decision of your life, so take your time with it.

This letter aims to create the simplest, safest revolution imaginable by organizing a livestreamed Constitutional Convention for the American People. A digitized Constitutional Convention would combine technological innovation, democratic legitimacy, scientific expertise, a triumph over tyranny, and an ultra-attractive, unifying narrative for the polarized American People. If we succeed in this endeavor, it would go down as the single biggest win in American history. What you need to decide if you want to help realize this dream. It seems impossible to imagine a more American act than a digitized, diplomatic, democratic revolution against an oppressive, tyrannical, aristocratic empire.

The plan is simple: we put the smartest people in the country in a room together and get them to design a brand-new government, while We the People criticize, comment, and cheer from the comfort and safety of our homes. This plan would bring the American People into direct contact with our foremost experts, allowing us to ground our new government in their knowledge and wisdom, slicing through decades of entrenched propaganda with truth of the highest caliber. It would also enable the selected delegates to know exactly how We the People feel about specific proposals and debates, providing them with massive amounts of data on the public’s opinions.

Naturally, the risk created by such sweeping change is undeniably uncomfortable.
These three essays aim to minimize that uncertainty, offering guidance across three key dimensions in order to provide the American People with a gameplan for systemic change.

1.     Setting, which establishes the necessity of a nonviolent revolutionary movement

2.     Solution, which explains the mechanics of the revolution

3.     Structure, which provides a theoretical framework for a society that maximizes freedom

The final essay is a rough draft, a sketch over which our best experts can expand on and solidify, and if need be, to change outright. This draft gives us something to rally around, a unifying proposal that appeals to all Americans regardless of political affiliation.

History shows that nonviolent resistance and centralized, coordinated cooperation are the only tools capable of beating an entrenched empire; and no one else on the internet is talking about or trying to lead a digital revolution. We live in an age of content creators, where content can spread to billions in a matter of hours if it generates enough emotion and controversy.

Any attempt to stop us from organizing, mobilizing, and executing this Convention only draws more attention to this elegant solution to our single biggest problem: an increasingly oppressive, weaponized, corrupt, negligent, tyrannical superpower.

My sincere, relentless, supermassive hope is that this dream becomes your own, and that you help it become the unifying narrative of the distressed, oppressed, suppressed American People.

What if we really did stand at the beginning of the greatest story ever written?  

All the best,
Marcos

SETTING

Like a centuries old home infested with termites and weakened by by time, the corruption in our government has rendered it a threat to us, those of us living under it. As an individual living inside this house, an individual who recognizes the imminent danger posed by the creaking timbers and sagging beams, it is my duty to inform the other inhabitants of the house of the danger we are in. Explaining the danger clearly is what this essay hopes to do.

"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters."
Antonio Gramsci

The United States of America, the most powerful, successful empire in recorded human history, is in catastrophic decline. The consequences of a rapidly decaying superpower will be terrible for the American People and our species. For several decades, the USA has maintained a world order based on law, free trade, and international cooperation. This world order has provided a sheltered environment that enabled the flourishing of billions of people, but it is now crumbling along with the integrity of the American government. If the indispensable nation falls to tyranny, the environment that generated so much peace and prosperity falls with it, and the world returns to the historic average, where might makes right. As the compounding effects of climate change begin to limit basic resources, violent conflict between our kind is all but inevitable.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

The corruption in American society is obvious and overwhelming. It seems that it is simply too entrenched to remove; that it has metastasized throughout too many vital institutions; diversified across too many executives. This corruption is not a fault unique to our nation, but a pattern that is seen across history and around the world. Powerful empires fall victim to internal corruption. And while we think ourselves exceptional, we are no exception to this pattern. We have devolved from a healthy, democratic republic into an oligarchic kakistocracy, a society in which our most corrupt citizens are also the most powerful. The immensely powerful institutions that once protected the liberties, freedom, and prosperity of the American People have turned against us. The federal government has been hijacked by a powerful, wealthy elite that acts in their own interests at the expense of the American People.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George Orwell

Tyranny, the very adversary this nation’s founders risked everything to revolt against, can be seen from three noble perspectives.

Aristotle, one of the most accomplished philosophers in history, defined tyranny as rule for the ruler’s benefit, rather than for the benefit of people. In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court legalized unlimited political bribery, allowing corporate and special interest money to flood our elections, drowning out the voices of ordinary citizens. The corruption stemming from this ruling has corroded our government across federal, state, and local levels, spreading pay-to-play politics like a cancer. Politicians no longer serve their voters, they serve their donors; and they do so knowing that they are betraying their constituents. And that systemic corruption is completely separate from the corruption of the current administration. By Aristotle’s definition of tyranny, rule for the ruler’s benefit, we have a tyrannical government.

John Locke, the enlightenment thinker that dared challenge the divine right of kings, believed that tyranny occurs when a government violates the natural rights of the people it governs. 1st Amendment rights are under attack, with freedom of speech and assembly becoming increasingly restricted. Under the new administration, the attack on our inalienable rights is only growing more severe, as individuals are being arrested for simply voicing uncommon, uncomfortable opinions and institutions are pressured into bowing before the administration’s will. Beyond the current administration, the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches, has been shredded by the Patriot Act, and government intelligence agencies now spy on Americans without warrants, due process, or oversight. Our famous rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ring exceptionally hollow, as most Americans spend almost all their time working and still struggle to meet their basic needs. By Locke’s definition of tyranny, government infringement of their citizen’s natural rights, we have a tyrannical government.

James Madison, one of America’s original founding fathers, warned that tyranny arises when a single branch of government consolidates too much power. Trump v. United States granted the President absolute immunity from criminal prosecution while in office. And to skew the balance of power even further, a sitting President passed an executive order stating that the President’s interpretation of the law will supersede all other opinions, replacing  the role of the judicial branch outright. The executive branch is not just openly ignoring unanimous Supreme Court verdicts requiring the return of an illegitimately deported resident, they are claiming it as a victory. And even beyond the recent political turmoil, the President is able to launch precision guided missiles around the world without any oversight or evaluation. He is capable of raining down death and destruction around the world, wherever and whenever he chooses, and history has shown that Presidents exercise this power frequently, regardless of political affiliation. By Madison’s definition of tyranny, the over-consolidation of power, we have a tyrannical government.

"When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty."
Thomas Jefferson

Corruption now permeates every level of our government; it runs deeper than the Presidency, deeper than Congress and the Supreme Court. Laws are purchased by corporations and aristocrats, regulators are controlled by the industries they oversee, and working Americans are left powerless, forced into trading their very time, energy, and lives away to simply survive the month. Because of this unacceptable, undeniable, multifaceted tyranny, a revolution against our failing, corrupt government is not only justified, it is necessary for our continued safety and happiness.

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”
Declaration of Independence

The challenges we face as a national are literally too many to list, and as of this moment, we are incapable of meeting any of them because our government is corrupt to its very core. We are at a breaking point where the American People must either overcome this tyranny or fall victim to it, a point where radical action is justified and necessary. Change at this scale is terrifying to consider, but if we do not act, life for all Americans will become increasingly worse as our government becomes increasingly unhinged and the Presidency becomes increasingly autocratic and dictatorial.

“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.”
Niccolo Machiavelli

Our government rests entirely on the foundation built by our Constitution; it is the foundation upon which every single office and law rests. That Constitution is more than two centuries old, making it one of the oldest in the world. It was written in an age of sail-powered shipping and horseback messengers, an age where slavery was legal and women were property. We live in an age of geosynchronous satellites and pocket supercomputers, an age of complexity and technology light years beyond what the founders could have foreseen. We need a government loyal to its citizens and built for this age. Just as the Constitution replaced the failing system of law and order created by the Articles of Confederation, the time has come for the Constitution itself to be replaced, along with the entire diseased apparatus we call a government.

"It always seems impossible until it’s done." – Nelson Mandela

SOLUTION

Given the unacceptably tyrannical nature of our government, we must organize a digitized Constitutional Convention to change the trajectory of our nation in a single decisive, thoughtful stroke. While a digitized Constitutional Convention solution is appealing for the fullness of the solution, as of this moment, it raises far too many questions and seems far too abstract to be considered a viable path forward. The purpose of this essay is to reduce that risk to an acceptable level, creating a tangible gameplan which the American People can understand and rally around.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew."
Abraham Lincoln

The solution to the biggest problem in the world, the hijacking of the US government by the aristocratic class, is to gather the most capable Americans alive today, assemble them to design a brand-new government, and livestream their discussions and debates to the rest of the American People in real time. This proposition would bring together the leadership, expertise, and knowledge of our most competent citizens, and combine it with the aggregate wisdom and democratic legitimacy of the American People. Imagine having the best professors and professionals in the nation walk the American People through their field of expertise, passing the baton of national attention along, designing the structure of our government piece by theoretical piece. This strategy ensures that the overall structure is in accordance with natural laws and teaches the American People why and how to build an awesome civilization. It is this educational aspect that is so critical, as this plan not only provides us with a great government, it generates public support and acceptance of that government.  

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”
John F. Kennedy

Rather than electing the most well-rounded individuals for our representatives, or the polarizing, partisan figures of either party, we must elect the individuals with the greatest expertise in a number of critical fields of knowledge, knowing that together they are more capable societal engineers than individuals with extensive experience navigating a thoroughly corrupt political system. But regardless of whether we choose to go down the traditional, exhausting route of electing the actual politicians, or the novel, rational route of selecting our best specialists across a variety of fields, there is immense uncertainty in selecting these delegates. The delegates make or break this Convention, ensuring that it is either a resounding triumph or a tragic failure, and this degree of uncertainty renders this path unacceptable.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
H.P. Lovecraft

But selecting how to select the delegates is just one question we must answer, and there are countless others to ask and answer. What are the technological logistics? How are we going to agree on such a complicated, emotionally charged debate when we are this divided? How long is the Convention? Who gets to decide how we decide on the delegates? These are just some of the many questions, unknowns, and uncertainties that this proposal generates, and it is important to acknowledge them so we can answer them directly, minimizing the discomfort of uncertainty.

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely Players"
Shakespeare

The answer to all this uncertainty is simple: we all follow the preset list. No democracy, no debates, no negotiation, no uncertainty, no corruption; just a take-it-or-leave-it opportunity to help create the best story in recorded human history. This path is the only way we fix our government, otherwise we never get around to actually hosting a Convention. This plan for designing and implementing a new government is imperfect, it’s a probably a B+ or so; but it looks really attractive when compared to an F-, which is how our current government is scoring. Having a plan laid out in clear terms provides citizens with a unifying rally point, one which offers a path to the best America possible, and minimizes the risk posed by the individual creating this plan.

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
George Patton

Conductors get to pick their orchestra and their music, coaches get to pick their roster and call the plays, and directors get to cast and cut their movies. Generals have total control of the soldiers under their command, CEOs have total control over their company’s entire workforce, and every major political and social movement of the past century was led by an individual. This historic reality gave us tyrants like Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, and as it did heroes like Gandhi, Martin Luther, and Washington. Even in antiquity, this pattern holds true. When faced by a crisis, the Greek city states and the Roman republic would appoint an individual to guide them through the crisis, and they were often able to navigate those crises because traditional democratic decision making had been suspended. We are at a point of crisis, one where democratic norms must surrender to temporary autocracy for the sake of all of us.

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."
Texan proverb

We are in a severe crisis where absolute leadership is absolutely necessary, and no one else is offering this kind of leadership. Yet this path also comes with its own risks and concerns. For one, there are immense personal risks to challenging the legitimacy of the US government. More importantly, however, trusting an individual with making key decisions for this Convention creates the risk that the individual will make wrong choices. To minimize the risk of my own inadequacy, I have assembled a detailed outline that includes a roster of delegates and a step-by-step guide for this Convention for public examination. This outline, spreading our Convention across nine hours on a single day, includes the individual delegates, the allocated time for their portion of the discussion, and the subject matter of their lecture. The thinking here is that solidifying the details of this Convention makes it much more appealing, and that publishing it allows the public to cross-examine the list of delegates and the content they cover.

“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
Blaise Pascal

This path this essay proposes is undeniably undemocratic, but it is also extremely efficient and effective, and more importantly, it is already done. You know exactly who you are electing as delegates and what we will be discussing before deciding whether or not to join this movement. This proposal guarantees a Convention that is free of corrupting lobbyists, polarizing partisan politicians, and fundamentally inadequate delegates – it seems to be the only way to get the people who deserve to lead these discussions actually leading them. By following this plan, we practically eliminate the risk of creating a government worse than the one we already have, and by extension, minimize the fear this path generates.

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one”
Marcus Aurelius

            Trust is a two-way street: I am essentially betting my life on influential leaders and millions of Americans backing me up. Even though I am approaching the replacement of the American political system with guaranteed non-violence and clear convenience, the sitting President has proven that he is willing use the immense power of the federal government against American citizens who defy him. So while I am technically just exercising my 1st Amendment rights to free thought, speech, and non-violent assembly to articulate exactly what we need to do for the sake of the entire world’s safety and happiness, speaking truth to power is inherently dangerous. It is my hope that by outlining the Convention in detail, along with a rough draft of our next iteration of American governance, I minimize the risk I pose to our success in this enterprise, and the exposure I have to the less desirable consequences of playing revolution. After all, if I have already played my part, what is the reason for killing me?

"We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot."
Eleanore Roosevelt

In light of the authoritarian facets of this proposal, we must ensure that democracy plays a leading role on Convention Day. For starters, the creation of our new social contract would be far more democratic than the writing of the Constitution itself, as it would give millions of Americans the opportunity to directly influence to the structure of their state by voicing their comments and concerns in real time. But to further integrate democratic decision making, the plan in place is to hold a vote within the delegates first, a vote to determine if the government is good enough to put to a public vote. If the vote among delegates passes, then we implement a public referendum on adopting our new social contract. The logistics of doing so should be left to individuals who are far more capable and experienced than myself. The four ex-Presidents would be stellar candidates for this job, bringing bipartisan comradery, priceless legitimacy, and decades of experience at all levels of the political system.

"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."
Martin Luther King Jr.

Finally, it seems necessary to comment on the sheer audacity of this attempt. This is probably the only time someone is going to ask for your help replacing the most powerful organization in the world from your dining room table. And unless we do that seemingly impossible thing, unless we peacefully regain control of our government, life for the average American just keeps getting worse as the complex political, economic, and environmental systems continue breaking down. Every other possible solution I can see only patches up a miniscule portion of the rotten structure that is our government. A house as rotten as ours cannot be repaired, it must be torn down before building a better home where it once stood. Just as a house is built with a blueprint and multiple subcontractors of various specializations, so must our government be actually designed and built by the best experts we have. An electrician does not debate electrical wiring nuances with a plumber, just as a plumber does not ask the electrician for advice in his field of expertise.

“The problem creates the solution. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Marcus Aurelius

It is late in the fourth quarter and we are down bad, so a hailmary is the only play that makes sense. We have a concrete outline of Convention Day, as well as the individuals tasked with leading it. The final piece of this process is to establish a framework, a societal blueprint, which the public can evaluate and critique before committing to this revolutionary movement. I believe I have a blueprint that would bring an unimaginable amount of happiness, prosperity, and community to the American People – and it’s all in the next few pages. 

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete."
Buckminster Fuller

STRUCTURE

Now I expect your consideration to contain a healthy amount of skepticism. People have argued over the structure of state and society since civilization has existed, and it is improbable to assume that I have the best answer so far to a question that has plagued us since the dawn of civilization. And that’s fine. I can handle the doubt. The question I want you to ask yourself before jumping into the nitty-gritty is: what happens if I can back it up?

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."
Leonardo da Vinci

We must endeavor to create a society that maximizes the potential, possibility, and happiness of its people. We must build a society that maximizes freedom. To understand why this is our objective, we must first turn our attention to the inner workings of the human mind, exploring the fields of psychology and neurology. After having established a scientific understanding of the core drivers and mechanisms of our behavior, we turn to the external fields of knowledge, such as political science and economics, to help structure our society according to the natural laws that govern the universe. The internal journey is about ‘why’ we should structure society in a specific way, and the external journey is about ‘how’ we actually do it. Simply: what is the target, and how do we hit it?

Psychology is the study of the mind and human behavior, dealing with emotions, thoughts, and motivations. Of all the psychological models that attempt to explain human behavior, the most famous is one known as Maslow’s hierarchy. Abraham Maslow structured human motivation into five distinct levels in the middle of the 20th century. To reach the higher tiers of motivation, an individual would have to meet their more basic needs first. For example, no matter what a person’s needs are, if a person runs out of air somehow, getting air becomes an overwhelming priority for them very quickly.

At the most fundamental level, human beings are driven by their biological needs: air, food, water, etc. This is the most basic level, and these needs take priority over all others. The second level of Maslow’s hierarchy deals with safety, ensuring that a person feels protected from the elements and other humans. The third gear is community oriented, establishing the need for social acceptance and a place in society. The fourth level is probably the most complicated to satisfy, as it deals with the need for self-esteem and personal identity. We are driven by suffering to meet our biological, shelter, community, and identity needs, and all of them are competing against each other, exerting varying degrees of emotional force against us. The higher up this hierarchy, the less immediate the need, the lower the emotional intensity, and the longer people can go without satisfying that need. It is crucial to realize that all humans have these needs, and that we will try and satisfy our needs. If we are to build a successful society, we must account for how to meet the needs of all our citizens, not just those of our wealthiest citizens.

If all four lower tiers of needs are satisfied, we reach a state Maslow called self-actualization. Self-actualization is self-maximization. It is the ability to imagine the best version of oneself, and then to go out and be that person, to realize the beautiful story arc that one imagined. One person may envision becoming a famous musician, another a groundbreaking scientist, and another a charismatic politician. The nature of the dream depends on the talents of the individual and the needs of their community. If there is any thread that links all self-actualized humans, it is the concept of maximizing positive emotion. We want to pursue maximum happiness and minimize suffering, our own and that of the people we care for.

While this is a basic introduction to the motivation that drives our behavior, we must dive deeper than the simplistic model outlined by Maslow and begin to explore neurology, the study of the human brain. The brain is the determinant of our behavior and the source of our emotion and intelligence, so understanding it is a critical part of developing the best civilization possible. To learn more about self-actualization, the highest form of human life, we must study a particular neurological system known as the default mode network (DMN) along with another known as the executive control network (ECN). The interplay of these two networks is essential for an individual to become the best version of themselves.

The DMN, the ECN, and the salience network (SN) all work in concert. The DMN is in charge of imagination, the ECN is in charge of action, and the SN is in charge of determining what information is relevant and which of the other two networks takes priority. These three neurological networks work together to shape our perception of reality, our ability to think critically, and our ability to navigate this complicated, dangerous world. A healthy mind balances between all three of these networks. If a person ruminates and imagines too much, they become depressed and neurotic. If a person acts without thinking, their impulsivity creates avoidable problems and unnecessary suffering, with no time spent reflecting on themselves and the world around them.

The DMN is a collection of neural structures that include the most recently developed part of the human brain: the prefrontal cortex. This incredibly important network activates when we have no immediate task to work on, when we are bored. If we are at not doing anything, this cerebral structure enables us to imagine and daydream, or as the technical literature puts it, to engage in stimulus independent thought. The DMN enables us to tinker with and manipulate reality, ideas, and futures in our minds, creating narratives that appeal to or create anxiety for the individual, optimizing for minimal suffering and maximum happiness. This network is the source of our innovation, creativity, and imagination. The activation of the DMN creates a small degree of suffering, as anyone who has ever been bored knows, thereby incentivizing the individual to act. The dreams generated by the DMN generally optimize for the emotional return of that individual, creating possibilities that bring us happiness or reduce our suffering. By calculating the emotional cost/benefit of a particular course of action, the DMN helps us plan for the future, learn from the past, and guide our actions in the present.

            This second major network, the ECN, is one of interest to us as well. This neural network activates when we are focused on doing something. The greater the degree of focus, the more energy is directed to the ECN, the less active our DMN becomes, and the quieter our minds get. There is a particular state of mind known as flow, which relates directly to the ECN. Flow was first identified by a psychologist named Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, and it describes a state where a person is totally immersed in an activity. Simply put, it is “being in the zone”. Flow is a state of mind that is just as applicable to an author or painter who loses themselves in the creative process as it is to an athlete. In flow, the prefrontal cortex and the DMN shut down, and the ECN takes full control. To achieve this state, a person needs to be skilled in and challenged by a task. If the task is too easy, the person becomes bored and the DMN activates; if the task is too hard, the person becomes frustrated, and the DMN activates.

Flow is important because it represents the optimal performance of our species; it is the most efficient use of bodily and cognitive resources and the highest conversion of those resources into meaningful benefits for the individual and their community. While the DMN is critical for imagining and innovating, the ECN is the thing responsible for actually realizing those dreams. We are aiming to optimize society, and we must acknowledge that optimizing the volume of flow in our society is be beneficial to all of us. But while flow is the state of mind we should aim to maximize, we must also recognize that creativity and imagination are critical parts of developing into a healthy, successful member of society. It is the interplay between these two networks that enables us to reach our highest potential, thereby maximizing the benefits we provide to our society.

When an individual begins to repeatedly do something, their neural network, their brain, gets better at doing that thing. Specialization is essential for maximizing the development and benefit of individuals in our civilization, as well as maximizing the efficiency and capabilities of that society. In the United States today we have specialized to an extreme degree, whereby citizens can do a few things very well at the expense of a lot of other behaviors that used to be necessary for our survival: foraging, hunting, farming, etc. The more developed the society, the greater the specialization of the individuals in that society, and the greater its efficiency in producing the things necessary for that society. But while specialization brings major advantages and increased efficiency, it also makes the society more fragile. If society reaches a critical point of dysfunction, it implodes, and hyper-specialized individuals suffer terrible consequences because they cannot survive on their own. This implosion of our society is a clear, present, and overwhelming danger to the American People, and it must be defused before we destroy ourselves.

We know from our journey through psychology and neurology that human beings have needs, and we know from experience that people are going to do what they need to do to meet those needs. We know that the most developed, evolved state of mind a person can achieve is either engaged in stimulus independent thought or lost in a state of flow. Having investigated the core drivers of human behavior and the function of higher order neurological groups, we must now turn our attention to the broader picture of human civilization. The hundred-trillion-dollar question is: how do we structure society to meet those needs and enable us to reach our highest potential?

We will incorporate economics, political science, and other fields that deal with the macro rather than the micro in an attempt to design a sustainable society that maximizes for human potential. We need to meet the needs of ~1/3 billion Americans, and we should do so as efficiently as possible. But how do we actually do that?

It is helpful to simplify our government into basic inputs and outputs. Money comes in through taxation and goes out in various ways. Using this elementary framework, we can comprehend how a superorganism as complicated and colossal as the US government works from a 10 miles up.

The first question we must answer is related to the inputs: how do we decide what our taxes are? The second question is equally simple to ask: how do we spend the money generated through taxation? While these are simple questions, the answers to them are incredibly complex. This essay attempts to structure responses to those two questions.

First, taxation. The key sources of income for our taxes should be based on two separate sources: land value tax and Pigouvian taxes. The first of these is generally considered to be the most efficient form of taxation as it taxes land according to its value, rather than the value of the property built on top of it. It doesn’t matter if a lot is used for growing tomatoes or used to house the headquarters of a multinational corporation, the tax is the same regardless. This arrangement encourages the development of land, and far better economists have made strong cases for adopting this particular tax. A land value tax would be incredibly helpful in distributing investment according to population density and economic necessity, whereby population centers would optimize to build tall developments, and rural areas would face much lower taxes.

The second tax is applicable to major negative externalities, problems that corporations create but do not bear the cost for. Pigouvian taxes are helpful because they enable a government to transfer the social costs of a particular good or service to the organization producing it. This transfer reduces the amount of the problems a particular good or service creates because it lowers the consumption of that good, while simultaneously raising tax revenue for the government. For example, we could put Pigouvian taxes on oil, plastic, and sugar. Putting these taxes on those products would be immensely beneficial to actually addressing the structural issues they cause, reducing their consumption and the harm they inflict on the broader society. Since these costs will be borne by the society at some point in the future, shifting those costs to the corporations creating them is necessary to reduce those costs and ensure the producers pay their fair share.

Other taxes, those on income, wealth, and other sources, will likely be necessary or appropriate for the functioning of a modern government. After all, virtually every government in the world derives the majority of their income through income taxes at the individual or organizational level. Even if these two taxes are the best kind of taxes, it is needlessly risky to assume they would be the only ones. This essay aims to highlight two sources of taxation that would provide immediate and long-term benefits to our society, rather than dictate the entire tax policy of our government.

And having analyzed the inputs of this equation at a very basic level, we must turn to the second question: What do we do with all this money?

I believe that the best way to meet the needs of hundreds of millions of Americans is to organize our government into a series of ministries, each of which is tasked with meeting a particular need. These ministries would operate without a profit incentive, maximizing economies of scale, offering us the goods and services necessary to meet our basic needs at the lowest possible cost. This proposal would maximize the disposable income, time, and energy of individual citizens, enabling us to live fuller, richer lives. In other words, by reducing the cost of basic needs, like clear water, energy, food, etc. as much as possible, individual citizens would be able to meet their needs with the least effort and expense possible. This reduction in stress and energy would allow for more time activating the DMN of citizens, thereby maximizing the innovation, relations, and the cultural and productive output of our society.

To elaborate hypothetically, assume that the average American only needed to work 30 hours a week to make ends meet. The question everyone would face is what to do with those extra 10-12 hours. Some might choose to learn guitar, others to watch their kids’ basketball practices, others to write a book, and so on. They would seek to fill gaps in their communities in order to deliver the highest emotional return possible and eliminate their boredom. By reducing the energy necessary to pay for things we need, that energy can be deposited in other pursuits. By lowering the cost of survival as much as possible, we are thereby maximizing the freedom of the average citizen as much as possible.

If we follow this blueprint, there will need to be at least a dozen ministries, covering physical and psychological needs like healthcare, network connectivity, justice, energy, and food. Looking at the major executive departments, and consolidating the smaller ones, would be a good place to start fleshing out this concept. Rather than identify exactly how many branches we would need, this essay aims to introduce the concept of government via cost-basis ministries, leaving the specifics to others with greater experience and expertise.

To go out further on this twig, these ministries should probably be structured as co-operatives. As stated, the exact structure and operations of these ministries is a subject that needs to be debated at the highest levels by more competent experts to ensure that we structure them as optimally as possible. One thing is abundantly clear: we cannot rely on ruthless, for-profit corporations to meet our most basic needs efficiently. By structuring the government into a series of cost-neutral co-ops, we should maximize the efficiency of meeting our basic needs while also minimizing the size and scale of the government itself.

It also seems prudent to ensure that the people who most influence the activity and running of these ministries would be individuals in that field. Workers at these ministries could take periodic tests, which would weight their influence on the functions and decisions of that particular ministry. Each ministry would be headed by a minster, someone elected by weighted votes. Under this system, a master economist would have, say, five times the voting power of a regular citizen. This weighted influence would improve the quality of decision-making in these ministries and increase the incentive to specialize, further increasing the efficiency of our society. This technocratic-democratic-meritocratic fusion would retain flexibility that allows citizens to advance themselves across multiple ministries, or to switch specializations later in their career, limited only by their self-discipline, capabilities, and ambition. Non-specialist citizens would still be able to influence the functions of the ministry, maintaining a key link to democracy, but their votes would be weighed according to their knowledge, wisdom, and experience. Structuring our ministries in this fashion should, in theory, improve the quality of their decision making, providing benefits to the society as a whole.

It is absolutely essential to clarify that individuals in this society would still be able to form for-profit organizations. If we are to tie the broader economic picture to our earlier forays into psychology, the boundary between for-profit and non-profit would exist at self-actualization. If an entrepreneur dreamed of founding a restaurant, they would be able to, but they would be forced to compete on quality instead of price. In other words, the bottom four tiers of needs according to Maslow’s hierarchy would be guaranteed by the state’s non-profit organizations, whereas allowing for-profit corporations created by self-actualized citizens would still harness the innovation, initiative, and self-interest that is so critical to America’s technological and economic dominance. Given that the brain is far more sensitive to selfish needs than altruistic ones, it is critical that individuals retain the ability to profit from their own work, as doing so allows us to harness the core driver of human behavior.

While for-profit organizations would be encouraged, publicly traded organizations would be required to split profits and board seats across capitalists, workers, and government. Each of these three parties is necessary for the operation and success of a productive organization. Capitalists provide the investment, workers provide the labor, and the government ensures there is an environment where complex production can take place. While capital and executive initiative are essential in the early stages of a corporation’s development, they become much less influential later on, when workers become more important. As such, it stands to reason that large, publicly traded companies divide their profits and decision making across these three groups. No modern economy can exist without all three parties being involved, so all must have a share in the profits and a say in how the organization functions. Structuring organizations like this would also bind the interests of each party closer to the other two, as they all share in profits, improving efficiency of the overall firm. This marriage of socialism and capitalism would propel us into new era of economic productivity, harnessing our selfish and our social instincts, and meeting our physical and psychological needs as fully as possible.

The nations of the world who most resemble this proposed system would be the social democracies of the Nordic nations. These nations have managed to find a balance between socialism and capitalism, ensuring that the basic needs of their citizenry are met efficiently, while also enabling citizens to pursue their creative pursuits. They have some of the least corrupt, safest, most stable societies in the world. Their students score extremely well in education, their citizens are some of the happiest, and they are some of the wealthiest in the world per capita. All of these positive extremes exist because they have managed to find a balance between the two extremes of socialism and capitalism, a balance which we can fine tune if we dare to go beyond what other nations are doing. Similarly, the Chinese economic miracle, which brought hundreds of millions of individuals out of poverty and created the world’s foremost industrial power, was a result of fusing key concepts of capitalism to a socialist model. The longer we ignore the benefits of fusing these two extremes together, clinging to the extreme ideologies of the past millennium, the more stagnant and inefficient we become.

Another critical topic: how do we get those publicly produced goods and services to the average American? As far as logistics go, as far as actually ensuring citizen’s access to the resources provided by these ministries, there are two conduits that we could use to maximize the efficiency of distribution: schools and religious centers. These two focal points, which exist in every community in the USA, would become the centers of our society if we followed this blueprint. We could shift away from the unsustainable, toxic myth of individuality and meet the need of community that no longer exists for most of us, crushing the epidemic of loneliness. This proposal would allow schools the opportunity to teach according to mastery as opposed to age, reducing the stigma associated with learning later in life. It would also allow religious institutions to fulfill their religious mandate, which largely boils down to helping the needy as much as possible. But the foremost benefit, besides improving the efficiency at which state-backed resources are distributed, is to reunite the fragmented American People together into natural, local communities, where all citizens are welcome.

Finally, we must consider what technology to incorporate into our government, as the modern technology influences society enormously. One particular example worth analyzing is Estonia. They have developed an incredibly sophisticated digital government portal, whereby citizens can access all of the government’s digital services from a single portal. Denmark and Singapore should also be evaluated as case studies. In the age of data, information, and connectivity, we must utilize and structure our nation’s data in a way that maximizes the benefits it can provide.

At a surface level, there are four facets to techno-governance: website, app, data, and AI. What these become and how they are structured depends on the knowledge and wisdom of individuals with far more experience across various fields of technology. But it must be made clear that using that data for the public good and providing government services digitally would provide immense benefits to our civilization in the efficiency and effectiveness of meeting our needs. The benefits we would derive from pooling our healthcare data alone would lead to massive leaps in the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of medical treatments. As things stand now, our government’s digital interface is extremely siloed and inefficient. As this essay argues, rather than tinker with a profoundly flawed system, we must begin with a fresh canvas. By incorporating all technologies available to us now and in the near future when forging a new technology stack for our government, we stand to harness the awesome power of our technology. 

At the heart of this vision lies a simple truth: we must design a society that works in harmony with human nature and the natural laws that govern the universe. By blending basic insights from psychology and neurology, fusing capitalism and socialism together to utilize the best of both worlds, and organizing a society that is democratic, technocratic, and meritocratic, we can create a civilization that maximizes human potential, balances efficiency with equity, and safeguards the future of our people. We are at a fork in our history, one where we either adapt or die, and we must react to the dire straits we find ourselves in or live with the regret of knowing we could have done more. The alternative to engaging with this blueprint is stagnation, decay, and eventual collapse under the weight of a corrupt, expired political system that oppresses its people. We must overcome our fears, social inertia, and the belief that change of this scale is unattainable if we are to survive as a nation. A government structured around meeting needs instead of maximizing profits, an economy that encourages both innovation and fairness, and a culture that prioritizes self-actualization over mindless labor; these goals are not impossible dreams but rational objectives, targets to aim at.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, or the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
Charles Darwin