Allocating taxes to fund research prizes

Adapted extract from an article by Bart Kosko entitled 'Libertarian pragmatism' from Liberty (Sept '94; PO Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368 USA) monitored for the Institute by Roger Knights. Readers are referred to a similar proposal entitled 'Reward the invention, not the feasibility study' on page 205 of The Book of Visions (Institute for Social Inventions, 1992).

I propose a 'fuzzy tax form' to bring some personal choice into how the state spends whatever taxes it takes from its subjects. I propose that half the money go to general revenue as before. The other half goes, to some degree, to broad categories of your choice.

A fuzzy tax form could fund research contests for large cash prizes. Society gets what it gives rewards for. So reward researchers for breakthroughs. The latest trend is to punish them if they fail to come up with a breakthrough. That does not condition the same social reflexes.

California now requires a minimum number of electric cars on its street by 1998. It wants 2% or more of the cars sold there in 1998 to emit no pollutants.

So put up a few million dollars for the best electric car or the best way to clean up oil spills. Put up a billion dollars or 100 billion dollars for a cure for lung cancer or Aids. A fuzzy tax form would not just help society get what it pays for, but would let it pay for what it wants to get.

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