| | What we consider to be the basic features of a ''perfect'' society
Here we briefly outline our ideas about how a ''perfect'' liberal society might be constructed and function. We also provide brief arguments in favour of our ideas, which we consider convincing from the point of view of well-known experience, logic and just common sense. Most of the approaches and solutions used in our concept were invented before us and described in various theories, and some were even tested in practice. But there are also some ideas put forward here that may seem a little or even too radical.
The subject of the description is the main features of the structure of a society that could have been formed over the course of several generations from a country that once firmly embarked on the path of liberal reforms and has not deviated from it since then. Of course, much of what is described below is something that can only be imagined theoretically today. However, as physicists like to say, there is nothing more practical than a good theory. A clear idea of what we should strive for is practically essential for those who have the ability and desire to promote the true liberalization of their society. This is also important for those who would like to participate in pilot projects to create advanced liberal communities before the start of the process of mass, global liberalization, the chances of living to see which are not so great.
None of the supporters of the liberalization of economic and social relations questions the need for these relations to be free from bureaucratic interference. More complex are the issues of protecting members of a liberal society from harm to their interests, from aggression, as well as issues that require joint decisions by interested groups. We share the opinion of libertarians that the solution to all these issues, including those that are currently being resolved by government institutions, will in most cases be more effectively resolved by businesses in a competitive environment (the forms of such competition will, of course, differ from the usual forms of competition in commodity markets) or by non-profit organizations.
However, we should understand that even in the most liberalized society there remain certain common problems that must be solved centrally - just because this is the most rational or the only real way. In particular, one of the fundamental conditions for the prosperous existence of society is the presence of a unified and sufficiently perfect system of Civil legislation is a system of laws and other regulatory documents that establish the rules of civil circulation and regulate, among other things, conditions related to property rights and entrepreneurial activity. civil legislation?. In a civilized society, where the malicious or reckless failures to perform contracts isn't a significant problem, clear general legislation mainly serves as a universal framework agreement that establishes basic definitions and principles and greatly facilitates the conclusion of numerous specific contracts. To solve any issues of this level in a centralized manner, society needs a set of tools, even if we would refuse to use the term ''state'' to name it, so as not to upset those who hate this word too much.
For the above mentioned reason we don't quite agree with radical libertarians who consider state to be an absolutely harmful and even criminal institution. Let us consider any state just as a historically formed organization that has both unique differences from organizations of other types and common features with other large organizations, in particular, corporations. The activities of states, as well as the activities of corporations, involve many people who have their own individual motivation and are making their own careers - personal ''business projects''. They, like those who work in other fields, must act according to the rules of their system in order not to be rejected by it and to achieve some success. In the activities of any state there are not only parasitic and harmful components, including the shadow, “mafia” activities of influential clans associated with it, but also a productive component. State institutions perform not only functions that are, from our point of view, redundant, but also necessary functions, without which people’s lives would turn into unbearable chaos.
Today's states cannot function effectively not because it is fundamentally impossible, but because an insufficiently politically mature society has allowed the political class and bureaucracy to democratically establish political systems convenient for themselves, expand their own powers, limit personal freedoms, etc. Politicians can pass laws and regulations by which they control a huge portion of public wealth without bearing any significant responsibility for the ineffective use of powers and resources. In this state of affairs, a creeping, steady increase in the parasitic component in the activities of state institutions (the growth in the number of officials, the complication of legislation, increased regulation and tax burden, etc.) becomes inevitable. Increasing the tax burden and government intervention in market relations not only suppresses quantitative economic growth, but also reduces its quality, hinders the formation of a natural and adaptive economic structure and creates the need to perform unnecessary functions and volumes of work. In order to strengthen their electoral base, the beneficiaries of the system also strive to increase the number of people dependent on social benefits. Politicians and bureaucrats redistribute an ever-increasing share of the earnings of those who create public wealth to those who do not want to work, while spending ever more of funds on their own maintenance. Thus, the ability of groups that came to power democratically to control huge budgets and bribe voters from these funds is a fundamental systemic flaw. This creates a positive feedback loop that inevitably leads to an increase in parasitism. All this is most often accompanied by a decline in the quality of performance by the bureaucracy of those of its functions that are really necessary for people, a deterioration in the socio-political climate and the crime situation. The state bureaucracy, under plausible pretexts, limits the ability of citizens to defend themselves, but at the same time doesn't provide them with the necessary level of security and doesn't bear sufficient responsibility for own inability to do so. And so on.
At the same time, large corporations, whose budgets are no smaller than those of some countries, have significantly more effective management systems. This is due to the control of major investors, competition in the stock market and dependence on the attitude of consumers of products. Corporations best in their fields have effective internal systems for motivating (including social packages) and for improving employee skills, as well as feedback systems from both employees and consumers. Corporate governance systems also use mechanisms of internal competition, while trying, however, not to destroy the general atmosphere of cooperation for the sake of achieving common goals. A large corporation is a community where it is possible to build an effective system of relationships with some features of “socialism with a human face'' or even a big family. But this is only possible under competent strategic management of a narrow group of highly motivated professionals, which is unattainable on the scale of an entire state with universal suffrage. In such states, large corporations are often closely interdependent with politicians and bureaucracy, becoming part of the system, which leads to the growth of a parasitic component in their activities. Certainly, advances in management technologies can and should be used in solving issues delegated to the “state” level. However, this can only be fully realized if society has managed to establish the right relationships with those who are entrusted with solving problems of this level, to build a reliable system of public control, and if the majority of members of society have developed a high level of political culture.
Designing a fairly perfect system of public self-government is a task that is truly an intellectual challenge. This system cannot be very simple, even after getting rid of the current bureaucratic clutter. This is exactly the case when ''devil is in the details''. The task cannot be solved without a competition of ideas, including the most unexpected ones at first glance, as well as without critical analysis from those with sharp minds. As in the creation and improvement of complex technical systems, new inventions can be used in the mechanisms of this system. Our concept is an attempt to participate in the ongoing brainstorming of this existential problem. However, as has already been said, the most basic ideas have long been known, and we take them into service, trying to present them as briefly but convincingly as possible.
Well, now let's move on to a description of the properties of the ''perfect'' system in essence, accompanying some of our statements with brief explanations and argumentation. Some complex problems, specific and working mechanisms for solving which people in the future have yet to find, are touched upon here in passing, and we only outline the general principles and criteria which we believe should be followed. Detailed design of some complex blocks of the social system will require painstaking work, taking into account all previous experience of attempts to solve those issues, and using methods for the systematic solution of inventive problems. It should also be borne in mind that much of what is described below can only work properly in the form in which it is presented here only in a society that has accumulated the necessary cultural and material potential by evolving in the right direction over at least two or three generations, and having developed traditions of responsible behavior of free people. In particular, it is necessary that the majority of people participating in the process of self-government and in the related votings have sufficiently developed rational and critical thinking. However, some mechanisms can be introduced even at the early stages of radical reforms.
1. The system should have two main levels of self-government - local and national, the rights and responsibilities between which are clearly delineated. At the local level, self-government is organized for populated areas that are relatively isolated from other territorial complexes, have a common basic infrastructure, and, due to their nature, it is advisable to manage them as single complexes. Thus, self-governing self-governing territorial units (hereinafter referred to as SGU) can be both large cities and urban conglomerates, as well as small settlements. The government of an SGU manages the property located on its territory, which is not in individual or joint private or other ownership and is not under the management of the national government, and also organizes and controls the execution of works carried out at the expense of the local budget. The system provides for the possibility and procedure for separating a part of an SGU from its composition into a new independent SGU by decision of its residents and without the consent of the residents of the remaining parts of an existing SGU. There is also an option for voluntary consolidation of small SGUs into larger ones in order to optimize management.
2. National and local governments don't have within their structure departments or staff to directly perform functions that can be performed by private providers of such services. To resolve issues concerning several SGUs, which in traditionally structured states were often resolved by the governments of regions, provinces, states (in the United States), or other federal entities, instruments of cooperation are used between interested SGUs acting jointly as a customer. Such a structure for managing activities to solve infrastructure and other regional problems will be more adaptive and effective. It will make it possible to do without regional governments.
3. The national government (NG), to which we refer all branches of national power, is responsible for a strictly limited range of issues that can only be effectively resolved centrally throughout the country or in the field of international relations and that cannot be entrusted to private contractors or local authorities.
4. The basic principles of the structure and functioning of society are described in the National Constitution (NC), which consists of two main parts. The first part, which we called the Cultural Codex, is declarative in nature and describes the basic ideas and values of society, as well as what in the behavior of members of society is socially approved or socially disapproved. The second part (Constitutional Norms) establishes mandatory basic rules. It is impossible to describe in this brief review the structure, order of formation and functioning of all branches of government and mechanisms of self-government. However, it is worth noting the obvious truth that the management and control of the expenditure of common funds, in order for this to be effective, must be carried out primarily at the local level - by those who replenish these funds and can see the results of their use. The possibilities for national authorities to regulate the activities of a GSU should be constitutionally and strictly prohibited or limited, but for exceptional cases, there should be mechanisms for correcting local decisions that violate basic rights of, for example, minors or their parents. In decision-making in the self-government system, participation will be provided not only by elected or appointed officials, but also by representatives of non-governmental public institutions, professional organizations, and randomly selected people who meet certain criteria, based on the principle of selecting jurors in courts.
5. The Cultural Codex, the concept of which is described in the previous article, establishes behavioral principles that promote the harmonious functioning and development of the entire society and give it evolutionary advantages. Compliance with the Codex is voluntary and motivated by moral and rational considerations. This is something that should be passed on from older generations to the next through family upbringing, as well as through education and the influence of the general cultural environment.
6. The section ''Constitutional Norms'' of the national constitution must have very significant differences from the constitutions of the states that exist today. A proper constitution should establish in sufficient detail and unambiguously the norms of direct action that prevent representatives of all branches of government from regulating the rules of control over their own activities and adopting norms that limit the freedom of action of members of society beyond the restrictions directly established in it. Directly applicable norms should close all the loopholes that politicians and bureaucracy have previously used to excessively expand their powers, hinder public control over their activities, and infringe on civil liberties. The constitution should not be limited to general declarations that citizens have the right to do or demand something, but should define in detail and clearly what actions they have the right to take to protect their interests and the interests of others. The constitution must contain a direct prohibition on a specific list of actions, including interference under any pretext by representatives of the executive branch in the functioning of the information and financial infrastructure, as well as the adoption of improper laws and other norms that violate or limit constitutionally protected rights, in particular, the widest possible range of available methods of self-defense against any kind of threats and risks. It must also directly define specific measures and mechanisms to ensure serious and inevitable liability for attempts to violate these prohibitions.
7. The country should have a constitutionally established, unified National Information System (NIS), which is decentralized and based on blockchain technology. The NIS will be used to store information that is important to people and organizations, technologically ensuring its complete safety and protection from distortion by anyone, including any officials and the providers of this information themselves. It will be the only official repository of data subject to registration: personal data, including biometric data of residents and visitors of the country, property rights, etc. Voluntary registration of personal data in the NIS should be available for persons who aren't residents or guests of the country. The NIS will also be used to record the voting results, to conduct legally significant correspondence, to record statements that may be needed in the future to resolve disputes, etc. The principles determining the procedures for using the NIS and the grounds for obtaining different categories of data from it should be established in the constitution.
8. In the country described, the list of actions, the right to anonymously committing which in current states is declared in laws, will be reduced. Today, anonymity regimes in some areas, established under the plausible pretext of protecting people from abuse and interference in their private lives, are successfully used by bureaucrats and criminals for completely different purposes. In a liberal society, other, more effective mechanisms of protection and self-defense of legitimate interests should be used predominantly, and the impossibility of anonymously committing certain actions will make it even more difficult to encroach on the interests of law-abiding people who themselves don't do anything that they need to hide. In particular, the abolition of the anonymity of voting will facilitate the creation and use of reliable self-government systems protected from any manipulation.
9. The procedures for granting temporary or permanent residence permits to migrants should be established by the SGUs in accordance with their systems of self-government and in compliance with the basic requirements of the constitution in this area. Local communities must be guaranteed the ability to accept as their temporary or permanent members those who are useful and culturally close to them, and to refuse residence to those whose behavior appears unacceptable or suspicious. However, the organization of control of the state border and, if necessary, the forced deportation of violators of migration rules, must be ensured by the national government. The entire system of migration control must effectively prevent the entry into the country of those who use the opportunities provided to members of a liberal society to undermine the foundations of that society. Migration policy will also hinder the importation of guest workers to perform low-skilled work, especially those arriving without their families.
10. Neither the national government nor the SGU's governments should regulate pricing and relations between business entities, as well as between employers and employees. Neither the national government nor the SGU's governments should regulate regulate, control or finance activities in the fields of education, health care and social security. These issues will only be decided by private individuals and commercial and non-profit organizations. Intervention by officials will only be possible in exceptional cases, such as deprivation of children of the opportunity to study by their parents or other guardians. In addition, the principle of non-interference of the state in the sphere of education must have such an important exception as the legislative consolidation of the need to ensure the acquisition of certain basic skills and knowledge when receiving primary and secondary school education. The primary school curriculum must ensure that students develop full-fledged conceptual thinking skills, for which it must meet certain basic criteria in terms of content and method. The secondary school curriculum should develop students' critical thinking skills to an adequate level and, in particular, should provide: study of the main types of mental distortions, methods of manipulating people's consciousness, their use in commercial and political advertising and in criminal activity, as well as methods and techniques for counteracting such phenomena and influences; study of the foundations of the structure and functioning of a liberal society, including the constitution of the country; study of historical examples of tragic consequences and crises caused to a large extent by insufficient level of political culture and deviations from the principles of liberalism. Pupils should also be given the conditions and incentives to become perfect in the language of their home country and to achieve fluency in English by the time they complete secondary school.
11. The NIS (paragraph 7 of this article ) should store information about individuals, organizations, information sources, etc. that may affect their reputation and cannot be deleted or edited. Such information as official claims, court decisions, etc. will be entered into the NIS without fail as part of the relevant procedures. The system can also store comments, assessments, counterarguments, etc. related to the activities of subjects from other members of society. Individuals will be able to voluntarily grant someone access to information about them, for example, to confirm their reputation and establish trust. For organizations and people engaged in business, public or political activities, including candidates for positions of power, opening access to certain types of information about them will be mandatory. Confirmed instances of someone providing false information or other abuses will also be recorded and reflected when that person posts other information, so that when assessing the likely degree of reliability of certain information or objectivity of any assessment, the reputation of the person providing it can be taken into account. Unlike conventional review services, the use of the NIS and the lack of anonymity will make it technically impossible to manipulate this information and will significantly complicate the purchase of reviews. It will also be possible to use various services for convenient searching, analysis and visual presentation of the necessary information from the NIS. The use of a reliable system for recording and providing information important for decision-making, combined with sufficiently developed rational and critical thinking among the majority of members of an advanced liberal society, will make it possible to protect them from manipulation of their opinions using information technology.
12. The Constitution must prohibit the adoption of laws and regulations, as well as the commission by any government representatives of any other actions that restrict freedom of speech under any pretext. The main defense against the harmful influence on the minds and psyche of people from those who would try to abuse freedom of speech must be the immunity against this in members of a liberal society who are brought up in its culture. The ability of people to think critically, and the availability of reliable means of verifying both information and the reputation of its sources, will make it much more difficult for liars and manipulators to achieve their goals. If any source of information, for example a website, has not created its reputation NIS-dossier itself, then this can be done by a person or organization that considers the activity of this source to be harmful or suspicious and intends to organize public control and information counteraction. In such an environment, attempts to mislead people will only lead to self-exposure and provide tips to those who investigate criminal activities outside the public information space.
13. The powers of government bodies and officials to issue laws and other mandatory regulations must be limited by the constitution, which should also specify the basic criteria that these laws and regulations must meet. In particular, there must be effective restrictions to prevent an excessive increase in the number and scope of mandatory regulations. Normative acts must also: be written in clear language that is understandable to those without special legal education; not contradict the constitution and other laws and regulations, and not have internal contradictions; not to create significant inconvenience to those who must comply with them or to others; not require too labor-intensive and expensive administration, provide for a simple and easily understood mechanism for implementation and control, excluding mass non-compliance or the possibility to abuse selective application of punishments for non-compliance; not contain loopholes for use in corruption and other undeclared purposes; etc. The process of introducing, discussing, adopting laws and regulations, as well as amendments to them, should be recorded in the NIS. Information should be available on who introduced what for consideration, who spoke for or against and how they justified their opinion, who voted and how. This will not only improve the quality of decisions made, but will also give society a reliable tool for evaluating politicians and experts. Their personal dossiers will record who made reasonable proposals, correct assessments and warnings, and who compromised themselves by trying to mislead people, as well as promoting and voting for decisions that later turned out to be ineffective, harmful, corruptly motivated, etc.
14. An important part of the NIS will be the National Financial System (NFS), which stores information on the amount of funds in national currency and in other currencies in all accounts, and all securities of domestic legal entities that all individuals and organizations have or have ever had anything since the founding of the NFS, as well as on all transactions with that assets. Any NFS user will be able to manage their funds in NFS accounts both directly and using commercial financial services. The ban on extrajudicial blocking of funds and securities will be enshrined in the constitution. The national currency will be a cryptocurrency by nature, but its emission for the purpose of covering the government budget deficit will be prohibited by the constitution. The NFS will include an automated currency exchange that operates on open, understandable algorithms and has mechanisms to mitigate the effects of random and short-term strong fluctuations in supply and demand, as well as to protect against speculative attacks. Thus, the national cryptocurrency will have fundamental differences from today's private cryptocurrencies, the rate of which is determined exclusively by speculative factors and cannot have sufficient long-term stability. In addition, the popularity of such currencies is largely due to the desire to evade state and banking control not only by law-abiding people, but also by those who engage in criminal activity. The national currency will serve subjects of the real legal economy, that are not anonymous, and it will be absolutely protected from inflationary depreciation that today occurs due to the unsecured emission of money by states. In the ''perfect'' economy, the emission of additional money will be permitted only to replenish its deficit in the non-state sector when other sources are insufficient - by issuing loans reliably secured by liquid assets.
15. Owners of funds and other assets will be able to remotely perform any transactions with them provided by law, using standard contracts provided by the NFS itself, standard or individual contracts provided by commercial financial or legal online services or drawn up by the owners themselves. Сontracts concluded and implemented through the NFS will ensure, in particular, the automatic transfer of the corresponding property rights registered in the NIS when making payments stipulated by these contracts. The NFS will provide individuals and organizations with the opportunity to pay for purchases of goods and services, including using short-term loans, make transfers for other purposes, etc. Such a system of servicing economic relations will make the fraudulent actions that occur today, for example, in the real estate sector, technically impossible, and will also significantly reduce the necessary volume of services of lawyers, intermediaries, etc. Mediation and non-governmental arbitration mechanisms will primarily be used to resolve contract disputes.
16. The country will use a tax system that is radically simplified compared to any that exists today. This will make it fundamentally and technically impossible to commit tax offenses and crimes, and will also make tax collection and control services unnecessary. The amount of taxes levied on individuals or organizations will not depend on the volume of transactions carried out, the size of their income or profit, or the value of their property and assets. Taxes will be automatically calculated and collected through the NIS from residents living in the country who have reached a certain age, for the fact of their residence during the tax period, from legal entities for the fact of their being in the NIS as registered during the tax period, as well as for real estate and vehicles, the ownership of which is registered in the NIS taking into account their category and physical parameters (for example, the area of the land plot or premises), but without taking into account their value. Assets such as stocks, other securities and interests in businesses will not be taxed. The amounts that must be collected for the national and local budgets will be distributed among taxpayers in accordance with the availability of what is subject to taxation and with the application of coefficients for calculation established in the order that will be determined by the constitution. The national budget will also be replenished through fixed or low-interest commission fees automatically collected when various transactions are made in the NIS and NIF, including the purchase of foreign currency for personal use or import. The constitution will also establish mechanisms for taxpayers to control the need for expenditure items and projects, as well as the proper spending of funds allocated to the national and local governments to implement what will be recognized as necessary. Making the tax amount independent of the level of income or the market value of the taxable property will be more beneficial for those who work, invest and use their property more efficiently, since the relative tax burden on them will be lower than on those who do so less efficiently. This will provide incentives to actively invest and get rid of inefficiently used property, for example by selling it, to those who can do it more efficiently.
17. In an economy free from rigid bureaucratic control and excessive tax burden, where the majority of members of society have rational thinking and competently build their career and financial strategies, everyone, with rare exceptions, will be able to ensure their well-being and solve all problems in all periods of their lives. Without a huge parasitic class, which, despite all the achievements of technological progress and the enormous growth of labor productivity, manages to slow down the growth of the well-being of working people and even reduce their quality of life, people will be able to earn enough for decent consumption and accumulation of personal assets without excessive effort and even with less labor time than is required today. In an economy with a right structure and right incentives, numerous and long-lived elderly people, instead of consuming funds for their maintenance, which impose a high tax burden on working youth, will fuel the economy themselves as consumers for many years through their own savings and income-generating assets. In such an economy, there will be very few people who will not be able to provide for themselves, and the problems of such people should be solved by society without the participation of the state, which was successfully done already in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Well, in a more highly developed society, charitable and volunteer organizations, with the support of business, will certainly cope even better with problems of this kind. However, assistance to these needy people, if they are fully or partially able to work, will not be provided in the form of simple social payments, long-term existence due to which can lead to the degradation of the individual. Instead, they will be offered a choice of temporary part-time employment options that will provide them with a living wage and leave them with enough free time and energy, including to seek suitable options for permanent employment, self-employment or business, and to prepare for them.
18. The organization of the internal market for goods, services and investments must ensure its balanced development and protect it from unwanted external influences. It is also absolutely necessary to develop profitable foreign economic relations. The well-being of domestic producers of goods and services for the domestic market will be ensured by the most favourable tax regime and the absence of bureaucratic pressure on business, but certain frameworks will be established for foreign economic activity, ensuring that they are consistent with the national economic and political strategy. In turn, the national strategy must be built taking into account the moral principles of a liberal society (paragraph 6 and paragraph 10 of the article on the cultural code). When selecting counterparties and partners for trade, industrial cooperation and investment activities, preference should be given to business entities from countries that are political partners, especially if they are close in principles of internal politics and social relations. On the other hand, domestic businesses should not, without urgent need, enter into relations with businesses from countries that are not friendly, or, even more so, belong to the communities of unfriendly and hostile countries. Restrictions, priorities, incentives, etc., for those engaged in foreign economic activity will be established by the national government. All domestic business entities will have the right to engage in this activity on the basis of freely provided licenses, which can be revoked if significant violations of the policy established by the government are detected.
19. The possibility to use the NIS for independent registration by authors of the facts of their creation of what is today considered objects of intellectual property will allow to implement mechanisms for obtaining deserved and adequate remuneration that work without regulation by state's or international bureaucracy. A liberal society needs a regime of maximum free use of intellectual achievements, which does not require ever more complex legislative regulation and costly administration, but which, at the same time, will preserve the deserved incentives for the creators of intellectual values.
20. Issues of land acquisition and use are often quite complex, requiring consideration of many factors and the interests of many parties. There cannot be any very simple and universal recipes here, but it is certain that most issues in this area should be resolved in local self-government systems. At the same time, we believe that mineral resources and other types of natural rent should be recognized as a national asset, and those who extract them or otherwise derive additional benefits should make appropriate contributions, but not to the current budget, but to national funds that finance long-term strategic projects, or that serve as strategic reserves in the event of major unforeseen problems on a national scale. We consider the different attitude of the tax system to incomes, the receipt of which is the result of people's activity, and to excess incomes, the receipt of which is not, to be fair and right, if this doesn't reduce incentives for entrepreneurship and work.
21. The protection of the legitimate interests of the country's residents on its territory will be ensured primarily by them themselves, using a wider range of unprohibited methods of individual and group protection than anywhere else today. We are talking not only about the possibility of owning and using weapons for self-defense, but also, for example, about the possibility of using special means for hidden audio and video recording for these purposes, including for recording violations by employees of any government agencies, which today is almost everywhere permitted only to employees of these very agencies. Insurance organizations will also participate in protecting against possible criminal attacks on the interests of citizens, many of which will operate on the basis of mutual insurance principles, which can ensure a more complete coincidence of the interests of insurers and insured citizens and legal entities. Of course, no society, even the most advanced, can get rid of crime completely. However, if there are not many easy victims for criminals among the population, if people are armed with effective technical means for protection, self-protection and investigation, and if threats are countered not by officers of bureaucratized government bodies, but better motivated and more competent specialists from non-governmental organizations and the residents themselves, then this will make systematic criminal activity too dangerous and unprofitable.
22. Foreign policy and defense against external enemies and threats will be included in the limited list of functions of the national government. Foreign policy must comply with the moral principles and logic described in the article on the cultural code, including its paragraphs 4, 6 and 9. Particularly close partnerships or even allied relations will be established with countries that are organized on the same principles of liberal society, or are decisively moving towards this. To ensure defense, the country should have a small professional armed forces equipped with high-tech equipment. However, it is also necessary to maintain basic self-defense skills in all adult members of society and have a prepared reserve for organizing a massive defense in extraordinary situations. The government should support the development of private military-industrial business, as well as international cooperation in the military and military-industrial spheres in accordance with the national strategy. In addition, to solve military and intelligence problems commercial methods, approaches and cooperation with private companies and specialists should be used more boldly and more widely than it is practiced today.
23. A properly organized and developed society of free people must provide each of its members with a choice of opportunities for an activity that suits them personally, that will be useful to others, that will be fairly rewarded materially or non-materially, and that will bring them satisfaction themselves. In the system of dividing the necessary functions performed by members of society, the most fundamental, as we believe, will be the division that is already developing today - between the creators of advanced technology products, the key researchers, designers, developers, experts and entrepreneurs who ensure this progress and all the others who in all spheres of production and consumption use the products and tools made available due to the achievements of that minority. Very few people are capable of achieving the highest achievements in such activities, and it is fair that they earn a lot, since they give disproportionately more to the whole of society. The overall level of well-being and quality of life in various societies and local communities will depend to a decisive degree on the success and scale of the activities of precisely this minority, which determines the development of the high-tech sector. The presence of successful businesses of this kind ensures an influx of funds from outside, creation of well-paid jobs, which, in turn, stimulates the development of the national and local service sectors. On a national scale, without representatives of this minority, it is impossible to ensure the reliable functioning of critical infrastructure, high-tech medicine, the proper level of defense, protection from various major troubles, etc. The rest of the members of society must understand how important and useful it is for all them to create the most favourable and attractive conditions for the activities of the aforementioned minority. In addition to targeted support, success development of knowledge-intensive and high-tech business will be facilitated by such general factors as political stability, a high level of security, amenities, aesthetics of the environment and a culture of relationships in society. In local markets, the volume of effective demand for the services of local providers is determined to a large extent by the development of businesses selling goods and services outside those markets.
24. Among those who don't belong to the minority of direct creators of scientific and technological progress or who aren't narrow top specialists in some complex issues, the structure of the distribution of functions in a developed liberal society will also differ from what exists today. Significantly fewer people will be employed in government structures and in various businesses that are focused on today’s large consumer audiences with underdeveloped rational and critical thinking. As a result of the optimization of the structure of social, including economic relations, as well as greater automation of typical operations and tasks, the number of certain fairly widespread categories of specialists who today perform many jobs that are unnecessary in a more advanced society using outdated methods, in particular, lawyers, psychologists, realtors, marketers, teachers and tutors, programmers will significantly decrease. However, the emergence of a sustainable deficit of any truly necessary services will not be allowed, thanks to the absence of government intervention in market relations, an adaptive education system that is closely linked to those who need the specialists it trains, as well as the use of flexible service schemes. Because many people, especially middle-aged and older people, will derive a significant portion of their income from investment rather than from any direct activity, and technology will increase the efficiency of human labor, and there will be no practice of attracting guest workers from poor countries specifically to perform low-skilled work, the price of human labor will become increasingly high, and people will need to spend significantly less time working to support themselves. Remote service technologies will be used more widely, as well as combined ones, in which, for example, a middle qualification specialist will directly work with a client, receiving, if necessary, remote support from a narrow, highly qualified specialist in the required issue.
25. In the society described, most people will choose general specialization areas early in their careers, gaining competence in a fairly broad range of issues within a particular field, and will also be able to achieve highest levels of competence in some specific issues from that field. Flexible configurations of forms of professional activity, which are already in practice today, combining work in organizations with independent private practice or business, will be used more and more widely. This allows for the fullest use of professional potential in formats that are convenient for all parties. The following most common types of professional and business specialization can be identified that will be necessary for a developed liberal society and will require human participation despite the active use of automation and artificial intelligence: organization of business processes for providing consumers with necessary services and goods; direct production of goods and services, including construction, but except for those listed separately in this list; provision of services related to maintaining health, treating diseases, correcting congenital physical and mental disabilities, etc.; protection of individuals, groups, and the entire social way of life and environment from malicious attacks, including external aggression, and from other dangers; development and provision of standard contracts, structure and content of interfaces and other accessible and convenient means (that do not require special knowledge from users) of interaction between individuals and legal entities with each other, with the national legal system, NIS and other automated systems; design of automated systems; technical support for the functioning of the general infrastructure, maintenance and repair of electronic, electronic-mechanical and mechanical devices and equipment; the creation and updating of content for educational programmes adapted to their target audiences; support for personal socialization, development of social intelligence, individual careers, assistance in establishing harmonious systems of relationships, etc. Each of the listed areas of activity requires a certain set of human qualities and professional skills, and people's choice of specializations, success in their chosen activities, and satisfaction with their activities depend to a large extent on their inclinations and abilities, including innate ones. From modern experience, it can be understood that within the framework of one business, people from several of the listed areas of specialization are often required, and sometimes, especially in small businesses, some functions can be combined by one person.
26. A properly organized liberal society will give the majority of its members the opportunity to choose and develop their personal careers, realizing their abilities and inclinations in activities useful to others, and receiving deserved rewards. People will be able to change the content and intensity of their activities at different periods of their lives - as they develop and depending on changes in their circumstances. The education system will ensure the renewal of knowledge and the acquisition of additional knowledge, as a rule, without interruption from practical activities. As income assets accumulate, a person will have a reduced need to spend time to earn income that they cannot do without, and will have the opportunity to do something else in addition that will be interesting and in which previously accumulated experience will be useful. In this society, some projects will be implemented in which the participation of middle-aged and elderly people will be useful, which will provide not only income, which in itself will no longer be urgently needed for many of them, but, more importantly, will bring moral satisfaction, help them maintain their spirit and intellectual fitness. In addition, in fairly prosperous societies, charitable projects are always actively developing, in which many participate as volunteers, but there are also paid jobs.
27. In an economy free from excessive government control, in which the majority of people have rational thinking and adhere to a rational model of behavior, such indicators as gross national product per capita will cease to be a significant indicators of the country's economic development. Even today, this indicator does not accurately reflect the real average quality of life, since, on the one hand, it does not take into account the turnover of come goods and services, and on the other hand, it includes the cost of what may be useless or even harmful to members of society. In particular, in the distorted structure of the economy under the influence of the bureaucratized state, conflicts of interests between providers and consumers persist for a long time in some of its spheres, and there are professions whose increased demand is caused by the imperfections of society and the state. For example, drug manufacturers and doctors often promote methods and drugs that require lifelong use to suppress the symptoms of certain diseases for which methods for a complete cure have already been discovered. The underdevelopment of conceptual and rational thinking in the majority of the population ensures an increased demand for the services of psychologists, since a lack of understanding of reality and the inability to behave adequately is one of the main causes of mental problems and disorders. Overly voluminous and confusing legislation provides too much well-paid work for lawyers. And so on. In a truly free, including from inflationary pumping of money, economy the quality of life can improve without growth or even with a decrease in gross indicators - only through increasing productivity, improving products and service, reducing their prices or improving the price-quality ratio, structural optimization, etc. This process will also be accompanied by an increase in the amount of free time among members of society.
28. In the future society, solutions must be found to such existential problems of the post-industrial stage as the birth rate, which is insufficient even for simple reproduction of the population, as well as the decline in the quality of the gene pool, associated with the weakening of previously existing mechanisms of natural selection due to changes in lifestyle and the development of medicine. We can be sure that factors such as lack of funds and lack of confidence in the long-term prospects of those who would like to have children will not be as significant in the future as they are today. However, this may not be enough to ensure organic, rather than through an influx of migrants, reproduction of the population. Perhaps society will have to use moral and, if necessary, material incentives to increase the number of children being raised, but the opportunity to adopt children or support for large families should be given only to the most worthy and prosperous families, based primarily on the interests of the children. In particular, a good criterion would be the successful upbringing of at least the first or first two children. Society will also need to have the courage to find humane, yet effective, ways to stop the process of biological degeneration of the human population. In particular, preventing the conception and birth of children who are doomed to suffer because of congenital defects is, we believe, quite a humane. It would be right and humane to convince those who cannot give birth to absolutely healthy and physically attractive children that it is better to realize the desire to have children by raising biologically unrelated children. All this corresponds to paragraph 9 of the article on the cultural code.
29. One of the most important tasks that will need to be solved in building a perfect liberal society is the creation of a proper electoral system. The fundamental prerequisites for solving this problem will be: radically reduced opportunities to extract corrupt benefits from access to the management of budget funds and to economic regulation, which reduces the motivation of dishonest people to seek power; the use of the NIS for checking reputation and as a voting tool; the presence of developed critical thinking in every high school graduate provided by the education system. We will not describe and analyze various specific options here, but we will only note that studying the necessary information and making well-thought-out decisions on voting issues is a responsible work that affects the lives of present and future generations, and it would be right to entrust it to people who are mature enough and in their best working condition. Therefore, we believe that, in particular, in national votings, persons no younger than 30-35 years old and no older than 60-65 years old should be allowed to vote. Previous experience shows that mainly those politicians advocated for the maximum expansion of the voting population who hoped to achieve their goals by manipulating the opinions of those most susceptible to such influence.
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