SolarCross wrote:Did Heinlein perfect liberalism in his Starship Troopers? Is this the way our modern liberal democracies can be improved by the simple measure of making suffrage an earned meritocratic right rather than an unearned birth right?
I watched the Sargon video immediately after watching Starship Troopers with the wife a couple of weeks ago.
Great analysis on his part and he makes a compelling case.
As far as minarchist republican governments in a capitalist society, his argument is one of the best solutions to many of its problems.
However, military service does not guarantee important factors in preserving freedom, rights, and fiscal responsibility. It eliminates a certain "type" of person from ruling which would undoubtedly be an improvement, but it does not go far enough.
In my opinion, the best "possible" reform would be to somehow tie a person's personal liability to their voting on policy, especially in the legislature.
The founders in the U.S. believed this to a degree, and kept in place the idea that only land-owners should be able to vote or hold office. The reasoning was that people who have an actual vested interest in the nation (owning it and paying taxes) were qualified to vote.
Its easy to vote for raising taxes if you don't have to pay them after all; which is why the Left is consumed by a disproportionate number of welfare dependents, apartment-dwelling urbanites, landless college kids, or the super-wealthy elitists.
However, the tendency of states is to grow power and cosolidate wealth, so the land restrictions soon disappeared in the U.S. and the state's lust for spending began to increase with every new demographic added to its voter based or "victim's club."
I see no easy solution to this problem, if any.
But in sum, I do believe that if one's own credit score were tied to how you vote on the government's credit, such persons would drastically change their voting habits; likewise, if one's house were a leveraged liability against a vote to increase the national debt, I doubt they would be so quick to do so.
However, such a notion is essentially requiring a private ownership of national governance, at which point we must ask, how is this any different (or any better) than anarcho-capitalism, or at worst, minarchist monarchy?
I think the ST model of tying service/responsibility to certain civic rights is good idea, and would be the best solution and type of reform we could have RIGHT NOW, but its not the best imaginable one in my opinion. Actual financial liability is.