From: Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Sep 95 18:08:22 PDT
To: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Subject: Re: Cybersecurity
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950921061134.12901A-100000@panix.com>
Message-ID: <9509250107.AA05910@cfdevx1.lehman.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


    Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 06:13:40 -0400 (EDT)
    From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>

    On Thu, 7 Sep 1995 hallam@w3.org wrote:

    > The UK laabour party is opposed to key escrow "we do not accept
    > the "clipper chip" argument". The Tories have less than half the
    > level of popular support an are barely recognisable as a
    > government.
    > 
    >         Phill

    Wait till Labour finds out that crypto makes "The Caring Society" 
    impossible.  Perhaps they'll change their view then.

Ok, I'll bite.  What do you mean?

I'm guessing that you're talking about the fact that fully applied
crypto (e. g. fully anonymous digital cash) makes it essentially
impossible to base a tax system on income.

With full application in place, a government would be forced to shift
the basis of the tax system toward `real assets' and the receiving of
goods and services within its borders.  However, outside of
transactions involving pure information exchange, this simply shifts
things from one side to the other in a relationship where the basic
ideas behind capitalism suggest that both sides should be more or less
equal.  That is, you're not taxed based on money changing hands, but
rather on the more tangible things that are the reason for the money
changing hands.  To use the over-used grocery store example, you're
taxed on what you carry out in your basket, without regard to any
money that may or may not have changed hands before during or after
you went to the store.

Earnings tend to correlate reasonable well with receiving goods and
services, at least over long periods of times.  Also most people are
more or less tied to a certain area of the world.  Certainly there are
exceptions, but the average case is more relevent when considering
what sorts of governmental policies are possible.  Given this, I think
that crypto is more likely to result in a readjustment of the details
than a fundamental change in the relationships between various
elements of society.  I don't mean to suggest that these relationships
can't or won't change, just that strong crypto is not a magic pill
that can transform everything by itself.  Fundamental changes are the
results of the interplay of a wide array of forces.

--
Rick Busdiecker                        Please do not send electronic junk mail!
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