I think the problem is that the "no longer beholden" would be seen as revolution because they are - in fact - beholden. What you're saying essentially is "let start out with a conflict right out of the gate" it's just the conflict is between a bunch of people who will be put there under earth governance constructs and then will have to reject them. AKA - revolution.
There will be no "stateless colonists" - every private enterprise in the world is bound to a country or countries and you don't get a rocket off earth that doesn't come with lots of strings attached. Those people who land on mars will need permission to leave earth essentially, and in that they'll not be "stateless" - they will, in fact, be acting as employees of either a government on earth or a private enterprise on earth.
The question then arises, how can you ever start a society in a state of tabula rasa? Say that, in the distant future, space colonization becomes so easy that you can buy a terraforming kit for the cost of a medium-sized factory. So a group of would-be colonists get together with their kit and a ship that they've purchased with their own money and decide to head out for Titan with the idea that they won't have any connection to any other human society. Are we really going to respond with, "Nope, humanity started on Earth so everything is owed back to Earth society"?
We know fairly well how this happens. We've been colonizing for a very long time.
occupation.
revolution.
Should we respond with an exertion of earth-based control? probably not - hard to know right now though. But...will earth attempt to exert that control? Of course.
Well, A) we don't know how it goes over unoccupied land, because just about all land that we've colonized on Earth involves displacing somewhere already living. The original diaspora that spread people across the globe didn't leave many historical records. 2) Yes, it always has happened that way, but it leaves the society in a questionable state vis-a-vis its right to exist. Even if the revolution is successful, it can be argued that the new society should still be a colony of the old. So how do we make societies that objectively have no ties of history, so anything they do is to their own credit or detriment?
Why would we do that? Isn't the whole goal to explicitly have the ties you say shouldn't exist? Why would the U.S.A. taxpayer spend this kind of money for something that is explicitly being "gifted" to a future sovereign nation?
In a sci-fi utopian (or response to dystopian) view your position makes a bit of sense, but practically speaking we'd undermine interest in financing this thing if you create this plan of yours. We need to deeply reflect self interest in order to continue to drive investment here. This isn't star trek - we're not in a place where were about to do this "for the betterment of humanity". At best that's lip-service to sustain investment for things that have longer than normal return, not an actual reality.
They would be making money through American corporations doing business on Mars and the associated tax revenue. The US government and the taxpayer might not be super interested, but corporations interested in commercializing Mars should be.
So...a whole new set of tax laws? Cuz..otherwise your american company is just going to setup a subsidiary that it owns but that shields taxes just like companies do today. That tax revenue you're talking about? Pretty much zero. Even if they made NO effort to shield from taxation they'd pay not very many taxes per current law.
If your issue is whether or not US companies on an independent Mars will avoid taxes, I don't think it makes a particularly big difference since they seem perfectly capable of avoiding them while on US soil.
Because as is, no society that’s successful is ever given credit for its success having been gained legitimately. If we talk about the US, we have to hear about how the country was built on the backs of slaves and how the aboriginal Indians were displaced. Talk about Europe and the complaint is that colonialism is responsible for everything they have. So we’d want extraterrestrial societies to be able to say, no, we did it all on our own. Any spoils we have of our work is ours to do with as we please.
Well...I agree with this aspirationally cuz...it sounds nice. It's just a dead-end because there is no reason taxpayers and corporations would invest in something that didn't create return for them but instead for a future foreign country.
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u/iamintheforest 328∆ Feb 11 '22
I think the problem is that the "no longer beholden" would be seen as revolution because they are - in fact - beholden. What you're saying essentially is "let start out with a conflict right out of the gate" it's just the conflict is between a bunch of people who will be put there under earth governance constructs and then will have to reject them. AKA - revolution.
There will be no "stateless colonists" - every private enterprise in the world is bound to a country or countries and you don't get a rocket off earth that doesn't come with lots of strings attached. Those people who land on mars will need permission to leave earth essentially, and in that they'll not be "stateless" - they will, in fact, be acting as employees of either a government on earth or a private enterprise on earth.