🌐 WCC (World Citizen Currency) White Paper
This document is an appendix titled "WCC" from the book The Selected Ethic (선택된 윤리, ISBN: 9791160547160, Korean language). Chapters referred to in the format "n.m" (e.g., Chapter 9.2) correspond to the main text in The Selected Ethic.
"One of the stunning facts about global poverty is how little it would take to fix it, at least if we could magically transfer money into the bank accounts of the world’s poor."
— The Great Escape, Angus Deaton
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke
The inspiration for this book came from advances in artificial intelligence technology. Although the content of the book diverged significantly from that starting point, some ideas emerged that could be useful in the AI era. One such idea is currency with built-in automated welfare functions. While this might have seemed unrealistic in the past, rapid technological progress now makes it appear within reach.
It’s said that 80% of books published in the U.S. sell fewer than 100 copies. The chance of my writing another book soon is slim. This book isn’t trying to present anything groundbreaking; rather, it seeks to explain existing ideas. But I decided to add an Easter egg. If the idea doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip ahead without any loss to the book’s completeness.
Here, welfare refers to the minimum guarantee of economic outcomes discussed in Chapter 9.2. Then, how could we integrate welfare into currency? Imagine we had magic; we could wave a wand crafted from a Hungarian dragon’s tail spike over a wallet, infusing it with magic. Every night at the stroke of midnight, the enchanted wallet would conjure magical money out of thin air. We could create many such wallets and distribute them to everyone. While we’re at it, we might as well give them to people all around the world. We’ll call this WCC (World Citizen Currency) until we come up with a better name. In ancient times, to create WCC, witches would have been tasked with producing enchanted wallets instead of being hunted and burned. With dragons and witches extinct, we now wield information technology that works almost like magic at our fingertips.
WCC is a digital currency implemented primarily through computer networks. Fortunately, people have already become accustomed to seeing numbers on screens as money (Chapter 8.2). Even for myself, using a credit card is much more common than handling cash in daily life. I often check my account balance on my smartphone to see if a credit card payment has gone through, feeling as if I have an invisible wallet. With the relatively long history of internet banking and the rise of cryptocurrencies since 2009, the concept of an electronic wallet no longer feels foreign.
WCC requires two types of electronic wallets. One is a regular wallet, while the other is a citizen wallet, of which each person can have only one. At midnight every day, 1 WCC is issued (created) in each citizen wallet. (If all wallets generated WCC, people would create countless wallets to get more money.) To avoid geographical biases in system operation, we could use a neutral time standard, like that of the International Space Station.
If WCC is issued daily, the amount of money will increase indefinitely, resulting in inflation (a rise in prices) that reduces the currency’s purchasing power. The value of the daily 1 WCC issued would also decline over time. To counteract this, a fixed proportion of money is removed from all wallets each day. As a simple placeholder for now, let’s say that 0.1% (1/1000) of the balance in every wallet disappears daily. (If some wallets were exempt, people would concentrate their money in those wallets. If a fixed amount disappeared from each wallet instead of a proportion, people would also move their money around; with a progressive rate, they’d disperse it across as many wallets as possible.) Here’s what happens at midnight (UTC+0) every day:
Regular wallet: 0.1% of the WCC balance disappears.
Citizen wallet: 0.1% of the WCC balance disappears, and 1 WCC is issued.
If someone holds 0 WCC before midnight, their balance becomes 1 WCC (0 × 0.999 + 1). Someone with 100 WCC will have 100.9 WCC (100 × 0.999 + 1). 1,000 WCC remains 1,000 WCC (1,000 × 0.999 + 1), while 10,000 WCC reduces to 9,991 WCC (10,000 × 0.999 + 1). (See chart in The Selected Ethic, p. 275)
Those holding less than 1,000 WCC will see their balance increase, while those with more than 1,000 WCC will see it decrease. This is similar to viewing currency holdings as an ability to pay (Chapter 9.3) and imposing a tax, with the tax revenue used to fund welfare programs. It seems reasonable to assume that economic outcomes roughly correlate with currency holdings. Over time, the total balance across all wallets will converge to the number of citizen wallets multiplied by 1,000 WCC. (See proof in The Selected Ethic, p. 276)
Readers may recognize similarities to the negative income tax proposed by Milton Friedman or the basic income plan from 2020 U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Many ideas similar to WCC exist, differing in specific implementation details. Even the concept of decreasing money was proposed around 100 years ago by businessman Silvio Gesell, who called it "Freigeld."
Applying this system to today’s cash-based currency would be highly cumbersome. Imagine hiring a vast number of civil servants to track everyone’s cash holdings daily and imposing taxes. Administrative costs (Chapter 9.1) would soar, and people would evade taxes by hiding cash from inspectors.
In contrast, WCC has no corresponding physical form, and the disappearance of currency happens automatically at the designated time, making it unavoidable. Recall the content in Chapter 8.5. The money someone earns from selling goods is retained as their property, which is used for reinvestment in capital or to purchase other goods. The disappearing nature of WCC, combined with people's profit motives (Chapter 8.2), will minimize the time money is held, stimulating investment and consumption. Not using money leads to loss, as retained funds diminish. In the case of WCC, we might observe a new phase of money that, like superfluid helium flowing up the walls and spilling out of its container, escapes the liquidity trap even in deflation.
In medieval France, feudal lords (Seigneurs) issued currency. From this practice comes the term "seigniorage," which refers to the profit a government earns by issuing currency. For example, if the cost of printing a one-dollar bill (100 cents) is 10 cents, the remaining 90 cents (100-10) is the seigniorage the government retains. WCC effectively returns the right to issue currency to citizens, enabling them to mint currency equally and claim seigniorage. With issuance and decay managed automatically through technology, opportunities for government corruption (Chapter 7.3) and administrative costs are minimized.
I’d be pleased if WCC merely served as a spark for other innovative ideas. In fact, if WCC were realized precisely as described here, I’d be more worried than enthusiastic. Preventing potential chaos requires thorough research and preparation, including setting an appropriate decay rate and addressing issues like privacy, power outages, and other emergencies. Let’s discuss a few considerations here.
A first criticism might be that the world isn’t unified enough to share a single currency. According to the Optimal Currency Area theory, the advantages of using a common currency increase with economic and political integration and freedom of exchange. Thus, the benefits of WCC should grow as global interactions and integration increase.
To be honest, suggesting the use of WCC worldwide is just for the fun of imagining it. Realistically, it's more likely to create a similar system within a politically unified country. Even if it were to be implemented internationally, it would only be feasible between countries that are already well-integrated—that is, the major advanced countries with established structures that facilitate cooperation and where active exchange and collaboration are already taking place (Chapter 9.4). The value of money ultimately comes from the productivity of those who receive it (Chapter 8.2). For WCC to have a greater welfare effect, in other words, for the WCC issued daily from citizen wallets to hold more value, it needs to be adopted as legal tender (Chapter 8.4) in major advanced countries with high productivity by accumulated capital (Chapter 8.1).
Once WCC is designated as legal tender in major advanced countries, people in other countries must also be able to obtain citizen wallets for it to expand globally. This requires establishing an international organization that can operate across borders and guarantee people's identities. Issuing citizen wallets is not too difficult in advanced countries with sufficient administrative power, but it poses problems in countries where the government is not trustworthy. Advanced countries already have well-established means of identity verification, such as driver's licenses and passports, that can be easily adapted for issuing citizen wallets. However, if the issuance of citizen wallets is left to an untrustworthy government, some people may not be able to get their wallets due to unproven identities, or corrupt governments may forge false identities to exploit the wallets. To prevent such situations, reliable international organizations are necessary. However, even in this case, it's difficult for closed countries to participate in WCC.
There are also various technical considerations. WCC can be implemented using existing client-server structures or by adopting distributed ledger technology that is popular these days. Additionally, taking advantage of digital currency allows for setting minimal units down to the decimal. For instance, we could use 1 mWCC (0.001 WCC) as the smallest unit, and if the currency's purchasing power increases, we could switch to 1 uWCC (0.000001 WCC). To prevent system overload, a small transaction fee could be set for each transfer, or it could be removed if processing capacity becomes sufficient.
A daily (24-hour) issuance and destruction cycle seems appropriate. If this cycle is too long (for example, one year), transactions and transfers may surge as the expiration time approaches, creating system overload. (A longer cycle can also benefit those looking to exploit others' seigniorage.) On the other hand, if the cycle is too short (for example, one minute), this can lead to a heavy system load and complicated calculations that confuse users. According to the rule of threes, humans can survive about 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. Therefore, to allow people to buy essential items like drinking water during emergencies, a cycle within three days seems appropriate. A day is a common time unit for contracts (Chapter 8.4), making it less confusing for people and, most importantly, very intuitive.
What would a world where WCC is successfully established look like? The value of WCC as money is proportional to users' productivity (Chapter 8.2). Moreover, with repeated innovations and technological development (Chapter 8.3), humanity's productivity has been improving at an astonishing rate and continues to do so. As we have seen, the total balance of WCC will converge to the number of users × 1,000 WCC. Assuming factors such as the velocity of money remain stable, as the average production per person grows, the purchasing power of WCC will rise, leading to deflation (drop in prices) in the long run. Since the total amount of money is fixed, the more goods are produced, the more goods can be purchased with the same amount of money.
One advantage of WCC is that once its purchasing power exceeds a certain level, there is no need to provide users with additional equipment (like internet-connected smartphones) for using WCC. Let’s say the value of 1 WCC reaches 1 US dollar. Even a person without income could spend about $30 a month with this. This is manageable with an inexpensive smartphone and minimal internet access. They might spend nearly all of the WCC issued from their wallet on smartphone maintenance, but the productivity of someone who can access the internet and make transfers would far surpass that of someone who cannot, becoming significant capital (Chapter 8.1). It would provide a tool to access the vast amount of information and useful models humanity has accumulated, as well as a convenient means of transaction.
However, this includes the hope that internet access will be possible from anywhere on Earth. Fortunately, the outlook for this hope is quite optimistic. First, WCC is expected to increase the willingness to pay for internet access in all human habitats (excluding closed countries), creating incentives for producers to enter the market and offer services (Chapter 8.5) and to develop related technologies (Chapter 8.3). Furthermore, humanity's technology has reached a level where it can provide internet access across the entire surface of the Earth. Right now, top IT entrepreneurs are eagerly entering the low-orbit satellite internet market, and satellite antennas have become small enough to fit in a bag. Similarly, solar panels and batteries, also portable, can provide the power needed to run the antenna and smartphone. Soon, it will be possible to access the internet from any place with a view of the sky.
If the value of 1 WCC rises to around $3, extreme poverty will disappear. In 2015, the World Bank, a UN agency, updated the international poverty line (the threshold for extreme poverty) to $1.90 per day (based on 2011 PPP). According to data from 2012, about 900 million people worldwide lived in extreme poverty. If $3 worth of WCC is issued daily from citizen wallets, even if $1 is used for smartphone maintenance, there would still be $2 left, solving extreme poverty. This money could be used by poor people to buy essentials and increase their productivity, breaking the cycle of poverty (Chapter 9.2).
Of course, WCC will not only bring positive results. In regions where the government fails to fulfill its role, people may need to establish self-defense groups to protect their property, like in the riverside village story in Chapter 9.3. Even with my limited imagination, I can envision scenarios where violent groups exploit other people's seigniorage, or where orphanages focus more on siphoning off seigniorage than on caring for children—even going so far as to conceal the tragic deaths of those in poor facilities. The choice to implement WCC will create a world filled with both positive and negative outcomes (Chapter 2.2). Nevertheless, if a genius nurtured under the WCC system generates significant positive externalities on an international scale (Chapter 9.4), then it would not be a losing investment for citizens of major advanced countries who shoulder most of the welfare costs.
So, what does WCC have to do with artificial intelligence? Producers use factors of production like land, labor, and capital to create goods (Chapter 8.1). In doing so, producers develop technology and innovate to reduce or substitute the input factors (Chapter 8.3). Yes, labor is one of those substitute factors. For example, before recording technology existed, a singer had to perform every time a transaction occurred, but now they can record a song once and sell it many times without singing again. People can carry 1,000 songs in their pockets. Humanity has continually sought to produce more goods with less effort and labor. Many jobs have disappeared from history in this process, while new ones have emerged. The fact that comput-er was originally the name of a job has become a topic of casual conversation.
The issue is that people are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the rapid pace of innovation. This applies to both the speed at which innovations spread and the frequency with which they occur. Highly advanced transportation and communication systems are integrating the world into a single market, which in turn accelerates the spread of innovations (Chapter 8.3). Innovations that emerge anywhere in the world today can reach other continents within months through trade (Chapter 9.4) and communication networks. Moreover, since most countries are now part of international treaties protecting patent rights (Chapter 9.4), people no longer need to redundantly develop inventions that have already been created in other countries (Chapter 9.1).
Above all, science is a foundational field of study with low excludability (Chapter 9.1). Through language (Chapter 2.4), transportation, and communication, people around the world share the latest scientific knowledge, collaborate on research, publish findings simultaneously, and then share those results once more. Once shared, these useful scientific theories form the basis for new advancements in engineering and technology (Chapter 2.5), and advanced technologies enable more sophisticated scientific experiments and validations. Thus, technology develops on the foundation of accumulated knowledge and skills, accelerating at an exponential rate, much like compound interest. It took about 2,000 years for the Bronze Age (around 3300 BCE) to transition into the Iron Age (around 1200 BCE), but less than a century passed from the Wright brothers’ development of powered flight (1903) to Apollo 11 sending humans to the moon (1969).
The integrated market and shared scientific knowledge lead to increasingly frequent instances of creative destruction (Chapter 8.3) and, as a result, to technological unemployment (Chapter 9.2). In such cases, an oppressive government might attempt to prevent technological unemployment by restricting private-sector innovation and productivity improvements. For instance, banning the playback of recorded music would reduce singers' productivity, thereby creating more work opportunities. The stated legislative purpose (Chapter 7.1) might be to prevent noise from excessive playback or to suggest that unrestricted access to music diminishes its emotional impact. As the 19th-century economist Frédéric Bastiat pointed out, cutting off everyone’s right hand would effectively create more jobs.
If we want to continue enjoying the benefits of innovation while preventing people from falling into cycles of economic hardship, one approach could be to utilize welfare systems like those in the Meta-Advanced Country. A well-designed welfare system can support citizens facing technological unemployment in their search for new job opportunities (Chapter 9.2). It would be interesting to observe which types of countries—those that restrict innovation, those that implement welfare systems, or those that take no action against technological unemployment—will remain as future advanced countries (the countries people want to live in).
Artificial intelligence is merely an extension of this massive trend. However, what worries people is that this time, the range of jobs that could be replaced might expand to include everything humans can do. This means that in every field, the cost of human labor will become more expensive than the cost of purchasing or renting a robot that can replace it. Let's call this technological humanity unemployment. Producers looking to reduce production costs (Chapter 8.3) will use robots to create goods, while consumers wanting to buy goods at lower prices (Chapter 8.2) will purchase items produced by robots. Consequently, those who cannot own or rent robots will find it difficult to participate in transactions within the market. First, they will be excluded from the market as producers, and there will be no new market for them to enter as producers. Since they can't earn money to consume, they will soon be excluded from the market as consumers as well. Thus, a tragic irony arises; humanity has the ability to produce goods without the burdens of labor, yet this potential remains untapped.
When the value of 1 WCC is around $30, there will likely be people who are satisfied not to work while consuming $30 worth of goods daily. These are individuals who perceive the pain of additional labor to be greater than the utility gained from extra income. If the value rises to $300, very few people might want to work at all. As Joseph Schumpeter mentioned in Chapter 8.3, "unemployment would lose practically all its terror if the private life of the unemployed were not seriously affected by their unemployment."
It is impossible to predict precisely when and how any innovation will occur (Chapter 9.2), including technological humanity unemployment. Another advantage of WCC is that it removes the need to predict the timing and impact of various innovations. As we have seen, the purchasing power of WCC is automatically linked to humanity's total production of goods. If the value of 1 WCC rises to $300 while the number of workers declines, leaving only a very few, it would indicate that goods worth at least the population × $300 are being produced by those remaining workers and consumed daily. By definition, utility comes not from labor but from the consumption of final goods (Chapter 8.1).
The realization of WCC requires immense cooperation among world citizens. If successful, it will constantly provide us with economic opportunities and serve as a useful tool to combat extreme poverty and the unpredictable threat of technological unemployment.
The above document has been translated by ChatGPT from the original Korean into English.
선택된 윤리: 메타선진국은 어떻게 작동하는가 by 이한소
ISBN: 9791160547160 | 135*210 mm | 288 pages | Korean-language
For more information (in Korean)
If you are interested in publishing this book in your country,
please feel free to contact me.
The Selected Ethic: How the Meta-Advanced Country Works
by Hanso LEE
Table of Contents
Preface ... 4
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
— The Sign of the Four, Arthur Conan Doyle
"6.521
The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem."
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Part I: Objective Ethics and Subjective Preferences
Chapter 1: Objective Ethics
1.1 The Dragon in My Garage ... 13
"I decide who is a Jew."
— Karl Lueger
1.2 The Devil's Proof ... 19
"The mere fact that an idea is irrefutable does not imply that there is any reason to believe it is true."
— Fashionable Nonsense, Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont
1.3 The Meta-Advanced Country and the Selected Ethic ... 23
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
— Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Chapter 2: Subjective Preferences
2.1 The Individual as a Selector ... 27
"The lack of objective values is not a good reason for abandoning subjective concern or for ceasing to want anything."
— Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, J. L. Mackie
2.2 Criteria for Selection ... 31
"The chief spring or actuating principle of the human mind is pleasure or pain; and when these sensations are remov'd, both from our thought and feeling, we are, in a great measure, incapable of passion or action, of desire or volition."
— A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume
2.3 Fixed Preferences ... 35
"Whatever the cause may be of each slight difference in the offspring from their parents—and a cause for each must exist—it is the steady accumulation, through natural selection, of such differences, when beneficial to the individual, that gives rise to all the more important modifications of structure."
— On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
"The original self-replicating macromolecules had reasons for what they did, but had no inkling of them."
— Kinds Of Minds: Toward An Understanding Of Consciousness, Daniel C. Dennett
2.4 Modifiable Preferences ... 42
"Evolution has done the computation for us, and in its stead produced emotions that are proxies for these computations."
— The Mind of the Market, Michael Shermer
"What does not kill me makes me stronger."
— Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche
2.5 Useful Models ... 50
"Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless."
— The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan
"The critical attitude may be described as the conscious attempt to make our theories, our conjectures, suffer in our stead in the struggle for the survival of the fittest."
— Conjectures and Refutations, Karl Popper
2.6 The Reasons for Using Preferences ... 60
"So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."
— Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, Lewis Carroll
"The comparative conservatism which results from the high degree of permanence of the genes is essential."
— What Is Life?, Erwin Schrödinger
Part II: The Selected Ethic
Chapter 3: Individual Freedom
3.1 Freedom to Fulfill Preferences ... 73
"By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man's power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and reason shall dictate to him."
— Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
— Proverb
3.2 Freedom of Expression ... 78
"To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty."
— On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
— The Friends of Voltaire, Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Chapter 4: The Core of Social Contract
4.1 Reward and Punishment Strategies ... 82
"Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences."
— Beyond Freedom and Dignity, B. F. Skinner
"Many situations in real life are, as a matter of fact, equivalent to nonzero sum games. Nature often plays the role of 'banker', and individuals can therefore benefit from one another's success."
— The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
4.2 The Role of the State ... 88
"A state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."
— Politics as a Vocation, Max Weber
Chapter 5: Punishment Through Criminal Trials
5.1 The Principle of Legality and the Presumption of Innocence ... 97
"Article 11
1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed."
— Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
5.2 Proportionality ... 102
"Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty, than the severity of punishment."
— On Crimes and Punishments, Cesare Beccaria
Chapter 6: Citizens Equal Before the Law
6.1 Equality Before the Law ... 106
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
— Animal Farm, George Orwell
6.2 Qualifications for Citizens ... 110
"If you want peace, prepare for war."
— De re militari, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
6.3 Marginal Citizens ... 114
"Our children are our greatest treasure. They are our future."
— Nelson Mandela
Chapter 7: The Form of the Government
7.1 Democracy ... 120
"The basis of a democratic state is liberty; which, according to the common opinion of men, can only be enjoyed in such a state."
— Politics, Aristotle
"All long-term politics are institutional."
— The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper
7.2 Limitations of Democracy ... 127
"Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they have some likewise which they never made. Before there were intelligent beings, they were possible; they had therefore possible relations, and consequently possible laws."
— The Spirit of Law, Montesquieu
"The clashing of particular interests made it necessary to establish a society, and the agreement of those same interests made it possible to do so."
— The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
7.3 The Rule of Law and Constitutionalism ... 139
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
— John Dalberg-Acton
Chapter 8: Reward Through Capitalism
8.1 Free Trade ... 148
"It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy."
— The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
8.2 Money and Markets ... 161
"It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing."
— The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
"All production is for the purpose of ultimately satisfying a consumer."
— The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes
8.3 Innovation and Technological Development ... 171
"The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort."
— Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Joseph Schumpeter
"The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones."
— Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia
8.4 Enforcement of Contracts ... 180
"Article 1134
Agreements must be executed in good faith."
— The Napoleonic Code
"Money is coined liberty."
— The House of the Dead, Fyodor Dostoevsky
8.5 Property Rights ... 186
"A free economy gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want."
— Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman
"The formal property system is capital's hydroelectric plant. This is the place where capital is born."
— The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto
Chapter 9: Externalities, Welfare, Taxes, and International Relations
9.1 Externalities ... 205
"The purpose of a ferroalloy plant is not to make noise or to release noxious fumes. It is to make high-performance metals that serve the customer. But in order to do this, it produces noise, creates heat, and releases fumes."
— Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Peter Drucker
"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world."
— Louis Pasteur
9.2 Welfare Systems ... 229
"To call private property as such, which all can acquire under the same rules, a privilege, because only some succeed in acquiring it, is depriving the word privilege of its meaning."
— The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek
"The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains."
— The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx
9.3 Taxes ... 244
"No taxation without representation."
— Slogan
9.4 International Relations of the Meta-Advanced Country ... 254
"When a country reached the level of economic development where it had a middle class big enough to support a McDonald's network, it became a McDonald's country. And people in McDonald's countries didn't like to fight wars anymore, they preferred to wait in line for burgers."
— The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas L. Friedman
Appendices
The Citizen's Guide to the Advanced Countries ... 260
Acknowledgments ... 270
WCC ... 272