No taxation without representation.
But is our tax system really complying with that basic right?
Or are we taxing people who have no voice into how the money is spent?
Of course, I am referring to transnational taxation, a.k.a. pollution and other physical/financial practices, but also to the debt burden that we are bestowing on future generations to pay for our current needs.
The articles in this series, TAX2009 (either 500 or 1000 words long), will start with some “what if” brainstorming around the consequences of current technological and social trends, and then use the same prism to analyse current events.
In December 2009, the articles will be mainly of the “what if”/brainstorming variety.
As usual: if you have any comments, contact me on Twitter or on Facebook.
Enjoy!
This article: how technology could affect our taxation system
The side-effects of technology
An interesting side-effect of the widespread use of technology in every nook and cranny of our everyday life (what is called often “pervasive computing”) is that, eventually, everything that you will do, buy, consume, sell will leave an “electronic trail” beyond.
Somebody is scared about the privacy (or lack thereof).
But, as in many other issues, I think that since 1990s we behaved as frogs- instead of discussing before, we kept discussing after each new instance, but never built a framework.
And if you keep fighting yesterday’s battles, you end up as often across human history.
Losing.
Let’s be frank- the privacy battle is lost, unless there is a concerted effort to reverse what is already part of our reality.
As the mother of all lost battles (non-proliferation in advanced weapons) has shown, un-inventing something is at best wishful thinking, at worst a good excuse to waste resources on, you guess, fighting the past.
Somebody said: if you cannot beat them, join them.
I will therefore assume that, in the future each person will be represented by an electronic trail, from cradle to grave, storing everything we do, buy, consume, or others do on our behalf.
If you want- it is like having not just a constant carbon footprint, but an overall “resource allocation”- and this without the need to implant any chip under your skin (as the paranoid would claim and some technology over-enthusiast is already doing).
But let’s make a short digression on technology.
Security and pervasive computing
Over the last 30 years, I often saw new promises of “perfect” security.
As shown in recent articles, the idea of getting the 100% secure identification device under your skin, to escort you from cradle to grave, ignores a simple concept, that any honest security expert would explain if you just dare to ask.
Anybody claiming to deliver a device that is forever 100% secure from intrusion is lying, as security is a constantly moving reality.
Actually, it could be better defined as a race against time, with innovation followed often in a matter of hours or days by “cracking”, and therefore being replaced by new devices that circumvent the prior security issue- and usually creating new ones.
Some proponents of “secure” pervasive computing advocate the use of chips to be embedded within papers, telephones, other devices- and eventually under your skin.
Search in Google: you will find that from RFID to any other device on the market, somebody “cracked” every new supposedly impregnable device- a little bit as if you were to talk about the electronic equivalent of the “unsinkable” Titanic.
The only difference? You had to be on board of the Titanic to suffer.
I got you under my skin
If proponents of the new technological way of checking your identity will have their way, the chip currently installed in new passports will move somewhere else- maybe under your skin.
Science fiction? Some people already installed a chip, either to experiment, or to feel safer.
The real issue about security in pervasive computing is the illusion of safety, something that could eventually result in “cutting costs”- with some smart politicians proposing to unify all your identification (from your ID to your credit card to your home key) within a single device.
With a single point of failure (your chip) giving full access to everything about you- from your home to your banking account.
If you were paranoid about Wi-Fi Internet security… think again.
Concentrating everything about yourself in a single point that is installed, say, at birth, gives a huge incentive to wannabe “hackers”.
Whatever you do, time flies
Therefore, now that I shared with you my skepticism about all these “embedded” security devices, let’s just consider that there is no way back- those devices are and will be used.
As shown by the Homeland Security public data since 2001, security is a big business.
And, as explained before, attempting to shift the security concept from society and the relationship between its members to an electronic device creates a huge market opportunity.
While tutoring citizens in taking care of security would create only few jobs and add more work to the existing marketing and communication departments, a device requires something to use it, from the humble power outlet to the “card reader” and antennas scattered around the country to identify where the device is, as it is done with mobile phone.
All these bits and pieces, or “infrastructure”, require constant updating, maintenance, testing, and so on.
The nicest part? While politicians might have a tough time selling other required changes (say- increasing the retirement age), selling security infrastructure is easier: nobody wants to be told that (s)he is going to be less safe.
Physical security wasn’t really part of my technological knowledge, but after some question I had to check, here and there.
And it is fascinating as some tools straight-from-the-laboratory started not only being presented, but being installed.
My grudge? When you test something in a laboratory environment, you identify certain conditions.
Often, without letting reality intrude in your own wonderful, perfect plan.
A practical use
To close down this short article, what could be the impact of having a permanent identification on every person and device?
The first thing that comes to mind is… shifting from an economy based on an artificial value (the “currency”) to the actual fine-tuning of the allocation of resources.
If every device can report how long has been used, and you can see from the nearby presence of the identification device of a specific person who used what for how long, you can compute the complere “resources consumption” of every human being.
Taxation could then really move toward the considering just consumption, not production.
But, frankly, this is the way it has been done to define the price of a product, based on the actual costs involved in producing it.
Of course, plus a comfortable margin to pay the capital invested and build reserves for future innovation.
Tags: computing, consumption, pervasive, TAX2009, taxation, technology