Comments on: Civic crowdfunding and the future of government and taxation

By: Allen Marco

Allen Marco — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 12:50:00 +0000

Please share some clear explanation about crowdfunding services

By: jameskelly99

jameskelly99 — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:54:00 +0000

What about sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and HeadFunder ?

By: Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 02:48:00 +0000

In reply to jhold.

Thanks Jhold.

In short, yes it may be feasible and we must start thinking about how this might work. It will be a long journey, but if we can first conceive of and effectively communicate the idea, we can then explore the steps on the way…

By: jhold

jhold — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 17:51:00 +0000

Excellent article! I’m part of an equity crowdfunding startup and come from a public policy background, so this is exactly the sort of discussion I’ve been hoping for. You mention citizens using crowdfunding to support worthy initiatives that would otherwise go unfunded. What if these initiatives took place at a national level? What if instead of creating sweeping legislation (full of earmarks and pork-barrel naturally) to benefit small businesses, private citizens could finance small businesses in their local communities, or startups in industries they have expertise in. Could you see this being the way crowdfunding rises to threaten the current taxing and spending structure? It seems to me that the argument that big, expensive legislation is the only way to provide new businesses with the capital and mentoring they need to have a shot is growing increasingly stale.

By: Xerographica

Xerographica — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 12:12:00 +0000

Great article! I posted it to the reddit group for civic crowdfunding. Regarding the future...I agree that it's not very likely that civic crowdfunding will replace taxation. But the more successful it becomes...the more likely it is to lead to tax choice. The basic trend is to facilitate input. If it weren't for disqus, for example, then I probably wouldn't have left a comment. Disqus makes it that much easier for me to share my input. It doesn't seem likely that the public sector can avoid this trend for very long. If I'm going to pay taxes anyways...then why can't I use my taxes to share my input? The primary concern is that people will share the wrong input. But if the majority is sharing the wrong input...then at least the minority can share the right input. That's not possible with our current system. Plus, tax choice would incentivize the correctly informed minority to do a better job of sharing their information.

By: René Rohrbeck

René Rohrbeck — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 11:50:00 +0000

In reply to Ross Dawson.

Yes, these dimensions seem to be quite powerful for differentiating where crowed funding can be applied and where it would be less successful.

From an European perspective it has also always been amazing to see how in the US the gap left by lacking governments social security systems have been filled to a large extent by private charity.

That might give raise to the hope that a tightly networked society would step in to fund services in areas where the governments reduce their funding role…

By: Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 11:28:00 +0000

In reply to René Rohrbeck.

Thanks René, yes we’re thinking on similar lines.

Perhaps part of the ‘core’ services would be government controlled, whereas other domains could be subject to personal allocations if individual citizens chose to override the ‘default’ choice of the government budgets.

Another key issue is local vs regional vs national budgets – civic crowdfunding clearly works at a local community level but it may need to be adapted to work for larger populations.

By: René Rohrbeck

René Rohrbeck — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 11:12:00 +0000

You clearly make an interesting point here. Can all roles of the government be financed and “voted for” by endorsing the initiative with your money?
When looking at the portfolio og governmental services, ranging from basic security (police force military) to education I would be doubtful that sufficient support can be gathered. Particularly services characterized by high cost and low probability for the need to arise I would expect it to be difficult. Who would in small European country, which feels safe be interested in supporting military spending, when faced with the choice to invest the money rather in educating ones children?
However in many areas such als local infrastructure (e.g. the garden/parks from the study above) I would expect that the ability to make good choices could be higher with crowds than with the politicians.
In any case it will be interesting to experiment more with crowd funding for prioritizing governmental services.