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[Isobel Mitar]

Crossposted from EM forums ( http://www.electusmatari.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=10060 )

First, what follows is pure speculation and rambling about one possible way for the Republic to be organized. There is no PF for or against, that I know of. Please feel free to comment or tell how you think it might work. 

Republic and central databases

Due to discussions on electusmatari IRC and elsewhere, I have been thinking if the Republic would have central databases about its citizens or anything resembling accurate census records. Would they even see the need for such? Or would they consider simply asking each registered clan how many members they have and adding the numbers up sufficient?

There are reasons why distrust of official authorities might be a common Minmatar cultural trait, and many Minmatar might see value in individuals and clans being able to not have their ID data registered by the Republic, and still being able to have a normal, respectable life and profession.

Perhaps, when the Minmatar Republic was founded there was an effort to register everybody (possibly Gallente-led, because That Is How You Do Democracies), which ran into resistance and only a minor part actually did want to tell the central government who they were, where they lived, who were their close relations and dependants, where they worked and how much money they got for it, what weapons they had and where they were kept ... you know, the kind of stuff governments ask.  "Everybody in my clan has to register themselves? What do we get for it? Taxes? No thanks, I believe our clan will skip it, until we need it. How about you come ask us if you need to know something about us?"

What if registering your ID data to Republic databases would be voluntary (or mandatory on paper but most would not consider following that particular law very important), and the society was instead built around being able to function without a central database with detailed information about everybody in it?

I imagine there would certainly be a clan register, where you need to put your clan if you want to do business as a clan with the Republic. (Not really necessary if you just want to do business with other clans, though.)

For individuals, perhaps registering would be necessary only if you want to vote, own land or other such immovable property, hold an official Republic position, maybe to receive some social benefits (* see below) and so on. Stuff where you want something from the Republic, so they can make you to jump thorough the hoop to get it.

Perhaps different entities (Republic, tribes, corporations, organizations) all run their own databases for their own purposes, and giving information to any of them is voluntary in the sense one only needs to do it if one wants to do business with said entity?

So what of taxes?

What if the Minmatar Republic does not follow the general contemporary Western taxation model of having majority of their tax income come from individuals, based on their individual income level?

Maybe the Republic budget money comes in major part from the tribes themselves? And to lesser extent from taxes and fees that do not require personal ID, such as taxes on for example owning land and using natural resources, for staying registered on the clan list, fees for registering agreements for public record, fees for holding licenses for certain trades or permits for running certain kind of business etc.

The money flow would be smaller, but so will expenses. I believe news and PF have had hints about Republic's money troubles, and the difficulty attracting foreign investment despite low salary rates.

(*) About republic, social benefits and welfare

Personally, I imagine there might not be a lot of social benefits in the Republic for individuals as opposed to clans. Given the tribe/clan focus, Minmatar might see the duty of supporting an individual thorough hard times and old age as something their clan does, not something Republic is responsible of.

Welfare for the clanless might be poorly cobbled together and severely underfunded, built more to sustain them temporarily for a bit "until they find a proper clan which will solve the problem" - with all the associated problems - than something to really support them long-term. I imagine this system would often not work too well practice, especially with all the returnees, but there might be no political will to change it, as the political power is held by tribes and clans.

I also imagine a majority of social benefits in the Republic would be clan-oriented instead and subsidy/shared expense type arrangements such as "If your clan provides a school building, the Republic will pay salaries for teachers in it"

[Mithfindel]

Even if the Republic is the scrapheap of EVE, it's still technologically way more advanced than the current-date Earth we live on. That said, it is entirely possible that the government is decentralized. It can be even hierarchically decentralized. For example, clans do their own census, report to tribes, which report to the Republic. Voluval, certainly, would be a fine moment to do a census.

On tax: Unless you want to tax individuals progressively (i.e. those who earn more pay a larger percentage, those who can just-by-just come by pay less), you don't need to know individual salaries. The Republic could tax just by head count, and the tribes/clans could decide how they finance the tax (which could still be progressive). Then, if you're having the same flat tax rate for all, you can also use value added tax, which is essentially a flat tax. Though VAT likely needs to be low on the necessities (such as food and water), and then luxuries can be taxed more. (Though this would likely lead to an increase in smuggling and black market trade of luxuries, if the VAT is excessive.)

[Louella Dougans]

http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=28830

is an ingame item. unsure as to source/context.

tends to suggest tribes keeping their own records and stuff though.

[Seriphyn]

Not every nation is a bureaucratic beast, IRL or no; the State is touted to be the best at keeping track of its citizens as they are "employees of a corporation", while the Federation follows up as a massive bureaucracy, along with the Empire.

I would not be surprised if the Republic is the least centralized in terms of personal data. We know the Federation keeps on top if it by surveillance of its citizens...I would say its the individual tribe's responsbility.

Made me think about how the majority of "government institutions" in the "Republic" is not actually a Minmatar creation. Parliament, Justice Department, Fleet, Infantry etc. may all be Gallentean creations, since the Gallente definition of a nation-state is likely defined by our own definitions, and born from the various states that grew up on pre-spaceflight Gallente Prime or some such.

I find it interesting about the prospect that if the Minmatar were just on their own, they wouldn't have a Fleet, instead each Tribe must rely on their own defence (especially the Brutor). Stands up further when mentioning that the earlier Republic military personnel were Fed-trained.

[Ulphus]

The Matari are a tribal society with a thousand years of high-tech behind them.

I think they have a blend of things they do for tribal/clan reasons, but that doesn't mean they do things that are inefficient. I think they will have adapted to meet the realities of "modern" society; although agreed, not necessarily exactly the same that anyone else has done.

The British army used to organise some regiments along lines based on locations - all the men in one regiment might be from the same town or district. This had many benefits, the men knew each other, might fight better for their mates, and had reputations back home at stake, and when they retired they might encourage their sons into the same regiment as part of a family tradition.

It also had significant down-sides in the age of machineguns. When a regiment advanced into a line of trenches and took significant casualties, all those casualties came from the same town. It could really hurt those towns after the fighting was over.  (I think the Scottish regiments in the British Army were only recently amalgamated into non-regional units, and partly for financial reasons)

I draw a similar idea with the Matari Navy. I'm not sure how big clans get, but I could see that you might choose to recruit all the crew for a ship from the same clan; there'd no doubt be advantages; but when you lost that ship, you could be gutting a generation of the clan in one go. I could see the Matari Navy making a conscious decision to mix crew from many different clans into the same ship, so that when you have the inevitable losses, many clans might lose one or two people, but no clan would have too big a burden. This might also reduce favouritism and politics influence on tactical decisions ("Lets stick the battleships from the Ma'tushindor in the bit most likely to take casualties! Then my clan will have more votes on the tribal council").

I quite like Mithfindel's idea about taxing at a clan or tribe level, and leaving it up to them to decide how to meet those payments. Unfortunately, I can see a couple of issues
a) What to do about the significant numbers of people who apparently aren't in a clan right now
b) how do prevent under-reporting on the census by clans/tribes to reduce their tax bill?

b) could be somewhat ameliorated by having something status related that depends on the size of the clans (Well, yes, you pay less tax, but you don't qualify for a school until you have x many people, and you don't get as many votes on the tribal council) - the side effect of that might be that some rich clans over-report their members, paying more tax in order to get more influence.

a) is more difficult unless you have a parallel system that is aimed at the clanless.

I think that sort of parrallel confusion is entirely believable. I understand that some people have suggested that tribal affiliation can be determined via genetics, but given the odd genetic tinkering or breeding program under slavery, I could see there being people with parentage from several tribes; and thus that there are people who are not obviously from any tribe in particular. I suspect that these people might have a completely different tax system in place - perhaps certain public services depend on either showing appropriate clan markings to show you belong to a clan that paid it's taxes, or being unaffiliated with a tax-paid certificate.

I agree with Isobel about the welfare thing. I suspect it's part of the official and unofficial pressure put on people in the republic to identify as part of a clan. Clan members getting to use clan lawyers, and there not really being a legal-aid system otherwise; medical facilities being better for people from paid up clans; Unemployment benefits provided by clans; supermarkets giving discount cards to people from their tribe; clans helping support newly weds into housing, or youth getting out of education into jobs... Sort of like a giant "old-boys" network.

Part of the reason that life is pretty difficult for the returned might be that the rate at which clans are accepting new people is lower than the rate at which new people are arriving, and that the republic just hasn't got it's act together about dealing with things outside clans. And for many people, not really seeing that as a hugely bad thing.

[Isobel Mitar]

I find it interesting about the prospect that if the Minmatar were just on their own, they wouldn't have a Fleet, instead each Tribe must rely on their own defence (especially the Brutor). Stands up further when mentioning that the earlier Republic military personnel were Fed-trained.

I disagree with this. I believe the PF is quite clear about kinship ties being very important to Minmatar, and also of the Minmatar tribes being able to unite and work together should they perceive there to be enough need for it. ( http://www.eveonline.com/races/minmatar.asp )

A Brutor clan may be more distant kin to a Sebiestor clan than another Sebiestor clan, but they are still kin, while Amarr, Caldari and Gallente are not. I expect that if there was no pressing outside threat, the Sebiestor and Brutor would be happy to squabble. (No feud like family feud, eh? ) But there is an outside threat, so it would be intuitive for them to unite to fight those that are not kin. (And dig those old feuds back up at first opportunity. )

[Casiella]

"Me against my brother, my brothers and me against my cousins, then my cousins and me against strangers."

[Louella Dougans]

A lot of how the Republic works is p. much irrelevant now, since that novel states how the Elders can say "jump" and people will go "how high?", disregarding all previous obligations and things.

Elders chosen for wisdom and knowledge, and ofc don't question, just obey, they are revered as gods.

[Isobel Mitar]

The Matari are a tribal society with a thousand years of high-tech behind them.

I agree. One of the things I find so fascinating about Matari is fitting together both tribalism and the fact they are not primitive - what forms will tribalism take in a high-tech society?

I also loved your speculation about different ways to organize Matari military units.

I quite like Mithfindel's idea about taxing at a clan or tribe level, and leaving it up to them to decide how to meet those payments. Unfortunately, I can see a couple of issues
a) What to do about the significant numbers of people who apparently aren't in a clan right now
b) how do prevent under-reporting on the census by clans/tribes to reduce their tax bill?

I like the idea of Republic being (primarily) funded by tribes, and tribes being funded by clans.

Assuming Minmatar tribes did have a head tax on clans, would they see it problematic that a clan might under- or over-report their numbers in order to pay less tax or get more say in tribal matters? I am personally not sure but I'd perhaps lean towards that they would not care at least as long as the reported number is in the same general ballpark as the real number. For practical reasons, if nothing else.