My original point was that the author’s ideas are nuts.

Some of the problems you point out are just a few of the reasons why.

I do note in passing that no imagined Utopia has ever seemed to manage without a slave class, and his is no exception.

As for the other, I’m all in favor of cutting loose all those rugged individualists who don’t want to pay their fair share. The trouble with that idea is we don’t live at the edge of a wilderness where they can go trapping for furs. We live in a complex, interconnected society and even administering a two-tier citizenship structure like that would be impractical, if not impossible.

There is nothing new about Libertarianism, TB, they had it in the early 19th century. In those days it was called Anarchism, and it not only rejected the idea of government, it rejected the idea of business as well. Working for an owner/boss was considered just as oppressive as working for a government official or appointee. In fact, they made no distinction between the two.

Under Anarchism, everybody would be self-employed. In those industries where people had to work in groups with skilled managers in charge (like shipbuilding) then the model was the co-op, like some farmers have today. THere was no privately owned property, except for personal belongings. You could own your house, but not an apartment building.

The Cuban mutual-aid societies that were common in Tampa during the early 20th century were set up that way, and they were very successful, in spite of vicious opposition from the Anglo businessmen who couldn’t compete with them. Managers were professionals hired or fired by the vote of the workers. Cubans didn’t invent the system, it was originally from Europe.

But I doubt that model would work today. Things are just too complex, and too interconnected. Even corporations are collectivized, with ownership distibuted amongst stockholders who are often corporations themselves, and so on, and so on, and so on…

The corner lemonade stand isn’t the model of free enterprise anymore. And a Libertarian, as I’ve mentioned before, is just an Anarchist with property.

I wouldn’t let them vote, either. Just like in Heinlein.