Not direct democracy, not the rule of the people

[Rohan Jayasekera]

Fred,

1.  How is it that "Imagining a system that taxes the people and then asks them how to spend the tax money borders on 
the ludicrous"?  Income redistribution is one of the most popular activities of governments, and governments' 
subsidizing all manner of things (public transit, the needy, education, etc.) is very common.  I personally am unhappy 
about some of those activities, but I'd expect the majority to continue wanting such things.

Looking at it a bit abstractly, there is always a concentration of wealth in a minority (the only way to avoid it would 
be for wealth to be distributed 100% evenly, which didn't happen even in Communist Albania).  It may be inevitable that 
the majority will want to get their hands on the minority's extra wealth, and in a democracy the obvious route is to 
vote for a government that will collect taxes for purposes other than just running the government.

2.  I too worry about potential elitism, but my expectation is that the increasing reach of cellphones worldwide will 
make pretty much everyone a "computer user".  This will take a while, of course.

Rohan Jayasekera