AHC: Widespread Use of National Subscriptions for Government Finance

Delta Force

Banned
Prior to World War I, many nations financed the construction of major warships through national subscriptions, with people voluntarily donating money to the government in excess of taxes. In some cases newspapers and other organizations such as navy leagues collected donations on behalf of the government. This was distinct from the purchase of war bonds, as national subscriptions occurred during peacetime and people would not be paid back, although they might receive things to let everyone know how patriotic they were.

Could a similar system have continued, with people donating funds to the government for various projects such as exploration, scientific research, and space exploration? What about national subscriptions in the original context of military equipment, perhaps for humanitarian aircraft and ships?
 

TxCoatl1970

Fantastic idea, DF!

The trouble with that model is that it was usually a specific warship/warplane.
IIRC schoolkids would solicit funds to build whatever with well-known costs and delivery times.

Cute kid asks for a dime for s/t to protect us all? What soulless monster could refuse?
It establishes a personal link to see that gets done.

As a drone operating and maintaining a water treatment plant, there's thousands of things we need on a regular basis from nails to pumps.
Kinda tough to identify s/t sexy enough to build a subscription campaign around.

Luckily, the utility I work for is autonomous, well-funded and even better run. so we don't need the pass the hat to get vital stuff fixed.

Some infrastructure projects you can point to and say that park or bridge or whatever else was purchased via subscription.

You mention scientific research, and that's a very sticky wicket.

Blue-sky pure research is a very difficult animal to sell b/c it doesn't have a particular end-goal with specfic dates you can expect results.
It's a fascinating, frustrating process to explore what's out there w/o any idea what you don't know and making what you find out later to be all kinds of painful, embarrassing mistakes fumbling around.
That fumbling around allows us to identify productive avenues and flag other bits for further study that MIGHT pay off spectacularly with more fumbling.

However, finding the right mix of auonomy for researchers and adult supervision to redirect efforts when they aren't goiing anywhere is the great conundrum of many science departments.

Applied research does have specific goals and you can establish checkpoints to know whether you're making measurable progress. That 's why applied projects tweaking what we already have some idea of what we're messing with get 95% of the private and public funding.

So the point of this ramble is some projects are easy sells for a subscription campaign but many aren't and just need a slush fund to keep things going.
 

Delta Force

Banned
To some extents, might it be that the world wars, nuclear weapons, asymmetric warfare, and improved information have removed the romantic notions of warfare? People don't really boast about how powerful the military of their nation is anymore, but instead about how good it is at sports, exploration, and economics.

As far as more recent programs and projects go, I think the Space Race could have been a moment for national subscriptions to make a comeback. They were large projects, but not too large relative to the economic size of the nations carrying them out. Perhaps subscriptions could have been used to help finance space programs during that era or help encourage and/or put the enthusiasm of the public to use. To be subscriptions instead of a tax with an excuse they would have to be voluntary, but I think many people would be willing to contribute due to the enthusiasm of the era.

Some nations could also channel some of the subscriptions to more weapons oriented programs, as there is significant overlap between civilian and military rocketry, satellites, and other space technology.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Peter Parker said:
I like the idea for NASA

The moon program would cost 150 billion dollars in today's money
Click to expand...

I think it could really have helped to build and sustain public interest in the program. Perhaps someone could make a deal with NASA to write people's names on microfilm and have them as a payload on Apollo 11, or they could sell flags or stamps from other missions during subscription drives. I'm not sure how feasible it could have been with NASA and other government rules against personally profiting the program though. There was a scandal when astronauts flew stamps into space and sold them to a collector.
 

Rich Rostrom

Delta Force said:
Could a similar system have continued, with people donating funds to the government for various projects such as exploration, scientific research, and space exploration? What about national subscriptions in the original context of military equipment, perhaps for humanitarian aircraft and ships?
Click to expand...

Two things got in the way of this.

1) Costs escalated enormously. Subscriptions couldn't pay for anything much.

2) Governments radically expanded their responsibilities, their collections, and their expenditures. People had less after tax income, and expected the government to pay out of its much greater funds.
 
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