Why Mars for your thought experiment? Currently, it’s TRIVIAL to govern—there’s nobody there. For a long time yet, it’ll be governed by military-like control structures, in order to keep people alive.
By the time this question becomes interesting, the answers will start to look similar to Earth situations.
On the object level, I’d probably go with a federated system—a world government to allocate resources to local groups, and let local groups govern however they like. As long as resources are plentiful, guarantee right of exit for all people—they can emigrate anywhere that’ll take them, paid for by the planetary tax fund.
It’s once resources get scarce that governance becomes interesting. I don’t know what to do about child labor, for instance, when that keeps the air breathable.
Even that has earth parallels—colonies and low-resource areas that depend on outside economies cause interesting tensions. Putting it on Mars makes it less interesting, actually, as we’re fully guessing at the resource flows (and military threats) that drive the equilibrium.
I tried to think of a case where a “new” state is founded. On earth, every (dry) place is already owned, so that wouldn’t have worked (without seceding). Seasteads might work nearly as well as space colonies. Assuming infinite monetary resources, in both cases it is conceivable to set up something completely disconnected from existing power structures.
In a way it’s just a toy example, that disregards wars and other military actions.
Why Mars for your thought experiment? Currently, it’s TRIVIAL to govern—there’s nobody there. For a long time yet, it’ll be governed by military-like control structures, in order to keep people alive.
By the time this question becomes interesting, the answers will start to look similar to Earth situations.
On the object level, I’d probably go with a federated system—a world government to allocate resources to local groups, and let local groups govern however they like. As long as resources are plentiful, guarantee right of exit for all people—they can emigrate anywhere that’ll take them, paid for by the planetary tax fund.
It’s once resources get scarce that governance becomes interesting. I don’t know what to do about child labor, for instance, when that keeps the air breathable.
A key question of Mars governance will be about what questions will be decided by people on earth and what will be decided by people on Mars.
Even that has earth parallels—colonies and low-resource areas that depend on outside economies cause interesting tensions. Putting it on Mars makes it less interesting, actually, as we’re fully guessing at the resource flows (and military threats) that drive the equilibrium.
I tried to think of a case where a “new” state is founded. On earth, every (dry) place is already owned, so that wouldn’t have worked (without seceding). Seasteads might work nearly as well as space colonies. Assuming infinite monetary resources, in both cases it is conceivable to set up something completely disconnected from existing power structures.
In a way it’s just a toy example, that disregards wars and other military actions.