What kind of Government will Mars have?: One Possibility

Many factors will determine what kind of Government a Mars colony might have. Here is a short exploration of what might happen.

People from all walks of life have an opinion on just what kind of government will govern Mars, some of those strong. I doubt any are correct. Here is my opinion on the subject.

It is a rather complex issue. It gets even more complex if all the international missions there are landing at the same spot. Make no mistake, the US might get there first if things keep as they are, but it is highly likely that two windows later, others will arrive too. China, Russia, and India will all likely follow, some as soon as 5 years, others of those closer to 15 years. It is even possible that more countries follow in launching their own. Is each country going to build their own small settlement? Or is it going to be some big interconnected colony, with different neighborhoods, each having a different flavor and rules of conduct? It affects what kind of government and law enforcement there is.

There may be good reasons to keep them separate, landing in different places. Each location can then grant monopolies to interest the big investors. For example, Caterpillar may be more inclined to make a big investment in putting a lot of heavy-duty construction equipment for construction there, if they are the sole company that contractors can use for construction. Deals like that are to be sure of getting all that is required, shipped to Mars. For that reason, there are those who would be inclined to make that kind of deal. Such deals guarantee that the equipment is there and available. Getting the electric power grid up and running is one more that many people working on this would be inclined to grant a monopoly for the guarantees that they can get. Such monopolies are granted all over the world for cities and regions. It is my opinion that this trades short-term benefits for long-term gains. Yet there are those that argue that it is the only way to get sufficient investors to get started. In some cases that argument does hold some water, but it also limits long-term options and investment.

But granting monopolies can only work if each nation is doing their own colony. The international community is not going to trust foreign monopolies. Almost all of them have seen the damage those cause. But there are enormous advantages to all building their colonies interconnecting in the same location. And I find it a more likely and workable situation. A single place landing and refurbishing the ships headed back, can do it far far cheaper than four or five of them, leaving a lot more time and resources for building a better colony. Yet there are more reasons this will end up being what it will look like. Doing it that way will most certainly affect what kind of government Mars has.

The larger the interconnected group on Mars are, the more infrastructure you get both overall and per person. There are lots of reasons for that, but one is, the more different things being done, the more infrastructure you have. On Mars, that will make a huge difference in how fast the colony can grow, and what its standard of living will be. One thing it also does is lower the threshold on how much investment is required to get a business started on Mars.

That is another thing affecting what kind of government Mars will have. Numerous small investors will be every bit as important to a successful Mars Colony as a few big ones. There are thousands of different products needed that will be in very short supply for a long time. These will almost universally be produced by these small investors. Soap makers, blanket weavers, box makers, containers, clothiers, thread makers, rope makers, the list goes on and on and on. These people will be the heart and soul of the internal economy, buying almost anything that can be grown in the apartments and turning it to product people need. So, a Mars government that makes that the easiest will have a far better chance of making the Mars colony successful. That would push even more for an international, interconnected infrastructure with nearly no monopolies granted.

Nor is the overall Mars Government likely to be a democracy, even a representative one. Too many international minorities involved do not want the “majority” butting into what they are doing in their own communities. It will more likely be a limited power council of some sort, with some factions appointing their council members, and some electing theirs. That council would have very little power to tax or make civil laws. In a international colony, this power would be reserved for each community, in a very similar way that all of that was taken care of by each of the states.

What little money such a Mars Government gets would likely come from landing fees and possibly a small tariff on imports. International communities are not going to pay a tax on either income or trade, within their communities, nor with other communities. Its power will mostly be for settling disputes and preventing the activities in one community from endangering them all. Very little of the Mars Government is going to be dealing with people, but rather the community that they belong to.

Yet there are likely to be two big exceptions; the right to pass through, and the right to leave. Communities tied to the central tunnel infrastructure receiving services and people through them are going to need to let their own tunnels be used to pass those on to other communities. And while communities can refuse to allow people to come, live, work or shop there, people should be allowed to leave badly run communities for any other community that will have them or to go back to earth at the next window.

What won’t work is some central authority deciding what gets built, who gets what resources, what job you have to take and how much you have to take as compensation, as some seem to believe. It is not going to be run like a well-ordered ship with each crewman doing their job. While that might get a few of the big investors, it will cripple most of the people that are going to provide all those needed products to keep the place running from getting started. You cannot have a successful colony importing those.

The kind of public services and law enforcement you get will have to with what community you are living it. Some communities will have only the bare bones services and security and a very low tax structure. Other communities will have very high taxes and lots of public services with high levels of security. Nor will all of these communities have direct ties with sponsoring governments on earth who are setting the rules, though many will, especially right off. Unless prevented, different groups getting together on Mars and forming the communities with the basic rules they think will work best there is going to happen and come to dominate what type of communities are there. This is going to lead to and ever expanding rang of communities and sets of rule people have to chose from.

The more people, doing the more differ things, the lower the cost of living for each becomes and the higher the standard of living there will be. But it is going to be a long, long time before it comes anywhere near what the standard of living in the average city is. Even if, as I expect to happen, productivity on Mars is far higher than Earth, you are still talking a population into the millions at least. A network of interconnected communities, each governing themselves instead of a massive central control, is more likely to get you there faster, and safer.

For a fiction based on living in a similar type of place, read my Donald of Mars.