Government

What Kind Of Legal And Government Framework Does Elon Musk Favor For Mars?

Elon Musk wants to keep laws short on Mars.

By ARUNDHATI PARMAR - Medcity News  
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Elon Musk (Photo by Diego Donamaria/Getty Images for SXSW)

While the rest of us are driven to achieve earthly desires, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur believes tying humanity to the fate of the blue planet is a mistake.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and several other startups, is reaching for Mars. Unless, you’ve been living — ahem — under a rock in Mars, you are aware of the successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy that rocketed a Tesla car with a dummy astronaut into space. But set aside the future success of SpaceX for a minute and suspend your disbelief on whether a human colony in Mars is possible. Rather, think on when we humble Earthlings become Martians, what form of government and law should be formed on the red planet?

That was one of several questions the South African-born Musk addressed in wide-ranging interview at a SXSW conference in Austin on Sunday afternoon where HBO’s Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan played the role of friendly interviewer.

Nolan: “What kind of government do you envision for the first Mars colony? What should your title be on Mars?”

Musk: “Emperor or God-Emperor. I don’t know.” (The audience guffaws.) “Might be too much. I don’t know.”

Then as if to prevent any unsolicited and daft trolling on social media, Musk caught himself. “I have to watch my jokes here. Not everyone gets irony, you know.” (The audience laughs again.)

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And then he held forth on the type of government and legal system the first colony on Mars should have.

I think most likely the first government on Mars would be somewhat of a direct democracy where people vote directly on issues instead of going through representative government.

You know when the United States was formed, representative government was the only thing that was logistically feasible. There was no way for people to communicate instantly. A lot people didn’t have really access to actually mailboxes. The post office was very primitive. Lot of people couldn’t write. So you had to have some form of representative democracy or things wouldn’t work at all. But on Mars I think it would be most likely that everyone votes on every issue and that’s how it goes.

Then he added that there’d be a few things that he’d recommend: keep laws short on Mars.

“There’s something suspicious going on if it’s a long law. If the size of the law exceeds the word count of the Lord of the Rings… then something’s wrong. You should be able to digest it,” he said. “How come you can read the Constitution and all the Amendments — you can read those maybe in an hour and we govern so much of our modern civilization by that. And yet modern law is [an] obtuse, super-boring tome that is indecipherable to anyone. So direct democracy, laws that are comprehensible,” he said.

Musk also said that there should be something in place to overcome inertia and it should be “easier to remove a law than create one.”

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And that’s because he believes that “laws accumulate over time, they accumulate, and you become like Gulliver trapped by all these little strings and you can’t move. You get hardening of the arteries of civilization. Maybe there should be sunset laws so that they automatically expire unless it makes sense to have them around.”

Musk may have the legal/governmental role figured out. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he believes that the mission to Mars is difficult, dangerous, and most people will die.

But for first explorers who survive, it will apparently be a thrill like no other.

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