Various Justifications for Government
Here is an email I received from Scott Flaherty. It includes a range of interesting objections to the idea of getting rid of the state monopoly on law. Maybe Rothbardian-Misesians of the world would like to have a crack at them.
"During our advocacy for the privatization of law, we have come across several objections which I would like to share with you. I think you'll find they're not the typical 'What if someone builds a wall across the country?'"
The Runway Objection
After talking to one neoconservative resident for some time, we had finally convinced him that private roads would be feasible. Although he admitted this, he expressed doubts that the roads would ever meet. He felt the need for central planning in intersections. Of course, we know there would be a huge demand for intersections, this resident insisted that the privatization of roads would lead to a series of long but non-crossing strips of pavement. Hence, runways everywhere.
The Dinner Bundle Objection
One Long Island liberal brought up the hypothetical where one corporation controlled all of the world's food supply. He asserted that all foods would be sold for very high prices. When we explained that if people had to pay a fortune for all types of food, everyone would be living on caviar and champagne. He then modified the scenario so that small varieties of food would be sold only in expensive, indivisible, meal-for-one “dinner bundles.”
The Psychic Objection
The same resident also claimed the most important reason for government was that people needed the psychological stability of a national leader in times of crises, even if that leader didn't really do anything. This was the first time I have ever heard government legitimacy justified in terms of flood- and hurricane-relief.
The Blaze-of-Glory Objection
A moderate Republican from the Midwest, had another novel justification for government. A businessman, at the end of a long and successful career, might take a giant loan out from a bank, and then retreat to a prebuilt well-defended fortress where he would never live out his life with impunity. His retirement would be a fiscal “Blaze-of-Glory.”
Comments (29)
(1) Roads that don't connect are not very useful. Why would anyone build such a road? This seems like a silly objection to private roads. People don't like to waste their own money. So of course they would build roads that connect to their neighbor's roads.
(2) This is even sillier. If one corporation somehowmanaged to get a monopoly of food production, it couldn't last, since everyone elde would be free to grow his own food, breaking the monopoly as soon as the first crop came in.
(3) I suppose there are such people. Let them join a co-op.
(4) I don't see what is at all objectionable about this. If someone wants to go live on his private mountaintop, how is anyone else impacted?
Published: March 24, 2004 5:39 PM
>> (4) I don't see what is at all objectionable
>> about this.
The wording is a bit funny. What's objectionable is that the person takes out a loan, and then retreats to his fortress... with the intent of never repaying the loan.
Published: March 24, 2004 5:53 PM
4. Blaze of Glory
I’ve dealt with this one in insider trading debates usually regarding whether market reputation has worth. Argument goes once someone’s got the money they’ve gotten away with it.
Answer: Private institutions (banks) take on that risk. They’re free to price it however they want. They are not bailed out by the government. A private bank may demand higher collateral from an old retired businessman at the end of his life to avoid that risk. The bank still has legal recourse to any property that may be remaining in his estate after the businessman’s death. Default happens all the time. Can we call the pre-built well-defended fortress Argentina?
Published: March 24, 2004 6:15 PM
1. You would end up with a lot of paths through the ditch to other "runways", eventually someone would notice that they could make money by making these paths into real toll producing highways.
2. I have heard this one before, but no one ever explains to me how an agricultural monopoly would occur? Take the example of a developer who decides to buy up all the houses in a neighborhood. Long before he has purchased all the houses the current owners notice what is happening and the prices for the remaining houses skyrocket. I believe this would occur with agriculture land as well.
3. I agree with Mr. White on this one, let them join a co-op.
4. If this person borrowing the money does not intend on repaying it then the lender can take civil action to recover their money, including taking over possession of the fortress and whatever collateral they had arranged for the loan. If this became a problem with all businessmen on the verge of retirement, they would soon face huge interest rates on any loans they want, as well as large collateral requirements.
Published: March 24, 2004 6:23 PM
Oops! Sorry, I missed the "giant loan" phrase.
But it's still not a problem, since anyone giving a loan has the option of requiring collateral on the loan. And whomever makes the loan then has the option of using whatever force is necessary to collect on the loan. It's really another silly argument, since the cost of defending the retirement fortress must be extremely high. And what would be the point of the loan in the first place? What would the delinquent retiree do with the money that he had borrowed?
I suppose he would pay for the "well defended fortress". OK. So there he is, in his fortress. What does he do now?
The lender would want to know what was to be done with the money; or at least would have the option of asking what would be done with it, before making the loan. Presumably we're talking about millions of dollars here (to construct and maintain a "well defended fortress"). No lender is going to hand over that kind of cash without knowing exactly what's to be done with it.
The lender is also not likely to hand over all the cash in one lump sum. So, as the fortress is being constructed (presumably under false pretenses) the lender has the option of inspecting the construction to see what's being done with the millions of dollars being loaned. At some point it would have to become obvious just what the intentions of the borrower are, and at that point the lender stops lending money, and demands repayment. That would happen long before the fortress is defendable.
A retirement fortress has very little market value in a free society. Anyone who lends money for its construction is a fool, and deserves to be taken to the cleaners. The free market is a handy way of allocating resources to those who use them wisely, and taking from those who fritter them away.
Published: March 24, 2004 7:31 PM
As to roads, I understand at one time there were private roads, canals and railroads. People seemed to be able to get around then. Seems that any road in a private system would have to pay. Considering that it could not depend on being subsidised by government. The market is a better allocator of resources than government. Or perhaps the market serves a broader public interest while government serves politically connected special interests.
When it comes to meals it is not in a firm's long term interest to maintain a monopoly position. An absense of competition creates a distortion in the manner of determining the allocation of resources. There are no efficent monopolies. Ergo in order to maintain the monopoly status a barrier to market entry is required, usually government.
Frankly the idea of a powerful leader gives me the willies. I would recommend becoming a man or woman of faith. Politics is a poor substitute for religion. Another newsflash, the president isn't your daddy.
The fourth objection already well addressed. Just one point though. Why should the public be imposed on to bail out a lender who makes unwise decision through deposit insurance or bailouts?
Published: March 24, 2004 7:38 PM
These are not even slightly persuasive arguments, and I tend towards the minarchist position. More problematic I think is how people would handle being imprisoned or fined by a competing law enforcement/insurance agency. In that sense, the "psychic" effect of the State has some merit in that virtually everyone thinks it's legitimate (however unwarranted, that's an indisputable fact).
How about prosecuting murders where there is no relative? Dealing with people who don't join an agency? Rothbard, for example, thinks that agencies will obviously help protect non-clients to boost their reputation. I don't think this is self-evident at all. I'm sure there are other plausible objections that I can't think of at the moment.
Published: March 24, 2004 8:06 PM
I think roads should not be privatized. I generally accept that a monopoly price cannot be achieved in the free market, however, I believe that roads are a unique good, and are therefore an exception to this rule.
In a system in which the people who drove their cars on the road would pay (whether through tolls or permits etc...). the owners of the road could charge a monopoly price.
The main free market objection to monopoly price laws is the idea that competition can only take place in production, not pricing. For example ,assume there are 100 Television sets supplied, and the demand is 100 at a price of $100.
If one company owns all 100 sets, they will of course charge the maximum price, $100.
If there are two "competing" companies each with 50 sets, they too will charge $100.
Why? Lets say one of the companies decides to take the others customers by selling at $85. This will cause a shortage. At $85, the demand may not be 100, but rather, people may demand 120 sets at this price. With the increased demand, people will flock to buy the cheaper sets, and they will run out with lots of potential buyers empty handed, who will then seek the goods of the other retailer (at least the ones who are willing to pay $100).
This is why, no matter the number of people selling a good, it tends to go at its maximum price.
However, sellers can compete in production. If the other retailer were to prodce 70 Tvs, rather than 50, there would be 120 sets on the market and he could lower his price.
However, there are some situations in which the price of a good is well below the maximum price that would elicit the same demand.
e.g. - the value of a good to the 100th most enthusiastic buyer in which 100 units of the good are supplied may be equivalent to $50, nut the good only sells for $10.
This will tend to happen with extremely inelastic goods (goods in which the price has very little effect on the amount sold).
Take a steering wheel for example, even if a steering whell cost 1 cent, no one would purchase 6 times as many steering wheels as they had cars. The value of a steering wheel is probably a few thousand dollars. It is exactly as valuable as a car, because a car requires it to function.
Lets say the average car, and therefore steering wheel, is worth $5,000. Lets assume that 1,000 cars are supplied, as are 1,000 steering wheels (sold separately, for the purpose of this simple model).
Assume steering wheels retail for $100, whcih is far less than the value of the marginal unit. Wouldnt demand far exceed supply? nope. Because there is no demand for steering wheels upwards of 1,000. A steering wheel without a car is useless.
But why don't companies just charge The maximum amount they could? people would still buy them if the price didn't exceed value. This is where competition comes in to play.
I will quote Eugen von Bohm- bawerk here.
"Someone possesses a rather large supply of means of production of second order (G2). From each of these groups he can produce at will a consumption good of the category A, or one of category B or finally, of category C. He desires, of course, to take advance measures toward balanced provision for his various wants, and will therefore draw simultaneously on various parts of his supply of means of production to produce consumption goods of all three categories. And he will produce amounts in each in accordance with his needs. If there is genuinely balanced provision, the quantities produced will be so regulated that needs of approximately equal importance depend upon the last specimen in each category, and that thus the marginal utilities are approximately equal. In spite of that it is not impossible that there will be differences--possibly even quite considerable differences--in the marginal utilities because, as we already know, the gradation of concrete wants occurring in any one category is not always either uniform or continuous. The first stove in my room will afford me a very considerable utility, say one we might designate with an index of 200. A second stove will afford no utility at all. I shall most emphatically call a halt in providing stoves when I have a single specimen with its marginal utility of 200, even though in other areas provision for needs may see a dropping off of the average of marginal utility to as little as 120 or even 100. And so it is permissible and necessary, if our example is to be true to nature, to assume that the marginal utility of a specimen will be different in each of the categories A, B and C. Let us call it 100 for A, 120 for B and 200 for C.
"Now the question arises, "What is the value, under these circumstances, of a group of means of production, G2?"
"We have had so much practice with selective decisions of a similar nature that we can give the answer without hesitation. The value will be equal to 100. For if one of the available groups of means of production should be lost, the owner would naturally shift the loss to the least sensitive area. He would not curtail production in category B where he would be sacrificing a marginal utility of 120, and certainly not in category C where the sacrifice would go as high as 200. He would quite simply produce one specimen fewer of category A where the reduction in well-being is only 100. Let us express it in general terms. The value of a unit of means of production is governed by the marginal utility and the value of that product which has the least marginal utility among all those products for the making of which the unit means of production could have justifiably been used. "
i.e. Someone else could simply sell the good for less than the value, still make a profit, and not cause a shortage.
(dont, worry, I'm not an ultra mega geek or anything. I didn't type that all out myself, I simply typed the first sentence into google, and found the text of that book online)
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However, roads are unique in that they
1)have an incredibly inelastic demand curve
2)new roads are not easily produced
The cost of upkeeping roads, as extracted by the government. Is far less than the value of roads. Roads, in our society, are extremely important. Without them, most everything else would be useless, but not too much money is spent on their upkeep.
However, the low price (free) of using roads doesnt create a bona fide shortage, because the total use of roads is limited by htings such as the number of cars in existence, and the number of places one needs to go. (people hardly drive for the hell of it). It is okay to have the price of road usage artificially reduced, as it is under government control.
However, if they were private, there would be nothing to stop the owners of a road from increasing the price to the point of its value. Given the fact that there are lots of buildings, houses etc... all over, it would be impossible to build roads just anywhere. And it would also be impossible to duplicate other, existing roads.
The owners of the roads could raise the price without having to worry about competition.
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(I originally wrote this up for friends who weren't very familiar with economics, so alot of this you all probably knew already.)
Published: March 24, 2004 8:09 PM
Uh oh, not more 'roads cannot/should not be privatized' arguing, followed by a question of 'what would we do with people with no defense agency?' which is quickly becoming the 'who will take out the garbage in a socialist society' question of market anarchism.
Briefly - to Mr. Byars - roads should be privatized because they can be - and because private voluntary use is ethically superior to anything coercive.
The idea of 'overuse' on roads is exactly legitimate; you just don't see it. It's called traffic jams; it's called having a hard time getting to work in the morning (because, yes, there are a lot of people who cruise around 'just for the hell of it' - ask any teenager who drives around aimlessly; there are many of them.)
Raising a good to it's actual price is efficiency, and as such, a good economic policy. Government roads aren't 'free'; they're being paid for through taxes, and an enormous amount of gas taxes go to roads.
On not having to worry about competition; you are incorrect here, as it is the government that does not have to worry about competition. Imagine the State as a giant private road owner (such an analogy is incorrect, because the State doesn't run on a profit and loss system, and it doesn't legitimately own the people or products in our society; we aren't it's slaves in any way). You make the mistake of fearing a private company charging voluntary fee's for driving on it's roads because you incorrectly feel that there will be no competition, and then try to use this argument to justify a giant monopoly holder on roads, the State, which doesn't have to worry about competition, and can and does set prices above or below market level on these 'free' roads.
Your claim that there is no competition on providing roads is wrong. I can drive on another road.
Your point about roads not being able to be made 'just anywhere' is a double bladed sword. For while the State can and does make roads anywhere, if you are aware of sound economics you should know immediately that without a profit and loss system, the State cannot decide where to make roads without market signaling, and therefore doesn't know how to use the finite amount of time, labor, and resources to make efficient roads. Instead, it makes roads that people will hardly ever drive on, and neglect possible avenues of building new roads that are needed by 'the people'.
Because the State can make roads just about anywhere, it does. It seems like a silly argument to deny the value of privatizing roads because you can't make roads anywhere. It's like protesting the continued private use of phone line installation because companies cannot 'just build phone lines anywhere'. Both systems can and do operate well privately, and both systems should and do run well voluntarily.
There is nothing unique about the privitization of roads that excludes it from being used in a capitalist market. Roads are property, private roads have existed since roads were first formed, and money can be made off of them.
Sounds like a recipe for privitization to me.
Andy:
Quote:
"How about prosecuting murders where there is no relative? Dealing with people who don't join an agency? Rothbard, for example, thinks that agencies will obviously help protect non-clients to boost their reputation. I don't think this is self-evident at all. I'm sure there are other plausible objections that I can't think of at the moment."
This argument an old argument. Buy Bob Murphy's Chaos Theory. It answers this question (really a simple one if you think about it a bit) and several more difficult ones (people keeping nuclear weapons in their basements, for example). You can find the book here;
http://homepages.nyu.edu/%7Erpm213/ChaosTheory.html
(If you're reading this Bob, you should pay me for shamelessly promoting your book everywhere!)
Published: March 24, 2004 9:37 PM
I don't think teens drive around aimlessly. They probably do something that seems like that, p\bu probably for social purposes. Appying what I said to that, public roads probably won't create more opportunities for meeting friends. Also, keep in mind that teens will probably lie about where they're going. A kid who goes to get drunk or high may say he was just driving around aimlessly.
"Your claim that there is no competition on providing roads is wrong. I can drive on another road. "
What if a single provider buys up enough roads? I know this sounds alot like a typical leftist argument, but its different with this type of good.
If someone monopolized all of the diamonds in the world, no big deal. They couldn't raise the price from the "competitive" price, because the competitive price couldn't be lower, because a shortage would result.
Likewise, if someone bought up sony, RCA, magnavox, etc...they couldn't reduce production, as that would free up some factors for competitors.
I don't see such a problem with roads, and admittedly, both privatge and public roads require huge tradeoffs.
And for a better argument against private law than these, here ris a very simple and crude version of one that IU think could be on the right track:
Advocates of private law generally point out thatfor a system of law to be accepted ,it requires reciprocity, and only propertarian free trade leaves all parties better off, ergo the common Randian shibboleth about companies competing in the interpretation of law writing some sort of communist law is false.
I think I can raise an objection to this point (don't take this as an implicit endorsement of the Randroids).
Any book on sociology (Such as Helmut Schoeck's "Envy" that I just recieved from the Mises institute this week) or psychology can tell you that people are envious of others' status, and strive for status. Unlike trade, which maximizes material utility, preeminence IS a zero sum game.
Envy could help to shape the laws against private property.
Published: March 24, 2004 10:30 PM
Walt,
You're missing a key point. For the sake of argument, I'll grant you that we have this private road system, where everyone pays voluntarily to drive on this road.
How exactly is this worse than a State road system? You, like a lot of others who use this argument, miss a simple proposition; you are against the idea of privatization because you feel that a monopoly would result from it's use. Then, you advocate a monopoly based system (the State) to run things. So then a monopoly is a bad thing, and then the State is a monopoly, which we need to replace another monopoly, and... what?
It's this kind of logical error in reasoning that libertarians and anarchists are trying to show you.
The idea of someone buying up all the roads is as silly as the idea of someone buying up all the housing in America, or buying up all the water, or buying up all the computers. It's practically impossible. There are billions of miles of roads in America. Do you really think someone can buy all of these roads? And whats to stop people from digging under them (a justifiable libertarian course of action) and go under them?
I suggest that you read Walter Block's articles on road privitization. He answers a lot of common arguments against private roads.
I cannot make much sense out of your apparent argument against private law. Care to clarify a bit?
Published: March 25, 2004 12:09 AM
Regarding the national leader during crisis:
Human groups always have groups. For example, Guayaquil (in Ecuador, SouthAmerica, wich by the way was a U.S. style libertarian society until the 70's) has a "Junta de Notables" (Notable People Comitee) with provide the city with civil leadership for a lot of things, including moral judgement for political authorities and endorsement for big private projects. To say that you need a political figure acting as a social leader is not only a non-sequitur but maybe the opposite concept altogether.
Published: March 25, 2004 12:47 AM
Regarding the Blaze-of-Glory:
Headhunters and privateering did well in the past and would be useful again for tracking down and bringing to justice such a felon.
No need for government in that case (or any other). The functions will still be provided or executed by society, no need for a monopoly. Romantic love is more important than bank loans/money and nobody wants to socialice *that*
Published: March 25, 2004 12:51 AM
Alex- I live in Tampa, Florida. Does it matter to me whether or not a local monopolist can buy up all of the roads in New York? If he can by all the major thoroughfares in my city, oreven some of them, that could render me without other options, and I would have to go on his road.
also, we both know that while the state is a monopolist, the price it charges for building roads is less than what a privat company could extract. I will re-explain the argument on private law when I return from the doctor's.
Published: March 25, 2004 8:05 AM
First, every posited scenario is fantastically unrealistic. Second, a few minutes of reflection allow us to dismiss each in short order.
On roads:
This has been dealt with by other comments. Something else that's important to remember is the outcry over "urban sprawl," which is facilitated--in large part--by government road construction.
On food monopolists:
You've probably heard various Chicken Littles worry about what happens when Wal-Mart finally crushes all opposition. Your friend can't just pose this as a hypothetical: he has to demonstrate how it could actually happen. You might also want to ask, "what happens if one organization is in charge of education? What happens if one organization is in charge of defense? They'll provide shoddy products at absurdly high prices..." oh wait. We already have that: they're state monopolies. It's a questionable leap from "a giant corporation will control the food supply" (which won't happen) to the implicit "therefore, the government should be in charge of food."
On the Blaze-of-Glory:
Go get him.
Published: March 25, 2004 10:12 AM
Walt,
I don't think you know how the government works. It's wasteful, and it cannot help but be wasteful. Without a price system, the State is flying blind and arbitrarily setting prices. How do you know that the prices of public roads would be cheaper than the prices of private roads? If so, why doesn't your argument apply to any other State 'public' good; education, regulation, tax collection, etc.
I scoff at your view that the State runs roads cheaper (and seemingly more efficiently) than the market would. I think you grossly misunderstand how the State works, and how it is different from the market.
Teens can and do drive around aimlessly; i.e., driving around with no other goal in mind other than driving around. I cannot see how you would not believe this. Yesterday, I drove around aimlessly on a public road - with no other goal than the pursuit of driving for boredom's sake. Are you going to deny this?
If roads can be privatized, they should be, because it is moral to allow people to decide, without the threat of the bayonnet or the jailhouse, how to spend their money on where they want to drive.
Published: March 25, 2004 11:04 AM
I recognize that the state is inefficient.I, however, don't believe that the Misesian calculation position applies to the case of building roads, as it is not a vertically integrated monopoly. I do think you could apply the less powerful Hayekian argument that the road planners will, rather than try to maximize ex post profits, will attempt to, ex ante, get the state to agree to their ideas. However, the decisions to uild the roads is, in my view, far from "arbitrary".
I seriously doubt that driving to relieve boredom is as prevalent as you think. However, I won't disagree that this happens.
I do think that the amount of money the state extracts to pay for the roads is far,far, less than even the marginal utility gained from the existence of the roads. However, I understand that this position, as well as yours involves many trade offs.
I do not think that government tax collection on land rents is neccessarily immoral. I think all of the Georgist utilitarian assumptions are wrong, but the view of land rents being "unearned income" and people not having a right to them are correct. I take the Humist position that there is no rational basis of rights, for the most part. The most potent counter I have seen to this is Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "argumentative ethics" argument. However, this argument, when applied to the Hoppean position on homesteading, contradicts itself. He says that anyone who formulates an argument, demonstrates a preference for their existence as a living human being, and therefore demonstrates a preference for homesteading. However, if you believe that there is a right to be, then there is a right to be...somewhere. The logical conclusion of unlimited homesteading rights leaves an opening for the negation of this right.
Published: March 25, 2004 12:40 PM
It is not Either Government OR Entrepeneur - Corporation. There is a third category of Volunteers and Commons (Public spaces).
First consider the Internet. That is a large virtual roadway that wasn't built by government and had all the necessary intersections, freeways, offramps, and destinations. But this is in virgin territory.
Second, consider Linux, developed on the Internet. It is an intentional "commons". If enough people in each neighborhood or along a commercial strip wanted it, they could pave and maintain the roadways in front. Using such a road might come with a "license" that you would agree to pave or let be paved a section in front of your properties (think GNU General Public License).
The only theoretical objection to roads is that they might not ever be able to be built. If I buy a one inch strip of land going from border to border, no road (or even person) can cross that without my permission. Rights would create an impenetratable virtual wall. In order to build a road from A to B (or an electric line, pipeline, etc.) every landowner would have a heckler's veto over the entire project. Emminent domain to create commons? Maybe that would be necessary.
DeToqueville noted the large number of volunteer organizations at the time (the objection then was how do you fund the arts without aristocratic patorns - at least before the Carnegies and the Vanderbilts - but the volunteers managed to do everything needed).
Published: March 25, 2004 1:44 PM
The heckler's veto argument is fatally flawed. With all land privately owned, the heckler would be surrounded by other landowners who may well want to be able to travel on roads. Those other landowners could easily blockade the heckler; nothing goes onto his property, and nothing comes out. Unless he wants to be a hermit, he'll quickly learn to cooperate with others.
Eminent domain is perhaps the worst aspect of state owned roads. There, the state arbitrarily takes the property of others. The property owners have no right to refuse, even if they are perfectly happy living as hermits. Eminent domain is the tool of tyrants.
Published: March 25, 2004 2:05 PM
The veto argument has other problems, as well. For starters, this is an extremely unrealistic example. Land is not available for sale in units of a "one inch strip" accross a continent. Isn't, never will be. Firstly, it is impossible to homestead (thus, impossible to own) land in such a fashion. How could I possibly do it? My feet are wider the one inch. I'd never be able to be solely on my own property without tresspassing.
Furthermore, there is a reason why almost all plots of property are on the squarish side of rectangular. It's because this is the most convenient way to own any given area of land. Let's say that I own 100 square feet of land. I could have it owned as a 10ft x 10ft square. For the vast majority of purposes, something similar to this is the most efficient way to own land. At the very most, to get from one corner of my property to another, I have to walk 14ft. Furthermore, this arrangement produces the smallest perimeter of my land (40ft). I only have 40 ft of perimeter to defend. The only more optimal plot of land would be a circle (which, at 100 square feet, would have an even smaller perimeter...for any given area, a circle has the smallest perimeter, and thus makes the "ideal" plot of land from that perspective, though there are market forces working to "square off" land).
Now, let's consider if I still own 100 square feet of land. However, I own it in an extremely thin strip, of say a strip of land 1000ft by 0.1ft. Now, I have to walk 1000.000005 feet to get from one corner of my property to another. Instead of only having to defend 40ft of perimeter from invaders, I now have to defend 2000.2 feet of perimeter from invaders. The land has little value to me -- there is little that can be done with a 0.1ft strip of land. The cost of defending my land will have skyrocketted. Quite frankly, I won't be able to justify defending it from aggressors, given its extreme uselessness to me. Nor is it even clear that courts would defend it against such.
These kinds of silly objections can be avoided if people would think about what they're saying, rather than trying to come up with *any* objection. It is not conceivable that anyone could acquire land in a thread-like configuration, nor is it conceivable that they could then in reality use that to prevent anyone from crossing, nor is it conceivable that (even if they had the resources) courts would agree that they had the right to block anyone from passing.
Published: March 25, 2004 2:55 PM
PS, although I do not see circles as being a possible dominant land-configuration in a mature free market, I do see the possibility that hexagonal configuration may emerge.
Published: March 25, 2004 2:59 PM
There is, I think, another key point to the discussion -- everyone has been speaking as if we were to (have to or be able to) transition from today's world of automobiles, urban sprawl, etc., to one of private ownership of roads. Many of the objections raised only make sense under this scenario, which hardly counts as a principled objection to private ownership of roads.
The other aspect which simply must be noted is that, in general, roads are simply not created by government -- consider history and archaeology. Roads of some form predate states in any meaningful sense of the term 'state'. We managed to solve all these problems without governments help; roads were either commons or were privately owned. [side note -- has anyone else ever visited IronBridge Gorge in Britain? There's an ever so interesting point made about the explicit refusal of the Quaker owner of the bridge to grant exceptions to the toll, or reduced prices on the toll, for use of the bridge to any government agent or activity. There is, however, an explicit discount for displaced ferry-boat owners/operators.]
The problem does not exist in a vaccuum, nor are we bereft of a historical and archaeological cases of roads in the absence of the government.
Gee, Shirley, you mean road building no more began with the Roman Empire than marriage with the dictates of the Judeo-Christian religion?
Shirley Knott
Published: March 25, 2004 3:43 PM
A last comment on roads;
Why not dig under a plot of land to get to the other side? You're only violating someone else's property rights if you directly interfere with his property; say digging so close underneath his house that it weakens it's foundation.
But digging underneath a road is a perfectly viable solution to some of the more ridiculous comments posted by some of the posters here. Again, I get the feeling that few people have even bothered to read Block's road privatization articles.
On rights and property; a right is a moral claim. I do believe, quite rightly so, that if I cannot rob from anyone or tell anyone how to use their land, or tresspass, then no one should. I do not think anyone is fundamentally different from me, and if they are, I do not believe that they will be so different that universal laws of morality do not apply to them.
If I'm sitting on my piece of property, it is mine, unless, by some arbitrary value you would absrcibe on me, I should pay taxes for merely existing on a piece of land. It is self defeating to say that I cannot own my land and prevent someone else using it through force, yet someone (nay, the State) can decide what to tax from me simply because my property is 'unearned income.'
Basically the State owns the land that I sit on, because it is 'unearned'. How, and why? Why does some figment of imagination - the State, which changes political members constantly and has no contractual system to develop legitimacy - own the land or a part of the land that I sit on? Why not another State? Better yet, why not me? If the State has the right to tax my 'unearned' income, through the threat of physical violence, why don't I have the right to 'tax' (rob) my fellow citizen's property value? And what system of robbery is 'just'?
It should be rather obvious, if one isn't going into denial, that this position is extremely absurd.
Published: March 25, 2004 10:08 PM
The loan-fortress already exists. Ask anyone facing massive debts to the IRS. It's called New Zealand, and its a non-extradition country. They cannot legally send you back if you get to their shores.
Say hello to Frodo for me...
Published: March 26, 2004 3:46 AM
Speaking of roads, I heard an interesting story from a speaker who did a lot of business in China.
He mentioned visiting a factory and seeing a large highway near by. He commented on the lack of traffic. It was explained to him that the road went from the city to the district headquarters so that the district commissioner could drive on nice roads for his infrequent visits to the city at the edge of his distict. An american example would be if there was a great road from Detroit to Lansing, and one from Columbus to Toledo OH, but no one was very worried about connecting Toledo and Detroit!
My friend said he thought building a highway just for that was a waste. The owner of the factory said that no, it wasn't all a waste. During the rice harvest one lane is used by the village to dry out the rice.
Published: March 26, 2004 10:19 AM
What if, what if...
This is such a typical strategy of the left. Just because one can concoct an impossible scenario where an idea doesn't seem to work, doesn't mean one has disproven an idea. This may have worked when you were arguing when you were five years old; now it just makes you look stupid.
What if someone owned every road in the country? What if a company owned all the food in the world.
Restriction of certain crops has been tried and it failed. Marijuanna, which is in no way necessary for sustenance but is merely recreational(in this case) was still grown and smuggled in.
A note about real estate:
Ideally property is definied in the shape of a funnel extending downward from the surface to the core of the earth. An anarchist society would probably be arranged in this manner. Until recently with imminent domain, all manner of strange laws stripping away mineral rights, real estate was more like this.
I think one solution is for us to publish some studies of historical and current examples of private systems. Most rurual areas have dealt with these problems. Somehow they still have water, phones, internet, electricity, tv, fire protection, security, and roads even though there are supposedly not enough people to make it efficient and they still have better services.
Another solution is to start making these ideas a reality. Make a toll road! I hope we will see this happen in the Free State of New Hampshire some day!
It's encouraging to me that these are the best arguments that academia can come up with justifying the existence of government.
With such healthy imaginations why can't people imagine common trails or toll roads that have actually existed for thousands of years?
Published: March 27, 2004 1:21 PM
On roads. There seems to be a misunderstanding here regarding the nature of so-called government control over roads. Don't worry, you're all very smart; right of way law is just one of the more archaic aspects of the common law. Basically, there is no problem with private ownership of roads--they are privately owned already.
With the exception of elevated interstate highways, there are virtually no roads at all in any common law country that are publicly owned. That is, roads are, in all respects, private property already. It is the use of the road that is public, but that is itself a property right that the public has gained by use. The state merely enforces this common law property right of the user by recognizing the public easement. This is not coercion at all, but is the epitome of private property rights being enforced legitimately. Private property owners, as a matter of law in every state I know of, own the fee (i.e., they own the land itself) to the center of the road, according to the width of their property fronting the road. In fact, if a city or state vacates (abolishes) a road, this itself is a condemnation of a property right (the easement) and property owners who lose access to and from their property must be compensated for it.
Consider a typical private development: a developer subdivides a property into several lots. If the original plan shows alleys and roads between the properties and eventually tying into other, already publicly accessed roads, this is a grant to the purchasers of such roads and that they be used in common by the purchasers (who can ultimately be anyone) forever, hence the general public. The roads themselves, however, are single lines with no actual width for purposes of property because it is presumed that a purchaser with knowledge of the existence of such roads paid for the value inherent in the use of those roads. If there are no roads on the plan, but the purchaser eventually create their own paths, these too are easements, but not to the general public; they are private roads owned in common by those property owners and there are thousands upon thousands of these in the US. If those private property owners eventually let the general public use those roads adversely, but without objection from the property owners, a public easement may be proclaimed as a matter of law (prescriptive easement), because the public has property rights too.
This is the standard common law and I an unaware of any statutes that have given ownership of a road to a government entity, with the exception of elevated highways--but these are structures wholly separated from the underlying property. In the case of an elevated highway, the state condemns the air-rights, not even the surface rights, except for the purpose of erecting supports.
The road structure of an elevated highway (i.e., the supports, columns, and road surface) is usually, but not always, owned in tota by the state (which is a reason why many are elevated, thus preserving the private ownership underlying fees). Now in fact, there were quite a number of private roads used by the public for decades and it was quite typical for owners along the way to charge a fee--these were called turnpikes and there were quite a lot in the eastern US. The states took these over and, in most cases, just kept charging the prices that were already being charged (i.e., the toll was not an invention of the state).
So what does the government actually do with roads? Remember that under the old common law, all land was owned by the King, and one could obtain only a title to land (i.e., a feudal patent to use the land). For all intents and purposes, allodial land, as it was known, was abolished by the Revolution. People completely forget about the effect the Revolution had on property that was not, prior to 1776, owned by the proprietors or the king. What happened was that private property was expanded (indeed, that was the most important point of the whole enterprise; ask me about quitrents someday).
All existing publicly used roads were eventually held to be owned in fee by the abutting property owners, but the public easements were preserved. Remember that a road is just a path; what the state and local governments eventually did was not "buy" or condemn the fees underlying the roads, they simply paved ones already existing.
For new roads, the state condemns an easement for a public right of way, but the vast majority of public rights of way were already created by private property owners. The "public" nature of the road was merely a legal recognition of the private property rights of all those who were already using it, and it prevented an individual property owner from limiting the property rights (i.e., the easement) that others had, sometimes for generations.
So, in fact, road law is a perfect example of the common law (i.e., customary law) protecting property rights. Incidentally, I don't know what people mean here by "private law"--all law that is not penal in nature is civil law by definition, and the vast majority of it involves private rights and disputes. At the common law, "private law" merely means any legal matters not of a wholly public nature (such as crimes).
As to new road construction...even today, states only condemn the easement, not the fee. The cost of paving is indeed borne by the taxpayers, but I doubt that there is a significant difference in the eventual price simply because cities rarely build their own roads anyway--the jobs are bid out to private contractors and there are precious few who have the workforce and equipment to do the type of roadwork required to support the multi-tonned vehicles of today.
That being said, I otherwise tend to agree with most of what I see here at Mises.org.
Incidentally, in the wake of the Revolution, all existing proprietary charters, and all city charters were null and void. In every city, such as Philadelphia, local governmental bodies made up of citizens filled the void almost immediately and it was decided in the Constitution that the common law of England would continue, except where otherwise supplanted by new court decisions or public action through legislation.
Keep up the good work.
Published: March 29, 2004 1:32 AM
On roads. There seems to be a misunderstanding here regarding the nature of so-called government control over roads. Don't worry, you're all very smart; right of way law is just one of the more archaic aspects of the common law. Basically, there is no problem with private ownership of roads--they are privately owned already.
With the exception of elevated interstate highways, there are virtually no roads at all in any common law country that are publicly owned. That is, roads are, in all respects, private property already. It is the use of the road that is public, but that is itself a property right that the public has gained by use. The state merely enforces this common law property right of the user by recognizing the public easement. This is not coercion at all, but is the epitome of private property rights being enforced legitimately. Private property owners, as a matter of law in every state I know of, own the fee (i.e., they own the land itself) to the center of the road, according to the width of their property fronting the road. In fact, if a city or state vacates (abolishes) a road, this itself is a condemnation of a property right (the easement) and property owners who lose access to and from their property must be compensated for it.
Consider a typical private development: a developer subdivides a property into several lots. If the original plan shows alleys and roads between the properties and eventually tying into other, already publicly accessed roads, this is a grant to the purchasers of such roads and that they be used in common by the purchasers (who can ultimately be anyone) forever, hence the general public. The roads themselves, however, are single lines with no actual width for purposes of property because it is presumed that a purchaser with knowledge of the existence of such roads paid for the value inherent in the use of those roads. If there are no roads on the plan, but the purchaser eventually create their own paths, these too are easements, but not to the general public; they are private roads owned in common by those property owners and there are thousands upon thousands of these in the US. If those private property owners eventually let the general public use those roads adversely, but without objection from the property owners, a public easement may be proclaimed as a matter of law (prescriptive easement), because the public has property rights too.
This is the standard common law and I an unaware of any statutes that have given ownership of a road to a government entity, with the exception of elevated highways--but these are structures wholly separated from the underlying property. In the case of an elevated highway, the state condemns the air-rights, not even the surface rights, except for the purpose of erecting supports.
The road structure of an elevated highway (i.e., the supports, columns, and road surface) is usually, but not always, owned in tota by the state (which is a reason why many are elevated, thus preserving the private ownership underlying fees). Now in fact, there were quite a number of private roads used by the public for decades and it was quite typical for owners along the way to charge a fee--these were called turnpikes and there were quite a lot in the eastern US. The states took these over and, in most cases, just kept charging the prices that were already being charged (i.e., the toll was not an invention of the state).
So what does the government actually do with roads? Remember that under the old common law, all land was owned by the King, and one could obtain only a title to land (i.e., a feudal patent to use the land). For all intents and purposes, allodial land, as it was known, was abolished by the Revolution. People completely forget about the effect the Revolution had on property that was not, prior to 1776, owned by the proprietors or the king. What happened was that private property was expanded (indeed, that was the most important point of the whole enterprise; ask me about quitrents someday).
All existing publicly used roads were eventually held to be owned in fee by the abutting property owners, but the public easements were preserved. Remember that a road is just a path; what the state and local governments eventually did was not "buy" or condemn the fees underlying the roads, they simply paved ones already existing.
For new roads, the state condemns an easement for a public right of way, but the vast majority of public rights of way were already created by private property owners. The "public" nature of the road was merely a legal recognition of the private property rights of all those who were already using it, and it prevented an individual property owner from limiting the property rights (i.e., the easement) that others had, sometimes for generations.
So, in fact, road law is a perfect example of the common law (i.e., customary law) protecting property rights. Incidentally, I don't know what people mean here by "private law"--all law that is not penal in nature is civil law by definition, and the vast majority of it involves private rights and disputes. At the common law, "private law" merely means any legal matters not of a wholly public nature (such as crimes).
As to new road construction...even today, states only condemn the easement, not the fee. The cost of paving is indeed borne by the taxpayers, but I doubt that there is a significant difference in the eventual price simply because cities rarely build their own roads anyway--the jobs are bid out to private contractors and there are precious few who have the workforce and equipment to do the type of roadwork required to support the multi-tonned vehicles of today.
That being said, I otherwise tend to agree with most of what I see here at Mises.org.
Incidentally, in the wake of the Revolution, all existing proprietary charters, and all city charters were null and void. In every city, such as Philadelphia, local governmental bodies made up of citizens filled the void almost immediately and it was decided in the Constitution that the common law of England would continue, except where otherwise supplanted by new court decisions or public action through legislation.
Keep up the good work.
Published: March 29, 2004 1:34 AM
I'm not sure that this is wholly accurate. The laws regarding roads vary from state to state as their legal systems were inherited from Countries with very different legal systems. This is especially notable in New Mexico (Spain) and Louisiana (France).
Also, back when I was doing real estate work I heard that in some places developers must donate the roads to the county.
Published: March 29, 2004 6:58 PM