Britney, The Paparazzi And Land Socialism
The city of Los Angeles is considering an ordinance that would create a paparazzi-free bubble of safety around celebrities whereby the proceeds of the sale of photographs taken within the bubble would be confiscated.
Situations such as this one exist due to a lack of property rights. Roads, parks and other areas are made available to everyone by the state, and in so doing, it has to try to accommodate as many groups as possible, even when each group wishes that the other would disappear. One group will cry out for protection against the swarm of lenses while the other will claim that they have freedom of movement and the right to photograph everyone on public property.
One must ask how come there are no paparazzi in people's homes? Because they have not been invited. Wherever there is private property, there is order as determined by the owner.
When land and other spaces are socialized such that everyone has generally unlimited access to it at no cost (or very little cost), then we can expect chaos --people will want to have as much use as possible and conflicts over usage rules are almost always inevitable.
The state cannot legitimately owner property and thus should not be managing it (or be creating bubbles of safety). The best solution to this government-created moral hazard is to desocialize land as much as possible. It is not inconceivable to think that unlike the city government, road owners, neighborhoods and developers would establish rules. They might then legitimately prohibit certain behaviors and treat intruders as trespassers. Some might ban photographers while some might even ban celebrities!
Comments (26)
Free Market Phooey
OK. So anything problematic about public property might be solved by not having any public property at all. Might work.
Hopefully the removal of all public property would also come with a scheme that grants every human sufficient private property to enable a decent life. eg. If we can no longer walk on a public road to a public river to get a drink, perhaps we need to be given private pumps and private pipes to provide us with water to our private land (all granted upon birth). Otherwise I think there might be a thirst problem for those humans born without property.
Published: February 10, 2008 5:54 PM
Brent
Phooey is what I have to say to "Phooey".
So let me ask, do private grocery stores prevent you from entering and choosing from thousands of foodstuffs?? Of course, they do!
And let me ask, do government parks let you enter and take stuff from the trees and plants?? Of course, they do not!
Now you have to figure out why -- read and think some more before posting phooey.
Published: February 10, 2008 7:18 PM
Brent
*Of course, private grocery stores do NOT prevent you from entering and buying foodstuffs. In fact, they actively encourage it!*
Published: February 10, 2008 7:23 PM
TLWP Sam
If private road owners charged their customers via some sort of electronic toll booths then they'd probably welcome the extra traffic caused by celebrities and the paparazzi!
Published: February 10, 2008 8:52 PM
Free Market Phooey
Brent. If you believe in have no public roads, then you should play the old board game MONOPOLY. It starts off with public roads and ends-up with private roads, where you must pay whenever you land on private property. The game ends with one winner and everyone else loses. Sound familiar?
At least when there is some public property even the poorest people have some degree of access to some natural resources. Instead of scoffing and accusing me of not being widely read and well-thought, why don't you respond to my posts in a friendly fashion? I feel like I have offended a religious zealot.
Published: February 10, 2008 10:32 PM
Jim O'Connor
So, a board game is now a model for real life?
I guess so, because the board game has price controls, just as public property does (free is as much a price control as any other dollar value).
Published: February 10, 2008 10:56 PM
Inquisitor
Statists often have to refer to board games and other such silly examples to get their point across (most professional economists are scarcely better.) Nothing new there.
Published: February 11, 2008 4:12 AM
Person
Manuel_Lora: even with private property in the roads, the paparazzi could still take their photos, they would just have to pay a small trespassing fee. Remember, according to your buddy, Stephan_Kinsella, the fact that they trespassed does not limit their right to display the pictures.
Wanna rethink this one?
Free_Market_Phooey: Don't confuse "private road" with "toll road". Lots of state-owned roads are toll, and lots of private roads have unrestricted access, such as those built and maintained by HOAs.
Published: February 11, 2008 8:15 AM
Jonas
I've been thinking about something along these lines for a while, and I have a thought that some of you might want to comment on.
If property laws state that you own your own self, is it okay for people to profit off of you?
I remember a few years back a guy was trying to sue a mass-market firm that was selling his personal information...phone number, address, etc. He was sick and tired of getting tons of junk mail, and his case was that his personal information is his property, and it was illegal for someone (the mass-market firm) to profit without compensating him in some way.
Now I know that most true libertarians, those who hold that copyright and patent laws are wrong, would say that there is no violation of property rights because there is no trespass here and no dilution of scare resources.
But where to privacy laws fit in here? Shouldn't someone need to ask my permission before they profit off of my image? Anyone have any thoughts?
Published: February 11, 2008 9:10 AM
Jay D
Can I please have a celebrity-free bubble of safety around me? Thanks.
Published: February 11, 2008 9:27 AM
Brent
"Brent. If you believe in have no public roads, then you should play the old board game MONOPOLY."
I'm done talking to you, Phooey. I asked you to read and become intelligent before posting and you completely failed.
http://mises.org/daily/1451
Published: February 11, 2008 12:58 PM
David Spellman
Free_Market_Phooey,
It is interesting that you appealed to Monopoly as a model of economics. The problem with Monopoly is that prices are fixed and choices are prohibited. There is no upkeep costs, so unowned property does appear free--which is not reality in the slightest degree.
What would happen if you could charge anything you wanted for landing on your square and other players could choose which square they landed on? And suppose there were real upkeep costs for owning a property and allowing a player to land there?
Then you would have a market calculation problem and a cost/benefit equation. Would you demand high payments? I would charge lower rents to attract business. In a game of Monopoly with variable choices and costs, free market economics would change the dynamics of the game.
Your Monopoly example only has appeal insofar as the game is based upon a simplistic rigid Statist socialism. The real world is not Monopoly.
Published: February 11, 2008 12:59 PM
Free Market Phooey
David Spellman, I only used the game MONOPOLY to show the problem in having no public roads. In my opinion roads should be mostly public because it is too hard to establish competition in roads. This is because a road is so big and only one or two can go past each house. Of course MONOPOLY is not my model of economics.
At least when there is some public property even the poorest people have some degree of access to some natural resources. For this reason, and the difficulty of establishing competition, I believe that roads should be public and government controlled.
Published: February 11, 2008 4:26 PM
Olev
I believe that since for most of history public roads have been all there is. Because of this, we cannot easily imagine what the world would be like with private roads. Let's, however, look at gated communities. Are not the roads owned by the community members? That would be considered private ownership. Each member of the community has a share in the road and managers they appoint ensure that the roads are in good repair and they control who gets to use it and who doesn't. Guests into the community have to sign in and sometimes pay for parking (or some other fee). The system works well.
With regards to Monopoly®, when you land on a property you are forced to pay. In real life you don't have to stay the night at a Park Place hotel. You can elect to go to Baltic Ave. So Monopoly® is more state coercion than free market. The rules are made by the manufacturer rather than the players. The only place you don't have to pay anything is visiting the state prison. Funny how, when you're losing, you look forward to spending the game in prison. Is that real life or what!
Published: February 11, 2008 5:36 PM
Free Market Phooey
Olev, Your comments are appreciated. Indeed the way to test the concept of private roads is on a small scale such as the gated community. Sadly gated communities, retirement villages and body corporates of apartment blocks often turn out to be even more abusive than government when the wrong type of person eventually gains control. It is true that a citizen can always escape the abuse, but often at a massive financial cost.
Still I don't write-off the idea of private roads just because of a few failures. To convince me and the general public you will need to show repeated successes and enlarge the private areas until they reach the size of a town, then a city, then an entire state.
Published: February 11, 2008 5:49 PM
Inquisitor
But then, the books Privatopia and The Voluntary City are concerned with just that - examples of public goods being privately funded.
Published: February 11, 2008 5:55 PM
George Gaskell
I only used the game MONOPOLY to show the problem in having no public roads.
I once had a socialist quote the rhyme of Baa Baa Blacksheep to me to prove his point about the capitalist exploitation of the working man, or something.
No, really.
Published: February 11, 2008 6:57 PM
Free Market Phooey
George Gaskell, you call that fellow a socialist, so I assume you are not one. What label would you like him (or me) to refer to you as?
Published: February 11, 2008 7:55 PM
David
Free Market Phooey refers to Monopoly and seems to equate the game with the Free Market.
Monopoly has NOTHING to do with free markets. Neither as allegory, nor example, nor ethos.
Monopoly is predicated on a zero-sum game in which there is a fixed amount of property available and it may not be used for any purpose other than rent-gathering ( a telling slip - O the irony). in terms of the rules. one mans benefit is another's loss, and such trading as is allowed by the rules does not generate any new wealth. SO the game of monopoly has as much in common with the free market as a luddite has with a technogeek.
The freemarket generates wealth where none existed before , and is characterised by the fact that parties to any trade do so willingly , simply because because both gain from the transaction in terms of what EACH wants more strongly. If either didn't, he wouldn't choose to do it would he?
So after every trade ( the millions and millions of trades every day), most participants ( other than those who change their minds after the transaction and regret having done it) end up better off than they were before. And all thatr extra welfare ( or wealth , crudely, if you are prepared to ignore the imporftant distinction betweern consumption and saving) ) didn't exist at all before those trades were made. And we havent even begun to account for the effect of innovation, which permits getting even more usefulness from the same stuff, which makes the same stuff more valuable than it was before, in the eyes of th euser. .
Most of the wealth that surrounds us today was created like this, and largely in spite of the efforts of governments to hobble or curtail them. Its all down to people inventing and and trading among themselves to mutual benefit. As wealth, It didn't exist AT ALL 100 years ago. Sure, its component parts did exist, in the form of rocks and minerals and atmospheric carbon thatr since found its way into that exauisitely-crafted piece of oak furniture, but it was not wealth then, as nobody had nearly as much use for it in their native forms. INdeed, a significant part of the modern world's accumulated wealth, in the form of silicon chips, was almost worthless sand as recently as 30 years ago.
try reflecting that dynamic process on a monopoly board!
Published: February 12, 2008 8:24 AM
ngo
In a free market society, I would imagine the following scenario would evolve for roads:
House-owners would create a joint ownership of a certain amount of small streets around a given area, enough to be able to access multiple competing larger roads.
House-owners near the edge of such a group of streets might own part of the next group also.
A-third party company could purchase the right to manage the group of streets, earning money from a given amount of extra traffic being able to use the streets, decided by the owner.
Neighboring street groups might have sharing agreements, allowing more choice of free routes to larger roads.
Very poor areas could allow a LOT of traffic through their areas to make more money, very affluent areas probably wouldn't bother.
This group road ownership would not have to be part of a more strict gated community that can often be too socialist-like.
Published: February 12, 2008 9:57 AM
George Gaskell
George Gaskell, you call that fellow a socialist, so I assume you are not one. What label would you like him (or me) to refer to you as?
Market anarchist. Anarcho-capitalist. Free-market capitalist. Voluntaryist.
Since we're talking labels, what is yours?
Published: February 12, 2008 10:43 AM
Free Market Phooey
George, since I believe in a small govt and high degree of individual control, I call myself a libertarian - and a free market skeptic
Published: February 13, 2008 1:59 AM
Free Market Phooey
NGO, your idea for ownership of roads has a lot of merit in my opinion. It might work well. However I wonder why you call it "free market". It is just your idea, perhaps a brilliant one, but how does it earn the label "free market"?
Another question: How does it solve the paparazzi "problem" that this thread is all about?
Published: February 13, 2008 2:03 AM
George Gaskell
since I believe in a small govt and high degree of individual control, I call myself a libertarian - and a free market skeptic
Free markets are liberty in action.
They are the natural result of being free in the economic aspects of our lives.
"Market" is just a shorthand term for the economic interaction of free people, voluntarily exchanging goods and services. This behavior increases wealth for everyone. Free trade is peaceful cooperation, on a massive scale.
How can you believe in liberty, but not in economic liberty? What is it about free markets that causes you to be so "skeptical"?
Published: February 13, 2008 8:37 AM
Free Market Phooey
A market is a form of government regulation. When the most powerful gang defines and enforces legal property, then less powerful citizens may trade this property in a market with the backing of government force. I can imagine a large meddlesome government that defines and enforces a complex property rights system. I can imagine a small government that defines and enforces a simple property rights system. But I can not imagine a property rights system that would exist in the absence of government.
My concern with the "free market" is that it appears more as a religion than as a sensible discussion over the best size of government - the wisest split between individual control and collective control - the most sensible property rights - the best market regime possible to construct.
I will be offline for a few weeks and unable to respond, but will return.
Published: February 13, 2008 5:00 PM
alex
A solution to the papparazzi problem:
The basis for the papparazzi problem is money
and therefore the solution to the problem lies in money as well.
Currently the media pay lots of $$ for papparazzi shots of celebrities
and so photographers go to whatever lengths necessary to get "money"shots.
The way to stop the papparazzi is to make the process financially unrewarding
for them - they won't chase celebrities if they aren't going to be paid for it.
So how would this work.
1. The solution would be for the celebrities and stars to have their friend, minders
and/or members of their entourage take papparazzi style photos of them. Seeing as
how their friends and minders are always closest to them they would get the better shots
- at any time!!
2. These photos could then be offered to the various media outlets at a fraction of the cost
that normal papparazzi agencies charge - hence the magazines would get the photos of the stars
at a greatly reduced cost - the paps could not compete with that and would be forced out of business!!
Published: September 22, 2009 10:05 PM