07
Jul
2017
The Private Production of Roads
My topic at EconLib. My favorite part:
It is true that roads form part of a network and that it would be confusing and dangerous if the different owners had different rules, such as a green light sometimes meaning “go” on one road and “stop” on another.
Yet in the private sector, all sorts of standards arise spontaneously and foster coordination, even without a powerful third party enforcing compliance. Screwdrivers and screws fit together; printer paper fits into printers; and software companies develop programs that work on computers that they didn’t build.
That’s all just so silly. Everyone knows that private roads, along with private sidewalks and schools which could completely ban trespass by “Immigrants” would nevertheless be flooded with unsavory scary immigrants who would steal our jobs and turn those restrictive private roads and neighborhoods into Brazil! The very banning of these people and the establishment of strict private property enforcement will CAUSE them to flood into the areas where they are banned. That’s just logical, right?
As centralised government border control was abolished, and decisions on immigration flows were TOTALLY PRIVATISED AND DECENTRALISED, there would be a tidal wave of mass immigration from the Third World, which would destroy the demographic and cultural cohesion of America.
The owners of any big business and industry left would also happily bring in millions of cheap, foreign and easily exploitable labour from the Third World to smash wages and labour rights and make themselves internationally competitive.
Given the fact that there would be no US national government concerned with national security, hostile foreign governments like China or the Arab Gulf States would be able to buy up vast real estate, property and national assets, and then import millions of their own people, which would reduce vast areas of America to colonies of China or Saudi Arabia. As in Europe, whole areas would be gradually lost to segregated and fundamentalist Islamic communities, deeply hostile to the culture around them.
The result would be increasingly isolated, militarised gated communities of wealthy Americans, surrounded by a sea of Third World poverty, economic collapse, crime, drug cartels, violence, social collapse, intercommunal violence, and then civil war.
In short, America would turn into Brazil.
Some libertarians have realised this. Others remain mired in their utopian cult, as cult-like in its own way as dogmatic Marxism/Communism.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2017/07/why-did-us-libertarians-become.html
You nowhere disproved anything I said. Anarcho-capitalism would abolish government and, with it, the centralised government monopoly on immigration and border control.
In Anarcho-capitalism, suddenly a totally privatised and decentralised immigration system would arise, where in theory millions of people or private institutions (especially corporations) could invite in a tidal wave of mass immigration from the Third world onto their properties, causing social fragmentation and collapse.
Given how many ethnic minorities already exist in the US already, a privatised and decentralised immigration system would allow these immigrants to invite in millions more of their people onto their own private properties.
Lots of other people would be happy to admit more migrants too:
(1) corporations for cheap labour and to reduce costs
(2) multiculturalists and Cultural leftists
(3) Christian pro-refugee movements
(4) hostile, wealthy foreigners or foreign governments who could easily buy up vast tracts of land or property in Germany and import millions of their own people.
In short, you have no answers to any of this because your ideology is bankrupt, and that is why libertarianism is collapsing and your people deserting in droves to the Alt Right.
“the centralised government monopoly on immigration and border control.”
LK you make the same mistake that Bastiat warned against.
Just because someone objects to governments making a mess of territorial border control, it doesn’t mean they object to all border control whatever, nor does it mean there would not be border control.
States actually do not control borders well from an anarchy-capitalist standpoint.
Your continual repeating claim that within it states there would be no border control, only shows you don’t understand what is legal in an anarchist-capitalist ethic, and what the incentives are.
I repeat: decentralised and privatised immigration policy would allow millions of private sector agents to bring in as many people as they liked onto their private property. Anybody who can set up an airport could bring in anyone they want. China could easily buys up vast tracts of land and turn much of America into a Chinese colony.
You have no answer to this, because your ideology is bankrupt, failed and imploding. Many of your former fellow libertarians are now Alt Rightists, and no doubt that makes you enraged to know how badly your libertarian ideology failed,
That’s already happening in Sydney, and even though there are rules against foreign ownership (we have books of rules up the whazoo) those rules are easily bypassed by setting up shell companies or by funneling the money via some local trusted family member.
The Australian universities have been given the special privilege of being about to sell a permanent residency visa as a profit making enterprise (they pretend to sell education). Foreign families with the money to pay full university fees can purchase entry for their kids and eventual citizenship.
There are some advantages to the system: the Chinese tend to work hard and they start businesses; you do have to at least prove you can pass a university degree (not a high bar, but better than no standards); and it gives preference to people who have money so they don’t drain the taxpayers. Also, in the meantime all those lovely fees are being collected, and it’s a boon for the real estate industry because it maintains high demand.
In terms of population, Sydney is growing at about 3% and that’s been sustained despite poor economic circumstance. In the long run I expect we will be adopting a lot more Asian culture in this city… hopefully there’s some eclecticism involved where we keep the best aspects. I should also point out that the cultural wash goes both ways… a lot of Asians seem to be adopting Christianity.
That you actually think your own people’s dispossession and reduction to a minority is good proves how deranged libertarianism is. You may as well be a Cultural Marxist.
Who are “my own people” and why?
Do you get to decide that, or should I make that decision?
I should point out that my government never bothered to ask me my opinion on the matter… but I suspect that in LK-land I would be treated pretty much just the same so I don’t see a whole lot of advantage either way.
Hey, if you have signed on with the Alt-Right, does that mean you admit that all your years of Keynesian tomfoolery were wasted? Or are you the only Keynesian Alt-Righter out there? Also, probably you should learn what a Cultural Marxist is, but I guess that’s entirely up to you.
What do you think about Venezuela? Too much government, or too many immigrants?
Funny, Tel, your own libertarianism leads straight to the Alt Right, and already is half way there:
“Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They—the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism—will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.” (Hoppe 2007: 218).
“In distinct contrast, a society in which the right to exclusion is fully restored to owners of private property would be profoundly unegalitarian, intolerant, and discriminatory. … There would be signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and, once in town, requirements for entering specific pieces of property (for example, no beggars, bums, or homeless, but also no homosexuals, drug users, Jews, Moslems, Germans, or Zulus), and those who did not meet these entrance requirements would be kicked out as trespassers.” (Hoppe 2007: 211).
You completely ignored all of my comment, and didn’t answer even one question.
I repeat:
LK you make the same mistake that Bastiat warned against.
Just because someone objects to governments making a mess of territorial border control, it doesn’t mean they object to all border control whatever, nor does it mean there would not be border control.
States actually do not control borders well from an anarcho-capitalist standpoint.
Your continual repeating claim that within it states there would be no border control, only shows you don’t understand what is legal in an anarchist-capitalist ethic, and what the incentives are.
LK:
“Many of your former fellow libertarians are now Alt Rightists, and no doubt that makes you enraged to know how badly your libertarian ideology failed,”
It has not been tried, it cannot have failed.
Your statist ideology was tried, and it was states who controlled the immigration you now complain about.
Sates failed, and yet you blame absence of states for the problem.
I have yet to discover an authentic Hoppe-esque/prices-as-information/economic calculation libertarian who has gone “alt-right”. I’ve been reading “Vox Day” for over a year. I’ve never seen him make a reference to the fact that there is no “free immigration” onto the private property, roads, neighborhoods and schools of a PPS much less how such a regime would fail to keep out unwanted trespassers.
It doesn’t matter if there is no free immigration onto your personal property if, e.g., China buys up properties and floods it with its own people and then moves to buy, bribe, conquer or launch embargoes against communities it doesn’t like. America would became a colony of China.
Alt-right is just the name communists on the alt-left give to anyone who is not on the left.
And so the consequences would also fall on the same corporation, and it would all happen right there on their own property. This means the incentive is to be selective and only invite individuals who provide more value than they cost.
False. Such people would also displace native workers, reduce wages and shatter the social cohesion of your community.
No they would not because it would be the owners of the property on an individual level who would determine who to sell to and who to rent to, and who to allow on their land.
There would not be only “displacement”. There would be both local and foreign born individuals competing to buy/rent land. And, because the method by which the land is bought and sold follows individual property rights, the people would already tend to believe in traditional western values of individual liberty.
Contrast that with millions of people getting shipped around the world on taxpayer financed, state driven programs, and the result is people who do not believe in western values displacing those who do. Markets can’t function when states use guns to overrule.
You also make the mistake of failing to account for the effects of lower wage rates on prices. Wages are a cost, and with lower costs, unit prices can fall in competition. The fall in prices tends to outstrip the fall in wage rates because of the increase in productivity.
This is of course hampered by government quotas concerning race, gender and other non-meritocracy coercion, but it is foolish to believe that falling wage rates takes pace in a vacuum totally isolated from all other prices.
All that without leaving the original corporate property.
Ummm, how is that going to happen exactly?
Under the current system, things like minimum wage laws and massive labor regulation drives up the cost of hiring a native born worker, thus making it valuable to hire an illegal migrant and pay cash under the table. Since the illegal immigrant isn’t legally allowed to work at all, and cannot easily go to the police, he or she is unlikely to be a danger to the employer in terms of reporting poor labour practice.
I suggest than an An-cap system should avoid most of these perverse incentives. Some native born workers would end up working for lower wages, which in tern means that the corporations wouldn’t bother with large scale immigration programs.
I might also point out that under the current system, employers can offload many social costs. For example, if you have people commuting to the office every day, the corporation doesn’t care at all when crime in nearby residential neighborhoods goes up, because this has no effect on corporate profits. However under an An-cap system there the corporation must vouch for residents and there is no government to deal with the crime, I suggest that such cost shifting would be more difficult. If the corporation is using its own property to house these people, it would also be up for any costs caused by social unrest and would need to deal with that.
But the problem with these guys is they never, ever put their own property at risk. We see the lefty multiculturalists living in well to do gated communities while they tell the little people what’s good for them and dump the third world immigrants into the poorest neighbourhoods, then they divert government (taxpayer) money to pay for their social programs.
Living in an An-cap system would be one heck of a shock to them, when they are forced to use their own lounge room to house the immigrants and cannot conveniently dump the consequences of their actions onto other people. When you look at how leftists spend their OWN MONEY you find they are no charitable in the slightest.
Again, if they are using their own money and their own property I don’t see a problem here. What usually happens with Christian movements is they make contact with Christians in the other countries and use a combination of direct aid to the Christian groups over there (e.g. missions, etc) plus some charity in terms of looking after the refugees themselves. I have a lot more time for this approach than I do for those who would divert tax money.
Well that’s an interesting point. There’s pretty good evidence that the various Middle Eastern states have financed terrorist operations (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, etc) and there were those substantial donations to the Clinton Foundation, and they also put money into schools to teach extremism to kids. Apparently there’s nothing can be done under our current big government system to prevent this… so would an An-cap system be better? Probably not, but probably not much worse either, and at least those type of purchases would be out in the open.
“Apparently there’s nothing can be done under our current big government system to prevent this… so would an An-cap system be better?”
Nothing to be done? Only somebody truly dumb would be capable of saying this. Explain why the East Europeans are banning refugees from their countries. Explain why Japan or China doesn’t take huge numbers of immigrants. Explain Trump’s travel ban.
By “our” system I meant Western democracies.
We could change our system and perhaps that’s going to happen (unlikely to swing towards An-cap).
But right now as it stands that Middle Eastern oil money runs very deep into those Western countries. I wouldn’t be surprised if it runs further than any of us realize.
America, with its travel ban and moves towards immigration restriction, is a Western democracy. You seem unusually ignorant, Tel.
You obviously think that “moves towards” implies some sort of achievement.
Is that how you play basketball? I “moved towards” the ball therefore I should get two points… we are playing LK rules here.
America, with its travel ban and moves towards immigration restriction, is a Western democracy. You seem unusually ignorant, Tel.
The “travel ban” can and will be immediately reversed when the majority of the social democrat minorities take over in a few. No one’s person or property are even safe from the ravages of the electoral majority under “social democracy”. Under AnCap, one’s person and property are ALWAYS safe and are not up for a vote.
http://tinyurl.com/zxbtzdz
Typos: The “travel ban” can and will be immediately reversed when the majority of the social democrat minorities take over in a few YEARS. No one’s person or property are EVER safe from the ravages of the electoral majority under “social democracy”. Under AnCap, one’s person and property are ALWAYS safe and are not up for a vote.
False. These minorities tend to have a poor voter turnout.
It’s almost like you need a strong central government to close the borders, and deport illegals!
False, minorities and illegal immigrants tend to vote democrat.
States are the ones allowing people from the world in. They are not strongly defending the borde.r
You mistake the existent of guns with good brains behind them.
It is better to have decentralized power and more brains determining e outcome.
“What usually happens with Christian movements is they make contact with Christians in the other countries and use a combination of direct aid to the Christian groups over there (e.g. missions, etc) plus some charity in terms of looking after the refugees themselves.”
False. The Catholic church and its Pope are calling for Europe to open its borders to millions of Muslims:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/07/28/pope-demands-poland-open-borders/
Egats, LK citing breitbart now. There’s a turn for the books.
I think you need to spend a bit more time chatting to some Catholics about how they work with the Pope (especially this particular Pope). Yes, the Pope is infallible, but maybe not every Catholic will do exactly what the Pope says to do.
Poland, just for an example, is staunchly Catholic.
False. That is an exception to the rule, not a refutation of “what usually happens”.
The Pope — the head of the whole Catholic church — is just an “exception”, according to Major_Crackpot, even though Catholicism is the largest Christian church in the world.
Furthermore, the massive numbers of liberal Christian Protestant churches in favour of massive migration are just an exception too.
Impressive #alternatefacts there, Major_Crackpot.
The current Pope’s beliefs are absolutely an exception. Even for Catholics.
Christianity is not represented by the Pope, which is the context here.
Jut because some crackpot Pope believes X, that doesn’t suddenly make that Pope’s beliefs Christine doctrine.
You’re failing to consider the principles, and playing he said she said instead.
What Tel said USUALLY happens with Christians is true, and referring to what the Pope said as if that has any bearing on it, only shows you have no counterpoint.
On a serious note, regarding roads:
1. It will take such a vast communal consensus to build roads at all that the necessity of the consensus will insure that a vast number of voices will go into the rules of the road and rules of the business and which will reflect the mores and vision of those people.
2. A road business is still going to need both customers and insurance. And the customers will need insurance. Their insurance company might forbid the use of dangerous roads. Dangerous roads will lose customers. Your rental car agreement often forbids taking the car to some states or to other countries. People can and will work out these issues without the need to initiate violence.
3. An AnCap or private property society “PPS” will need to require the use of enforceable easements to avoid encirclement. Existing private property law already incorporates easements.
Privatised roads won’t be worth jack once America becomes Brazil.
Brazil roads are worth jack.
Touche.
Bob,
I am very skeptical of the benefits of road privatization as I don’t see how the market for road building can actually be “free” and allow for the necessary competition to make the concept work. Are we to suspend reality and believe new, alternative, roads could readily be built if the owners of the current road charged too much? At a minimum the owners of a road have a temporary monopoly. In reality they have a near perfect monopoly. For while there are always substitutes for a given route, the owner of the best route would have tremendous pricing power. So do we, in the spirit of anarcho-capitalism, allow the owner of I-95, to charge monopoly like rent on travelers? And under what pretense are those profits used? What is to stop the owner of I-95 to then invest the profits in race horses or Brazilian coffee farms? At least when the government misuses bridge and road tolls there is a means of social accountability.
In simple words, road privatization has a purpose when the use of the roads is mainly private – such as in confined neighborhoods or when there are clear, existing road alternatives. But if you allowed me to buy the Tidings Bridge on I-95 crossing the Susquehanna River what would be the profit maximizing toll and what would prevent me from charging it *currently the toll is $8 and $6 for ez-pass holders)?
“Are we to suspend reality and believe new, alternative, roads could readily be built if the owners of the current road charged too much? At a minimum the owners of a road have a temporary monopoly. In reality they have a near perfect monopoly. For while there are always substitutes for a given route, the owner of the best route would have tremendous pricing power.”
The same thing would happen to the road owner who charged too much as would happen if anyone else charged too much; they’d go out of business. And let’s say that this owner can afford to lose all the road business and simply is a giant prick, well, what’s to stop banks, stores, electricians, plumbers, and on and on, who need access to these roads, from refusing to service the owner anymore. I’m just spit balling here, but it’s crazy to think the market has no means of defense against some charging exorbitant prices.
I would not trust the “market” to wage much of a defense against exorbitant pricing when the alternative is to experience great inconvenience. Sure, Mylan, after public outrage, provided a modest discount to the price of Epi-pen, but they are still charging a huge mark-up on the true cost of the drug.
Markets work when they are transparent, efficient and competitive. Regulation, as we see with the epi-pen, has a way of making markets inefficient and noncompetitive. The result being a product that should cost a modest amount being priced with massive profit margin. And so it would be if roads were privatized. The profits of the road would be privatized and the costs of the road would be carried by the public.
So yeah, if I could be the owner of the road or bridge I would love it. And I would love Libertarians arguing that the “market” would work things out. All the while I would enjoy massive profits while putting minimum maintenance into the road I owned. For where else would drivers go?
If that is how you ran your road I’d let people use my roads at a much cheaper price, and keep mine well maintained. Soon nobody would use your roads and your profits would disappear.
Good luck getting the approvals to build another bridge across the Susquehanna. In the state of Maryland the chances of that happening this century are zero.
So what would be your alternative? Ferry service?
There is in fact an alternative, zero-toll route from Washington DC to NYC and Boston that avoids I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike. But it makes the trip an hour longer – so yes, there would be a limit on what could be charged before people would make the hour detour..
My point is that privatizing roads simply invites the profits / consumer surplus of that road to be privatized. What it does not do is promote better roads.
“Good luck getting the approvals to build another bridge across the Susquehanna. In the state of Maryland the chances of that happening this century are zero.”
Getting approval from who? The state? If they’re preventing it then that is a problem with the state’s regulations, not private roads. Otherwise I’ll build whatever I want on my land.
“There is in fact an alternative, zero-toll route from Washington DC to NYC and Boston that avoids I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike. But it makes the trip an hour longer – so yes, there would be a limit on what could be charged before people would make the hour detour..”
Good, so we agree that competition is one of the things that puts a cap on how much someone can charge for their service.
“My point is that privatizing roads simply invites the profits / consumer surplus of that road to be privatized. What it does not do is promote better roads.”
I want all profits privatized. Why would I want the money going to politicians?
And it does promote better roads. I really don’t see why you think an owner of roads will provide better service if the customers have to pay for the roads no matter what.
Also, if it is so easy to fleece people on the roads in the free market, why aren’t governments around the world charging drastically more? They have a literal monopoly and even they can’t get away with sticking it to people the way you envision, although they do do the bare minimum in maintenance of the roads.
Governments do fleece the people – the drive from Baltimore into NYC on the most direct route will cost you about $40 in tolls. One would think you could get roads paved in diamonds at that price.
But government can’t charge too much for tolls or the people will protest and sometimes their protest will result in the incumbent being voted out of office. So in fact government is accountable to the people. But give a private entity a monopoly on the roads and where is the accountability?
As I said, I would love to own a literal toll bridge. And I would laugh every minute the Libertarians argued in my defense.
“But government can’t charge too much for tolls or the people will protest and sometimes their protest will result in the incumbent being voted out of office. So in fact government is accountable to the people. But give a private entity a monopoly on the roads and where is the accountability?”
So people can protest and elect politicians to do what they want, but those same people, who are no longer being forced to pay for the roads, can’t boycott the road, taking alternate routes, refuse to provide the owner with banking services, cut off his electricity, refuse to sell him other goods and services, etc.
It seems weird that you think people who are forced to pay for a road no matter what have more bargaining power than people who don’t have to pay a single red cent if they don’t like the road service.
Dan, Can you provide an example of what you are talking about? My basis is the current reality where I don’t pay a toll unless I use the road that requires that toll. I am saying that if a private company took over the road and its toll I have no expectation of the road getting better or the toll rate being lower.
Please explain with example how privatization will improve road transportation.
That was the whole purpose of the article. If roads were privatized they’d no longer be paid for through taxation. The owners of the roads would rely on voluntary transactions. If they provided crap service people would take alternate routes, making the alternate routes more profitable. If the owner wanted to win back that business he’d have to reduce his prices, improve the service, etc. The same thing any business has to do if their sole source of revenue comes from voluntary payments. And I’m saying that even if a road owner controlled so many roads that it made it difficult for people to find alternatives, there are still other means the free market can punish him. They could refuse to give him access to their banks, refuse to supply him with electricity, refuse to supply him with food or water. It’s not like people in a free market are toothless and have to take it up the rear just because a business owner says so. The only time that happens is when the state creates a monopoly and says pay for this service or die. Even then, they are constrained by the will of the people, but it’s much easier to force someone to pay for crappy service if you can legally hold a gun to their head and say “give me the loot or else”.
It is a fantasy that alternative roads would be built in any significant manner and taking this approach would be hugely inefficient.
If there were no government regulation of property you would end up with the monopolization of roads and right of ways. So you would need government to regulate transactions to prevent monopolization. But then you will end up with monopoly via regulatory capture – ie the situation that Epi-Pen used to capture extreme profits.
So then what? More government to regulate the regulators?
How about we borrow the wisdom of America’s founders and have a Republic form of government that promotes freedom of commerce, guarantees certain inalienable rights and otherwise leaves it to states and cities to figure out how to serve the common needs of citizens.
That’s fine if you believe that but libertarians contend that monopolies wouldn’t form without the state. I find their arguments more persuasive than yours.
There is a finite amount of land. What is to stop a single corporation from buying all of it? Of course it would be unnecessary to buy all of it, just the plats that ensure one owns the most efficient routes and can block any competitor from having a direct route.
As I said, let me buy the toll bridge and you will be my best friend as you tell everyone that the massive profit margins resulting from my pricing are a good thing. For you see, I will buy up all the land on the river bank so I will make sure I own the only bridge that crosses the river. And I will have my monopoly, all with your blessing.
You showed me
Perfect markets create perfect outcomes. The further from perfect the market is the further from ideal the outcome is likely to be.
Roads are likely to be far from a perfect market. Huge barriers to entry mean monopolies are likely to persist for considerable periods. Few sellers in the market will result in less than perfect competition even under the best assumptions. Some routes are natural monopolies anyway – perhaps a particular canyon or pass can result in much cheaper construction than neighboring routes.
It is pretty clear that the market will not deliver the optimum amount/number of roads. The relevant question is whether the State can do any better.
“Roads are likely to be far from a perfect market. Huge barriers to entry mean monopolies are likely to persist for considerable periods.”
That is your mere assertion. I find the actual arguments of Dr. Murphy and others like Dr. Block much more compelling.
“It is pretty clear that the market will not deliver the optimum amount/number of roads.”
That is your mere assertion. I find the actual arguments of many others more convincing.
“The relevant question is whether the State can do any better.”
Have you ever noticed that you have this obnoxious way of making assertions without an attempt at an argument, and then dismissing all questions or nuance in favor of whatever you’ve decided is the only relevant question?
” I find the actual arguments of Dr. Murphy and others like Dr. Block much more compelling.”
Can you point me to an argument that demonstrates the optimum amount of roads will be produced? I have not seen any.
“Can you point me to an argument that demonstrates the optimum amount of roads will be produced? I have not seen any.”
Can you define or quantify what the optimum amount of roads is? I haven’t see you do that.
“Can you point me to an argument that demonstrates the optimum amount of roads will be produced? I have not seen any.”
Yeah, virtually every book on basic economics tells about how a free market is able to produce the right amount of a product through supply and demand and profit and loss. Are you not familiar with these arguments? I mean, a common example is to explain how shoe companies are able to produce the correct amount of size 11’s for society in a free market, even though it would be extremely difficult to impossible to centrally plan something like that.
Now do you notice how you haven’t even attempted to make an argument in either of your comments? You just assert that we are wrong on this or that, and then graciously let us know what is the question we should be grappling with. I think you’d be better equipped to deal with arguing against the free market approach to economics if you first spent some time studying it. Dr. Murphy has some great books that take you through the basics to much more difficult economic subjects. Then if you are interested in learning about the case for the privatization of roads, I’d recommend coming back to this article, and reading Dr. Block’s book on the topic.
Richie: “Can you define or quantify what the optimum amount of roads is? I haven’t see you do that.”
That is rather the point, isn’t it? I have not seen anyone define this, which is why I have not seen anyone present an argument that claims this.
Dan: “Yeah, virtually every book on basic economics tells about how a free market is able to produce the right amount of a product…”
No, they describe how a perfect market will provide this.
In answer to Richie, this is my definition of the right amount of roads. It is that which would be produced by a perfect market.
A market unencumbered by Government is not in my view a perfect market. Exactly what constitutes a perfect market can be debated, but the market for roads is certainly not it.
I point out that the market for roads deviates in important ways from a perfect market. SInce my definition of optimum is that produced by a perfect market, it is axiomatic that an imperfect market will not produce the optimum amount.
Well, Harold, I can only say that I disagree with your mere assertions and I have no desire to play the semantic game.
If you think the difference between a “perfect market” and a “free market” is semantics then we do indeed disagree. To me it is a matter of important substance, critical to the whole argument, not semantics.
No, I think you’re a time waster. I think you just make assertions with nothing to back them up, especially when discussing economics. I think you use semantics, and start focusing on crap that has nothing to do with the topic at hand because you don’t have anything worthwhile to contribute, but feel compelled to jump in for some reason. And I really think you need to spend more time studying and asking questions than pontificating.
Dan, fair enough. Next time don’t hold back.
I will point out that the only difference in our positions is that you assert that a free market will deliver the optimum amount of something, and I assert that a perfect market will do this. We both think the basic economic textbooks back up our positions.
Why not just look at history? Most of the roads during the Industrial Revolution were built and operated privately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnpike_trust
Now, the property right itself was created by government, but given the Feudal history of Europe all property rights necessarily came from the sovereign. The building and management of the road itself was private once that property right was created.
“Yet in the private sector, all sorts of standards arise spontaneously and foster coordination, even without a powerful third party enforcing compliance. “
This is rubbish and anybody familiar with history knows it. Look at privatised railways in the 19th century.
Different private companies built different railway gauges, and when such railways met this naturally caused a great deal of inconvenience. In the UK, this problem was resolved by government regulation in the 1846 Gauge of Railways Act. Rational state planning of a standard railway network, even in the mid-19th century, would have been a much more efficient system.
I disagree completely. The “rational state planning” could not have known in advance which gauge to select. Only by trying a range of options is it possible to come to a quality standard. They would have invariably selected the worst and then hammered everyone at adopt it (just look at how the EU operates, as an example look at their adoption of lead-free solder under the ROHS rules, creating the risk of tin whiskers on every fly-by-wire aircraft, except Boeing, and on every computerized road vehicle as well, dumbest idea ever but now they are entrenched).
Even then, there’s no proof that a one size fits all approach is globally more efficient. By trial and error we have discovered that wider gauge provides a better service at a higher cost. Narrow gauge saves a buck at the penalty of worse service. For a poor country any service is better than nothing, but for a wealthy country the appropriate balance of the trade off would be different.
But here’s another even better example. I’m a native English speaker, so by your own argument, it would be “more efficient” if I could just go around the world forcing other people to only speak English. There’s no need for completing standards, so we should get rid of all the other languages, right? I mean it’s all about efficiency after all.
“naturally caused a great deal of inconvenience”
Oh then you lose this argument as well, because I will just say states are greatly “inconvenient”.
States must therefore refrain from the financing and control all roads.
Privatization has a built in corrective mechanism for any “inconvenience”, far more effective than monopolistic practises inherent in all states.
You pretend people are stupid, because they have to be in order for your elitist fascistic central planning to even pass the smell test. Fortunately intelligence is not predicted on what badges one is wearing.
The curious critique of AnCap/PPS:
1. We know from history that laissez faire has never worked.
2. We know from history that laissez faire has never been tried.
3. Laissez faire always results in monopoly control by corporations.
4. Laissez faire always results in trade wars where no business is ever safe from collapse due to predatory price cutting by foreign companies and workers.
5. Laissez faire is rife with racism and xenophobia where minorities and foreigners can never find jobs.
6. Under laissez faire, corporations will hire gazillions of foreigners and minorities. See #4.
The horror.
One of the very first things I learned when becoming a Rothbardian back in 1973 was that people generally ALWAYS vote ethnic or tribal and that the more “public goods” there are, the worse this problem becomes. Further, under AnCap or a PPS, “immigrants” would be subject to contractual restrictions and limitations based upon whatever the property owners deemed best. The possibility that the “immigrants” might attain a numerical majority would not impact their rights or the rights of the property owners to their property in the slightest.
Since under Keynesianism there can be no a priori rule limiting the power of the state to grab property to solve the non-existent unemployment and “lack of momentum” problems, the rights of the inhabitants of a Keynesian/social democratic nation are always subject to whims of the majority vote. Especially a majority vote consisting of minorities hostile to private property. Courts will simply rule that “fixing the [non-existent] unemployment problem” is a legitimate function of the legislature and it is they who determine what is “good” policy. If you are thrown off your land so that Somalis may have it, tough luck.
As I tried to explain to LK back in 2011:
Let’s not forget that multi-ethnic socialist democracies of the LK variety almost invariably lead to ethnic conflict, murder and grand national theft. Everyone tends to vote ethnic and largest group wins. Using the immoral theories of the progressives and Keynesians, the government owns everything and the largest ethnic group then owns the government, at which point we have the joy and marvel that is today’s Africa. More proof that rich progressive white people in the West actually hate brown and black people in the third world. Just look at what they have inflicted upon them.
http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/2011/07/stagnation-or-stagflation.html?showComment=1312132348508#c3371684533910107208
I think there’s a better explanation of Alt-Right type movements.
Basically, people WILL use their vote sensibly for policy options if three criteria are met:
[1] those people understand the importance of the bigger picture and the danger of government getting out of control;
[2] those people have confidence in the institutions of law, etc; and very importantly…
[3] most of the other people are not voting and displaying tribalism along ethnic, racial or religious lines.
Once you have a critical mass of people who use tribalism to get what they want, there’s a rational tendency for the remaining people to also revert to tribalism, and this is a sign of systemic failure of the rule of law. That does NOT mean everyone wants it that way, nor does it even mean that people think it’s a good way to behave. It is simply a self defense mechanism.
Now you can easily find families who left India during the time of the British Raj (especially Seeks and Hindus) and who came to understand the principles of British law, why it works, and what’s useful about it. These people are still proudly ethnic in their own way, but also proudly British.It is possible for a multi-ethnic civilization to work, provided enough people agree on a few basic principles, such as property rights, and freedom of association (and freedom to refuse association as well).
My position is derived from this book by Shepsle and Rabushka that I was assigned in class in 1973:
http://www.stanford.edu/~rabushka/politics%20in%20plural%20societies.pdf
The more “public goods” there are in a multi-ethnic democracy, the more the voting will be tribal because the government either owns or controls most everything. The winning group then owns and controls the entire society. The legalization of Keynesian policy itself (social democracy) effectively eradicated any limit on what the government can do to person or property because almost any policy can be “justified” on the grounds that it is fixing the inherent problems of “capitalism”. This has led directly to where we are today. So now we have the situation where the various “tribal” groups (which include competing ideologies) are ready for civil war because the winning coalition can decree trannie bathrooms (or not) or gun confiscation (or not) or the promotion or prohibition of various sexual practices.
PPS allows for resolution of these differences on a block by block basis. The Alt-right never seems to mention this aspect of a PPS when attacking “libertarianism”.
Way off topic but it’s been a bit quiet around here… this is for LK and his recent Alt-Right conversion.
Bill Leak, a great deplorable Australian. R. I. P.
https://youtu.be/W3ZU6MtTImA