if we want a stateless society, why dont a team of private investors and political refugees colonize Somalia
do we get free cheezeburger in socielism?
Stranger:But the point is that I love my country. Don't you?
I've traveled a wee bit. I like my country, but in many ways, it is inferior to others I have been to. I don't feel I particularly owe it anything in the way of allegiance or loyalty.
I could learn to love a free country, regardless of the climate or geography. Being free is more important to me than acknowledging my history and the history of my ancestors with a particular state.
@all, I second the Liberty Colony idea. It's possible that an exodus may at one point be the only option left to us. The world is certainly not getting less statist. Things are moving in the wrong direction, and while choosing to stand and fight might be honourable, it's wise to pick the battles you can win. If you can't beat the state, then change the game. Plus the entrepreneurial opportunities for a Liberty Colony could be tremendous.
I wonder, Danno, do how would you feel if rather than a home owner being inconvenienced as a result of the road, it was the other way around. What if a home owner purposefully refused to sell his house to the home owner to irritate him, let's suppose the road owner then builds roads on either side of the house (ignoring the issue of access for the owner of the house), do we need the government to force the owner of the house to comply with the wishes of the owners of the roads?
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Danno, the friendly neighborhood heretic.
Self-delusion or self-flattery? You're just repeating the mainstream's claims. We're the alleged heretics.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Danno:This does not change the fact that, in letter delivery, a force-induced monopoly has been known to provide a service that has not been matched in the free market. Perhaps a free-market competitor could do as well - I'd love for them to be able to try. A postal service without the idiotic bureaucracy, subsidies, and unions that the USPS has had to deal with would likely be more efficient and productive, but I suspect that it being a monopoly would add to its potential to be efficient.
As a former USPS worker, a long time ago, I can tell you that it is illegal for someone other than an official representative of the USPS to put mail into a 'government mailbox'. Which is all of them no matter who bought and put it up.
You ever see the order forms for UPS deliveries that claim that they can't deliver to a PO Box? Same is true for the PO Box hanging on the wall outside your front door.
It is impossible for a 'free-market competitor' to even try to compete against the Post Office because they own all the mailboxes by default. As soon as they drop a letter into one of them, by whatever means, they are liable for the full cost of postage the same as if the letter carrier delivered it.
Don't believe me, go make some fliers with your address and phone number on them and deliver them to all your neighbors. Chances are they won't send you a bill the first time but you will most certainly get a phone call and a stern warning to not do it again.
GilesStratton: I actually think there's a problem with the way this debate is being carried out in regards to the road owner who isn't maintaining the road. Danno is asking the question "How can we over come this?" and concluding (wrongly) that we can't and therefore require the state. However this assumes that a road owner who refuses to sell or maintaing his road purely for the psychic profit that comes with being an asshole to the home owners is imcompatible with libertarianism, it isn't.
I actually think there's a problem with the way this debate is being carried out in regards to the road owner who isn't maintaining the road. Danno is asking the question "How can we over come this?" and concluding (wrongly) that we can't and therefore require the state. However this assumes that a road owner who refuses to sell or maintaing his road purely for the psychic profit that comes with being an asshole to the home owners is imcompatible with libertarianism, it isn't.
Pretty clearly stated. This, I suspect, is one of the reasons why roads are such a frequent example in this debate. They are essential, and there are strong physical limits on how they can be competed with in urban areas.
The road owner to declines to maintain his road properly is not always going to have a competitor. In the absence of competition, being an asshole to the customers who need to do business with you can be remarkably profitable. In urban areas, there's not really physical space for much competition.
I'll cheerfully admit that there are no perfect answers, and that in other roles, government is often the worst answer. I just fear that, in this instance, the free market may become a worse answer than government is, no matter how great an answer it is in instances where competition is physically possible.
Danno, who prefers capitalism without blindly worshipping at its altar.
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Danno: GilesStratton: I actually think there's a problem with the way this debate is being carried out in regards to the road owner who isn't maintaining the road. Danno is asking the question "How can we over come this?" and concluding (wrongly) that we can't and therefore require the state. However this assumes that a road owner who refuses to sell or maintaing his road purely for the psychic profit that comes with being an asshole to the home owners is imcompatible with libertarianism, it isn't. Pretty clearly stated. This, I suspect, is one of the reasons why roads are such a frequent example in this debate. They are essential, and there are strong physical limits on how they can be competed with in urban areas. The road owner to declines to maintain his road properly is not always going to have a competitor. In the absence of competition, being an asshole to the customers who need to do business with you can be remarkably profitable. In urban areas, there's not really physical space for much competition. I'll cheerfully admit that there are no perfect answers, and that in other roles, government is often the worst answer. I just fear that, in this instance, the free market may become a worse answer than government is, no matter how great an answer it is in instances where competition is physically possible.
Irrelevant.
Danno:Danno, who prefers socialism
Danno:The road owner to declines to maintain his road properly is not always going to have a competitor. In the absence of competition, being an asshole to the customers who need to do business with you can be remarkably profitable. In urban areas, there's not really physical space for much competition.
There are literally thousands of competing cities in any country. You do not understand what competition is.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Danno:Pretty clearly stated. This, I suspect, is one of the reasons why roads are such a frequent example in this debate. They are essential, and there are strong physical limits on how they can be competed with in urban areas.
What everyone is leaving out is that there is already a quite extensive road network in existance.
Just off the top of my head...how hard would it be to extend property lines to the center of the street instead of having them end at the edge of the road as it is today and nip the monopoly argument in the bud.
There is already well established 'access rights doctrine' to property that would end the whole 'deny access to be an asshole argument'.
You end up with people who have the choice to either maintain their own section of the road (like their front yard), hire it out to a private company (like hiring a landscape company) or selling off that section of land to a private company (like a HOA).
Now all you have to worry about is having the type of neighbors that keep ten cars on cinder blocks in their front yard no matter how much social pressure is put on them to clean it up.
Which begs the question; is a nice front yard a 'public good' that needs to be maintained by a coercive monopoly?
Juan: Danno:Cooperation works for me, if you don't object to cooperation from one who has been called a communist, socialist, and other fun things by the True Believers in these parts. You are technically a 'socialist' in one regard. You want a monopolistic provider of security - you believe that's the only possible solution, just like socialists believe that the only solution for, say, manufacturing is to nationalize manufacturing.
Danno:Cooperation works for me, if you don't object to cooperation from one who has been called a communist, socialist, and other fun things by the True Believers in these parts.
Hi, Juan! Long time no chat, and like that.
Would you be so kind as to point to or quote where I admitted to wanting a monopolistic provider of security? I'd thought we were discussing transportation. I would be perfectly happy to do without the security forces provided by my local government - or even to be able to hire a competitor to protect me from them.
Straw man doesn't work well.
As to HOAs being despotical, you're probably right. I don't think that the libertarian ideal is private tyranny, despite what other people here may claim.
Certainly not the ideal where the tyranny can't be avoided, in any case. Mutually beneficial transactions are best, but not always guaranteed when competition is not practicable.
That darn Real World keeps on getting in the way of those great theories. Drat!
Danno, foiled again.
Juan: Danno:I understand that I'm committing blasphemy by not agreeing with the 'proven fact' that governments fulfill no useful purpose The point is, anything useful gov't does can be done more efficiently by voluntary means.
Danno:I understand that I'm committing blasphemy by not agreeing with the 'proven fact' that governments fulfill no useful purpose
I understand that assertion, and agree that in the vast majority of situations, private enterprise can easily outperform government. I just remain unconvinced that it's universally applicable, and roads is the most obvious 'must-have' commodity in which the argument is sketchy, particularly urban roads.
This is, apparently, annoying some who have been convinced that a free market would be an improvement over government in the provision and maintainence of roads. How their becoming annoyed is supposed to convince me continues to mystify me.
Danno, glad that sticks and stones are not available in this venue.
GilesStratton: I wonder, Danno, do how would you feel if rather than a home owner being inconvenienced as a result of the road, it was the other way around. What if a home owner purposefully refused to sell his house to the home owner to irritate him, let's suppose the road owner then builds roads on either side of the house (ignoring the issue of access for the owner of the house), do we need the government to force the owner of the house to comply with the wishes of the owners of the roads?
Oh, heavens no. Eminent Domain is not something I've ever been happy with. However, I can imagine that, if I were building a road, and a stubborn and recalcitrant property owner forced me into using a less-than-optimal route, that it may be fun to buy all of the land around him and force him to remain on his own property, stewing in his own juices. It could even become profitable - I'd expect the value (and thus, price) of that land dropping sharply in that situation.
I just don't see such a situation as being an improvement over the public-access road running past my house, as annoyed as I usually am with the government that provides it.
Danno, who's been stubborn and recalcitrant on occasion, too.
Danno: Would you be so kind as to point to or quote where I admitted to wanting a monopolistic provider of security? I'd thought we were discussing transportation. I would be perfectly happy to do without the security forces provided by my local government - or even to be able to hire a competitor to protect me from them.
Without the local government's security forces, how would you prevent your local community from transforming itself into a private enterprise?
Anonymous Coward: Danno:This does not change the fact that, in letter delivery, a force-induced monopoly has been known to provide a service that has not been matched in the free market. Perhaps a free-market competitor could do as well - I'd love for them to be able to try. A postal service without the idiotic bureaucracy, subsidies, and unions that the USPS has had to deal with would likely be more efficient and productive, but I suspect that it being a monopoly would add to its potential to be efficient. As a former USPS worker, a long time ago, I can tell you that it is illegal for someone other than an official representative of the USPS to put mail into a 'government mailbox'. Which is all of them no matter who bought and put it up. {...}
As a former USPS worker, a long time ago, I can tell you that it is illegal for someone other than an official representative of the USPS to put mail into a 'government mailbox'. Which is all of them no matter who bought and put it up. {...}
Thanks, but I am quite aware that the Feds have a firm lock on the mail delivery monopoly - and can even force me to maintain and pay for a mail receptacle that they approve of. That they can be competed with on a limited basis (by FedEx, UPS, etc) is a good thing.
While I have done no studies, and have no evidence, I expect that, if competition were allowed (as package delivery became lawful to compete in a few decades ago), and the USPS were forced to make their own way without tax subsidies, that it may be remarkably difficult to compete in that area anyway - a monopoly, governmental or not, is going to be able to provide that service more efficiently and cheaply than if the business were split between two carriers who would each get a portion of the available business. I could easily be wrong about this, however - I've not studied the situation carefully.
In any case, I have never claimed that the USPS was an example of a government-provided service that could not be just as well-provided by the public sector.
Danno, who has had runins with the USPS before.
Danno: GilesStratton: I wonder, Danno, do how would you feel if rather than a home owner being inconvenienced as a result of the road, it was the other way around. What if a home owner purposefully refused to sell his house to the home owner to irritate him, let's suppose the road owner then builds roads on either side of the house (ignoring the issue of access for the owner of the house), do we need the government to force the owner of the house to comply with the wishes of the owners of the roads? Oh, heavens no. Eminent Domain is not something I've ever been happy with. However, I can imagine that, if I were building a road, and a stubborn and recalcitrant property owner forced me into using a less-than-optimal route, that it may be fun to buy all of the land around him and force him to remain on his own property, stewing in his own juices. It could even become profitable - I'd expect the value (and thus, price) of that land dropping sharply in that situation. I just don't see such a situation as being an improvement over the public-access road running past my house, as annoyed as I usually am with the government that provides it. Danno, who's been stubborn and recalcitrant on occasion, too.
How inconsistant of you.
GilesStratton: Danno:Danno, who prefers socialism
Oh, my - can people really do that? Is it a respected tactic here? <sigh>
I guess the reasoned exchange of ideas just shuddered to a halt, and I've been vanquished. I'm in awe, truely.
Or should I hold out for being called a Nazi before I give up on trying to exchange ideas in a civilized, productive fashion?
Danno, polishing his SS insignia, just in case.
Danno: GilesStratton: Danno:Danno, who prefers socialism Oh, my - can people really do that? Is it a respected tactic here? <sigh> I guess the reasoned exchange of ideas just shuddered to a halt, and I've been vanquished. I'm in awe, truely. Or should I hold out for being called a Nazi before I give up on trying to exchange ideas in a civilized, productive fashion? Danno, polishing his SS insignia, just in case.
But you do prefer socialized roads..