Here's our exchange for a full understanding of the matter in discussion:
From: Bardhyl Salihu [mailto:[email protected]]Sent: Fri 2/12/2010 12:06 PMTo: Walter BlockSubject: Regarding your solution to the "entrapment" problem in privately-owned roads Dear Dr. Block, I'm currently reading your book Privatization of Roads and Highways, and I just finished reading you critique of Van Dun on freedom and property (2010). I still have problems with your solution regarding the "entrapment" problem. Let me first define my understanding of it. By "entrapment," I understand the situation whereby a person is unable to move outside his/her premises (property) when his/her only "way out" is through a private road, either because the owner of the road has prohibited the person from using the road, or because he's charging an exorbitant price which that person can't afford. Now you say that this situation can only occur very rarely, because before a person "in his right mind" buys property which is "isolated," he/she will make sure the access to the "outside world" is warranted first. However, this does not deal with a situation where the person already owns property whose only way out is a governmentally-owned road (in which he/she has free, unlimited access), but that road suddenly gets privatized. In this case, that person is powerless to make any "escape" deals because the road does not constitute his property, it is government's. Unless the government somehow "agrees with" the new private owner to cede free access to the "entrapped" persons, the problem will still exist. The only possible way in which this person can now move outside is if he asked the road owner not to stop him because he wants to homestead a place somewhere else (which the owner has to accept in order to avoid precluding or forestalling). You probably have responses to this situation, it's just that I'm unfamiliar them (haven't met them yet) in your writings. That's why I thought contacting you directly may help me understand the solution. This is one of the problems I see with privatizing roads, at least for now. Regards, Bardhyl
Dear Bardhyl (if I may);Please tell me a bit about yourself. Are you a student? Professor? A very good question. Frankly, I hadn't thought about it before; thanks for bringing it to my attention. My thought is that the govt stole the land it used for "its" road from private sources. It did so either directly or indirectly. Directly, by seizing land, in an eminent domain case. Indirectly, by buying it from private owners, but with the money it stole from taxpayers. In either case, the govt cannot get any more rights than those it stole from the private sources, either directly or indirectly. So, when it sells or gives away "its" land to a new private owner, the new private owner cannot have any more rights to hem in people than the old ones had. But, in my view, the old ones had no such rights. So, then, neither can the new ones. Murray Rothbard wrote something roughly on this question. Something about the government seizing, or selling, the Rockefeller estates, but I can't seem to find this reference. So, a suggestion to you: Please pardon this sentence in form letter style, but I make remarks of this sort often, and I find it saves me time. In order to get more answers/responses to your important question, and/or better publicize your point, I urge you to go to http://mises.org/Community/, and register it on that venue. If you do, please feel free to copy my answer along with your query. Best regards, Walter Walter E. Block, Ph.D. Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Prof. of Economics College of Business Loyola University New Orleans 6363 St. Charles Ave., Box 15 New Orleans, LA 70118 tel: (504)864-7934 fax: (504)864-7970 [email protected]
Please pardon this sentence in form letter style, but I make remarks of this sort often, and I find it saves me time. In order to get more answers/responses to your important question, and/or better publicize your point, I urge you to go to http://mises.org/Community/, and register it on that venue. If you do, please feel free to copy my answer along with your query.
Best regards,
Walter
Walter E. Block, Ph.D. Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Prof. of Economics College of Business Loyola University New Orleans 6363 St. Charles Ave., Box 15 New Orleans, LA 70118 tel: (504)864-7934 fax: (504)864-7970 [email protected]
HUMAN ACTION
It seems to me that this matter, if it does arise, is completely due to the previous actions of the state. The market cannot be faulted for this, and so you cannot formulate an argument against the privatization of roads on this basis. There is no doubt that the elimination of state interference in an area where the state has traditionally held a monopoly is bound to lead to some problems in the short term. This however, cannot be made into an argument for the continuation of the state monopoly for it leads to an inner contradiction: continuing the state monopoly on roads will only create more of these undesirable situations to be resolved in the case of state collapse or incapacitation. In other words, it is best to stop this process now and deal with the consequences of state monopoly as they currently exist rather than dealing with a potentially more severe problem further in the future.
An analogy could be made with public sector employment. Would it be best to eliminate government employment when it is at 10% of the population, or when it reaches 70%, and the country is bankrupt? The earlier action, however unpopular, would have led to less social chaos and human misery.
This argument doesn't necessarily argue for continuous road & highway control by the government, it merely points out a problem that could arise from the privatization. If the government decided to give the road through concession, for example, they could set a condition which required the future road owner to allow these people access to the road in the same quantity or price as it allows other users that have more elastic demand (can choose other roads).
Your point in "privatizing as early as possible" is not a remedy here, because it's exactly the privatization that puts these people into trouble. Again, not that this is an argument in favour of gov.'t control of roads, it simply shows that not everything is rosy with the privatization and that we may have to do a cost-benefit analysis to see whether it's worth it or not. One thing is clear, though, these "entrapped" people would suffer dearly in such situations.
As a quick rebuttal I would first ask why think in such 2-dimensional cardinal directions? Why not exiting ones property via the sky or a tunnel? Secondly, and more pressing of a point, who cares? If one accepts true ownership of property then you must accept the possibility of legally being entrapped. The problem is that people wish to insert a disclaimer into every radical situation in favor of protecting the individual. Why? What is innate about the individual that allows them authorization to such a disclaimer? Furthermore, such a disclaimer is really purporting that individual A owns their property up until that ownership causes misfortune upon individual B, vice versa. In this case who own what? Why shouldn’t someone have the right to build a large electric fence around their property, even if such a fence were entrap another individual? Are we forgetting that the entrapped individual may still exchange for their freedom? And even if the entrapper doesn’t wish to exchange with that individual, they may still appeal to outside individuals (unless we are doubting the market for such an occasion).
Maybe the private firm HOUSE REMOVAL--specializing in cases where individuals are entrapped can swoop their house up and relocate it.
Maybe private charity firms seek to help the individual.
Maybe the individuals life insurance company hires people to entrap the entrapper or force monetary penalties on him
Read until you have something to write...Write until you have nothing to write...when you have nothing to write, read...read until you have something to write...Jeremiah
Privatisation always must be pursued by libertarians in one way or another. There is no option of or argument for state control, so if this is not an attempt at an argument for government control, what is it? Entrapment is solvable via easements. If easements were not acquired, other avenues must be pursued. Caveat emptor.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Well, you can always build a road of your own after buying property on other possible "escape" areas, but how much will that cost you? The same goes for helicopters and tunnels. HOUSE REMOVAL can take care of it and simply hand you the bill in the end, but it won't magically make the expansion/construction/flying cheaper. You'll still have to pay a very high price, if not higher than digging or flying yourself (due to the packaged service). I don't know if life insurance would cover this. Besides, nobody who isn't in a such position will have to be insured because they know they will make sure that they don't fall in such a situation when they buy property. This problem only affects people in ex post, those that have already had property dependent on one exit only, which means that they can't have any insurance whatsoever.
But I like your suggestion that people "must accept the possibility of legally being entrapped." I wouldn't have a problem with this problem turning up in an already-free enterprise system. But when you have the government relinquish control of resources in favour of private individuals (and make us happy), this problem arises in existence. It's its correlation with privatization that bothers me.
Jon,
It's a suggestion that maybe there's another way which I described earlier, with the possibility of conditional concessions.
I would also just like to add one more thing here that is rarely mentioned. The current system of government-controlled roads does not protect an individual against entrapment. The government can initiate a state of entrapment any time it desires. Under situations of martial law, or if individuals act in a way that the state disapproves of, the government can effectively sequester you from the the property of others using their roads. Indeed, the state does this incredibly frequently, as for instance with a police stand-off. In light of this, it would seem terribly odd for you to argue against the hypothetical entrapment that might occur initially when roads are first privatized, but ignore completely the greater issue of widespread existing entrapment which is carried out by the state all the time. Taken in this light, the argument for road privatization is also an argument against state entrapment.
Bardhyl Salihu: It's its correlation with privatization that bothers me.
It's its correlation with privatization that bothers me.
I have shown how this is false in my post above. Entrapment can and does occur under a system of state-operated roads.
Walter Block:Murray Rothbard wrote something roughly on this question. Something about the government seizing, or selling, the Rockefeller estates, but I can't seem to find this reference.
"Let us illustrate with a hypothetical example. Suppose that libertarian agitation and pressure has escalated to such a point that the government and its various branches are ready to abdicate. But they engineer a cunning ruse. Just before the government of New York state abdicates it passes a law turning over the entire territorial area of New York to become the private property of the Rockefeller family. The Massachusetts legislature does the same for the Kennedy family. And so on for each state. The government could then abdicate and decree the abolition of taxes and coercive legislation, but the victorious libertarians would now be confronted with a dilemma. Do they recognize the new property titles as legitimately private property? The utilitarians, who have no theory of justice in property rights, would, if they were consistent with their acceptance of given property titles as decreed by government, have to accept a new social order in which fifty new satraps would be collecting taxes in the form of unilaterally imposed "rent." The point is that only natural-rights libertarians, only those libertarians who have a theory [p. 31] of justice in property titles that does not depend on government decree, could be in a position to scoff at the new rulers' claims to have private property in the territory of the country, and to rebuff these claims as invalid. As the great nineteenth-century liberal Lord Acton saw clearly, the natural law provides the only sure ground for a continuing critique of governmental laws and decrees.1 What, specifically, the natural-rights position on property titles may be is the question to which we now turn."
FNL - The Libertarian Creed - Chapter 2: Property and Exchange - MNR
JosephBright:Taken in this light, the argument for road privatization is also an argument against state entrapment.
Win.
Bardhyl Salihu: Well, you can always build a road of your own after buying property on other possible "escape" areas, but how much will that cost you? The same goes for helicopters and tunnels. HOUSE REMOVAL can take care of it and simply hand you the bill in the end, but it won't magically make the expansion/construction/flying cheaper. You'll still have to pay a very high price, if not higher than digging or flying yourself (due to the packaged service). I don't know if life insurance would cover this. Besides, nobody who isn't in a such position will have to be insured because they know they will make sure that they don't fall in such a situation when they buy property. This problem only affects people in ex post, those that have already had property dependent on one exit only, which means that they can't have any insurance whatsoever. But I like your suggestion that people "must accept the possibility of legally being entrapped." I wouldn't have a problem with this problem turning up in an already-free enterprise system. But when you have the government relinquish control of resources in favour of private individuals (and make us happy), this problem arises in existence. It's its correlation with privatization that bothers me.
If we accept that there is a way (HOUSE REMOVAL) upon which to leave your property, then we are no longer dealing with entrapment. You have thus repositioned yourself into an argument of price discrimination i.e. these companies may charge TOO much. No need to debate price prejudice. Of course we always have the charity route. If such entrapment has an annual probability of 1:1,000,000 then we are dealing with roughly 6,000 cases a year. Charity may suffice to help these 6000 individuals. Wwe can only hope for a higher probability like 1:1,000, meaning there will be greater competition among the HOUSE REMOVAL firms to bid the price down.
Furthermore, if you have a life insurance policy of a high amount (which may be recommended if your house is located in a HIGH PROBAILITY OF ENTRAPMENT ZONE--having only one exit) then it may be within the interests of the insurance company to bail you out, that is, if by being entrapped your are surley going to die.
You’re also bypassing what effects such a action would have on the entrapper. Headlines read, “Entrapper kills a family of five”. I would never hire, trade, exchange, insure, sell, pull out from a fire, perform CPR, etc for this asshole. And if a large majority of the population felt the same way, he may become blacklisted from any services and thus become socially or materially entrapped.
JosephBright,
The government can initiate any type of entrapment even if the roads were wholly privatized, providing there is some government. All those reasons you mentioned: martial law, disapproved behaviour, or police stand-offs can be also used as reasons to invade private owners' roads, regardless whether they control them or not. In this light, this doesn't serve as a strong counter-argument because it fails in distinction (it applies to both).
Make no mistake, my situation is not hypothetical. I know houses back in my home country that have only one direct access to a road (without a possibility to build a way out on the other sides). If those roads were privatized and the owners decided to charge them exorbitant prices, these people would be severely damaged.
There is no entrapment problem if one correctly understands the benefit of the division of labor.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Bardhyl Salihu:If those roads were privatized and the owners decided to charge them exorbitant prices, these people would be severely damaged.
And that is because the method of "privatization" by the state is completely illegitimate. What exactly do you contend is the proper method for the state to de-statize / de-socialize? i.e the one you are assuming in your posts.
Jeremiah Dyke,
I never meant entrapment in the complete, physical sense of the word. That wouldn't prompt me to start a debate at all. I meant it in a manner which you have possible alternatives, but they are extremely problematic to be carried out due to economical and technical challenges.
I don't think these entrapments would lead to extreme situations of total isolation and death from hunger, because people (e.g. relatives) would still trespass to help them. In this sense, I don't think many people will be willing to give up their road preferences for this. Some of them might not even know of these situations. Diamonds cause bloody wars in Africa, yet people buy them for fun.
Conza88,
I'm thinking of a concession: the government still owns the road but gives it out to a private firm/individual to operate it and accrue all the benefits. In addition, the government sets conditions such as those against entrapment.
Bardhyl N. Salihu: Conza88, I'm thinking of a concession: the government still owns the road but gives it out to a private firm/individual to operate it and accrue all the benefits.
I'm thinking of a concession: the government still owns the road but gives it out to a private firm/individual to operate it and accrue all the benefits.
Concession? Sounds more like fascism.
Public-Private Partnerships: The Worst of Both Worlds - Block
If anything, again.. the problem is that way the state has "privatized". The method & the state are to blame. There are other methods of de-statization / de-socialization, that would lead to avoiding such entrapment. How familiar are you with them? It seems to me, you believe there is only one way? i.e that mentioned?
Conza88: Concession? Sounds more like fascism.
Concessions have been around long before fascism.
Conza88:Concession? Sounds more like fascism.
Stranger:Concessions have been around long before fascism.
"A concession is a special right or privilege that is given to someone."
You're not suggesting that the government / state grants rights, are you? ... I didn't think so.
Privilege, yes... and?
"the government still owns the road but gives it out to a private firm/individual to operate it and accrue all the benefits."
"Public – private partnerships (PPP) are thus part and parcel of both fascism and socialism; they constitute a partial state ownership of the means of production. As well, they are emblematic of fascism, and government is the senior partner, and its regulations still determine the actions of these public – private partnerships."
Bardhyl N. Salihu: Make no mistake, my situation is not hypothetical. I know houses back in my home country that have only one direct access to a road (without a possibility to build a way out on the other sides). If those roads were privatized and the owners decided to charge them exorbitant prices, these people would be severely damaged.
But would such form of privatisation really be just? Under libertarian theory it would not be. In the matter of privatisation of state factories in the Soviet Union Rothbard argued that they already have legitimate owners - the people who work in those factories and interact with them on a daily basis thus homesteading them. So a situation where such a factory would be privatised by being sold by the state to a millionaire owner could not be supported on natural rights grounds.
Block on the other hand asserts all public property (not just the parts you can mix your labour with) is unowned property and therefore viable to get homesteaded. The example he gives is a homeless person who takes refuge in a public library - he can not be rightfully ejected.
If we merge these two arguments does it not follow that the rightful owners of such a road are the people who use it daily and for whom it is critical? They - in the manner of the aforementioned library bum - homestead this public, and therefore unowned, road every day. So the only truly rightful privatisation is one where the state recognises their ownership of this road. Not one where it transfers its title to an unrelated 3rd entity.
Consider for example a case where the ownership of the sidewalk in front of your house is given to a politically connected businessman upon payment of a symbolic price to the state and a hefty bribe to an individual state official in charge of privatising sidewalks, would you feel like your sidewalk has been stolen from you? I think you would.
So this problem is a problem of imperfect privatisation rather than a problem of a fully libertarian privatisation.
Conza88: "Public – private partnerships (PPP) are thus part and parcel of both fascism and socialism; they constitute a partial state ownership of the means of production. As well, they are emblematic of fascism, and government is the senior partner, and its regulations still determine the actions of these public – private partnerships."
Much more older than fascism. This is in fact old-fashioned mercantilism and monopolism from as far back as the 16th century, maybe.
Fascism only covers the first half of the 20th century. You can't pin all evils on it.
Marko: But would such form of privatisation really be just? Under libertarian theory it would not be. In the matter of privatisation of state factories in the Soviet Union Rothbard argued that they already have legitimate owners - the people who work in those factories and interact with them on a daily basis thus homesteading them. So a situation where such a factory would be privatised by being sold by the state to a millionaire owner could not be supported on natural rights grounds. Block on the other hand asserts all public property (not just the parts you can mix your labour with) is unowned property and therefore viable to get homesteaded. The example he gives is a homeless person who takes refuge in a public library - he can not be rightfully ejected. If we merge these two arguments does it not follow that the rightful owners of such a road are the people who use it daily and for whom it is critical? They - in the manner of the aforementioned library bum - homestead this public, and therefore unowned, road every day. So the only truly rightful privatisation is one where the state recognises their ownership of this road. Not one where it transfers its title to an unrelated 3rd entity. Consider for example a case where the ownership of the sidewalk in front of your house is given to a politically connected businessman upon payment of a symbolic price to the state and a hefty bribe to an individual state official in charge of privatising sidewalks, would you feel like your sidewalk has been stolen from you? I think you would. So this problem is a problem of imperfect privatisation rather than a problem of a fully libertarian privatisation.
Now you just built another entrapment for yourself: you made an argument that the state cannot privatize roads. Let's take the example of my home country, again. Before there were no roads, simply small passages going through different people's properties. Then the government seized them (through eminent domain) to build the road. Now we all know that the road has not become the property of government, it's still individually owned in small pieces by the people whose lands were taken to build it. But the link to those people cannot be traced. According to your logic, we're stuck. The state cannot privatize something that doesn't rightfully belong to them, only the individual road owners can (their respective pieces of land). But how can we contact them for permission? This thing is around 100 years old now!
All we have here is a deadlock: a government that has control of the road, but under libertarian principles cannot privatize it because it does not rightfully own it. On the other hand, the rightful owners can't be found because the matter is done-and-dusted. Besides, this argument still doesn't deal with the "entrapment" problem because it does not specifically target the situation of a private road owner making it impossible for a person to use his road and therefore trapping him. It's more of a general ownership argument that leads to other problems, above all, that of privatizing the road in the first place.
You have a point with homesteading: the entrapped person did use the road before (while it was under government control, but not rightful ownership) and therefore has a legitimate access to the road. But so have millions of other users of the road, and this brings us to the question: who is the legitimate owner among all of them? This again, is a philosophical obstacle in way of privatization.
What you failed to realize in your argument is that saying the government isn't the legitimate owner of the road at the same time means that the government is in no position to privatize them.
Conza88: Bardhyl N. Salihu: Conza88, I'm thinking of a concession: the government still owns the road but gives it out to a private firm/individual to operate it and accrue all the benefits. Concession? Sounds more like fascism. Public-Private Partnerships: The Worst of Both Worlds - Block If anything, again.. the problem is that way the state has "privatized". The method & the state are to blame. There are other methods of de-statization / de-socialization, that would lead to avoiding such entrapment. How familiar are you with them? It seems to me, you believe there is only one way? i.e that mentioned?
I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with other alternatives. I'm still a newbie in Austro-libertarianism, working hard to learn as much as I can. The concession was simply a quick idea to solve the entrapment problem, it doesn't mean that I don't recognize another 99 problems that it will bring along. Please enlighten me with the other forms of de-statization / de-socialization.
Nor can it hinder any privatisation, though...
Jon Irenicus: What you failed to realize in your argument is that saying the government isn't the legitimate owner of the road at the same time means that the government is in no position to privatize them. Nor can it hinder any privatisation, though...
Of course it can. Read the example of my home country. There's no way on earth to find the legitimate land owners for permission in order to assume the full ownership of the road.
Bardhyl N. Salihu: Of course it can. Read the example of my home country. There's no way on earth to find the legitimate land owners for permission in order to assume the full ownership of the road.
However, you can find plenty of taxpayers who have been taxed all their lives to pay for the land improvements.
Stranger: However, you can find plenty of taxpayers who have been taxed all their lives to pay for the land improvements.
Bardhyl N. Salihu: You have a point with homesteading: the entrapped person did use the road before (while it was under government control, but not rightful ownership) and therefore has a legitimate access to the road. But so have millions of other users of the road, and this brings us to the question: who is the legitimate owner among all of them? This again, is a philosophical obstacle in way of privatization.
Millions of tax payers, millions of users - who's the rightful owner of them all?
if you believe that there is no legitimate owner 'among all of them' . Then it follows that the first homesteader of the unowned property becomes the legitimate owner, or does this not follow?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
Bardhyl N. Salihu: Millions of tax payers, millions of users - who's the rightful owner of them all?
All of them, but some more than others. For example, local roads and schools are paid for by the taxes of the city's taxpayers. That means the city taxpayers become the legitimate owners of the city. Whether or not it fully compensates for all they have been taxed is moot. They can liquidate their share for cash if they wish. As long as the government prevents the appropriation of the city that way, it continues the expropriation of the property owners.
The only way to achieve this, of course, is to break the power of the government to be the judge over disputes involving state property. Once other competing judges are in place, they can then rule over whom the property belongs to.
We are having the same discussion in another thread.
nirgrahamUK: if you believe that there is no legitimate owner 'among all of them' . Then it follows that the first homesteader of the unowned property becomes the legitimate owner, or does this not follow?
No homesteading can take place here because the road is already owned by someone: the many different people who previously owned the land parcels before they were forcefully taken away and transformed into a road. They are the legitimate owners of the road, not the people who travel or use it today.
Bardhyl N. Salihu: No homesteading can take place here because the road is already owned by someone: the many different people who previously owned the land parcels before they were forcefully taken away and transformed into a road. They are the legitimate owners of the road, not the people who travel or use it today.
Small correction: roads don't come from many different land parcels, but from one large one that is subdivided into smaller ones accessible from roads. There are no "original owners" who have been expropriated except the original land developer.
Stranger: Bardhyl N. Salihu: No homesteading can take place here because the road is already owned by someone: the many different people who previously owned the land parcels before they were forcefully taken away and transformed into a road. They are the legitimate owners of the road, not the people who travel or use it today. Small correction: roads don't come from many different land parcels, but from one large one that is subdivided into smaller ones accessible from roads. There are no "original owners" who have been expropriated except the original land developer.
Check out this example. All the square and rectangular shapes are land parcels, and the big, long rectangle in the middle (with ticker border-lines) is the newly-built road. The government has built the road inbetween the parcels and by "biting" parts of them. This is how roads are built. Now the road may be in control of the government, but it's still partially owned by these previous land owners. So there are many different original owners who have been expropriated.
Bardhyl N. Salihu:No homesteading can take place here because the road is already owned by someone:
contradicts your implication that there are no legitimate owners.
nirgrahamUK: Bardhyl N. Salihu:No homesteading can take place here because the road is already owned by someone: contradicts your implication that there are no legitimate owners.
Haha. No legitimate owners among those many. As in, "which of you owns how much of the road?" This isn't an issue for me, because again, there are already-defined rightful, original owners. I simply raised this question in regard to the argument of "taxpayers and users" as homesteaders.
Bardhyl N. Salihu:Check out this example. All the square and rectangular shapes are land parcels, and the big, long rectangle in the middle (with ticker border-lines) is the newly-built road. The government has built the road inbetween the parcels and by "biting" parts of them. This is how roads are built.
I know how roads are built. Your graphic is not proof of anything.
Stranger: Bardhyl N. Salihu:Check out this example. All the square and rectangular shapes are land parcels, and the big, long rectangle in the middle (with ticker border-lines) is the newly-built road. The government has built the road inbetween the parcels and by "biting" parts of them. This is how roads are built. I know how roads are built. Your graphic is not proof of anything.
Why would you claim roads are only built by taking land off one owner? The graphic is not mean as a proof, it's an example of a case where more than one land parcel owner is expropriated when a road is built - which is the case 99% of the time.
Bardhyl N. Salihu:The graphic is not mean as a proof, it's an example of a case where more than one land parcel owner is expropriated when a road is built - which is the case 99% of the time.
You're horribly misinformed. 99% of the time roads are built by land developers selling off lots, the other 1% the various transport ministries are expropriating their way through a single parcel to run a highway.
All the county roads in the American land grant grid, for example, where there before the land was sold off by the government. They weren't expropriated from anyone.
Seems whether Bardhyl is right about that would vary by location and population density.
Why anarchy fails
Bardhyl N. Salihu:No legitimate owners among those many. As in, "which of you owns how much of the road?" This isn't an issue for me, because again, there are already-defined rightful, original owners. I simply raised this question in regard to the argument of "taxpayers and users" as homesteaders.
I have no idea what you are saying, you are presenting contradicitons.
on the one hand "No legitimate owners among those many"
on the other "there are already-defined rightful, original owners"
Stranger: Bardhyl N. Salihu:The graphic is not mean as a proof, it's an example of a case where more than one land parcel owner is expropriated when a road is built - which is the case 99% of the time. You're horribly misinformed. 99% of the time roads are built by land developers selling off lots, the other 1% the various transport ministries are expropriating their way through a single parcel to run a highway. All the county roads in the American land grant grid, for example, where there before the land was sold off by the government. They weren't expropriated from anyone.
Maybe that's the case in U.S. at a time when the land was in abundance and there were few owners of land, but that certainly isn't the case in my country where there were many small rural owners when the first roads were built.
The discussion has gone astray and away from the main problem. I have yet to see a convincing solution to it.