Political Theory

Re: a volunteer society and cul-de-sac neighborhoods

grant.w.underwood — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:54:29 GMT

I would asume in a volunteer society the only property you own is one that physically use and maintain. So the flow of pipes or land under your house isn't your property it's the utility companies property. The pipes that you own are where the pipes connect to your home and in your home.

Re: a volunteer society and cul-de-sac neighborhoods

Autolykos — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 14:34:52 GMT

cab21:
so when houses have utilities such as power lines, water pipes, and sewage pipes connected, in ancap or the volunteer government where people can secede at will, is one house allowed to remove the utilities from it's property effectively cutting the chain of power and water to the other houses in chain creating a Swiss cheese society. at most i can see a contract where people have to agree that they cannot do this if they buy the property and must move out if they do not want to live by the rules of the contract. i'm not sure how things would shift from current government to that kind of setup though. would it mean a company could buy the power lines and water pipes and then refuse to sell power or water to the cul-de-sac forcing them to get power and water by other means or move?

with natural monopolies such as utilities and private property, what materials are out there on how this would work when one person wants to disconnect and that person is part of a chain?

http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/Cul-de-sac-2.jpg

First off, an anarcho-capitalist or voluntaryist society has no government. Second, utility companies may well have easements over people's property - in which case the property owners wouldn't be allowed to remove the pipes, cables, etc. from their properties.

I think you should ask yourself why a company would buy power lines and/or water pipes only to refuse to sell power and/or water to people. How would that help its business?

Re: a volunteer society and cul-de-sac neighborhoods

Elric — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:52:05 GMT

If they tear up the sidewalk in front of their house doesn't mean people will stop using an alreay assumed path. If the utilities were already in place I believe you would be aggressing against those that already use the easement.

Re: a volunteer society and cul-de-sac neighborhoods

Phi est aureum — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:50:43 GMT

Well, remember that the utilities are not natural monopolies. Government granted monopolies they are.

Anyways, I would imagine that yes, there could be contracts saying that if one agrees to use service, one may not impede the flow of service to others, kind of like with rivers (you cannot dam the flow, flooding property upstream and drying the river downstream). But the system could also be designed so that the outlets to any house could be capped, so to speak, so anyone is free to stop using the service without the need to impede others' use. One would not be able to destroy the system, since it is likely not owned by them. A neighborhood might collectively decide to own such a system, which wouldn't allow one member to impede others from using it.

Also, as far as a company refusing to sell utilities: although this seems unlikely to me, as why would anyone invest money to buy such property and then refuse to sell (there would be no point in investing in the capital), if this did happen, consider they do not own the land. So the citizens of this neighborhood could simply require that the ownership of such system requires the selling of the service. That is, don't buy the pipes if you don't plan on providing water service to the landowners, or be forced by said landowners to remove the pipes, at your own expense.

No one knows exactly how it will work, how the market will find the solution, but it will. Kind of like how no one knew how a pencil would get made, but market made it happen.

a volunteer society and cul-de-sac neighborhoods

cab21 — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:12:28 GMT

so when houses have utilities such as power lines, water pipes, and sewage pipes connected, in ancap or the volunteer government where people can secede at will, is one house allowed to remove the utilities from it's property effectively cutting the chain of power and water to the other houses in chain creating a Swiss cheese society. at most i can see a contract where people have to agree that they cannot do this if they buy the property and must move out if they do not want to live by the rules of the contract. i'm not sure how things would shift from current government to that kind of setup though. would it mean a company could buy the power lines and water pipes and then refuse to sell power or water to the cul-de-sac forcing them to get power and water by other means or move?

with natural monopolies such as utilities and private property, what materials are out there on how this would work when one person wants to disconnect and that person is part of a chain?

http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/Cul-de-sac-2.jpg