Political Theory

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Conservative-Libertarian — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 04:21:06 GMT

I'm not necessarily for (or against) privatizing public roads and bridges.

If it was to be done though, there would have to be some mechanism from preventing using government as a thug to flip land from one private entity to another.

Suggestions:

*No public land can be distributed to private individuals after X(long) amount of years.

*Former owner of land has first priority to purchase road. If they cannot afford it to purchase it, they can receive X amount of profits.

*If former owner is dead, profits for relatives can be created on a scaled basis.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Minarchist — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 22:39:11 GMT

who ought to own the bridges currently owned by the government?

Whoever places the highest bid at auction, then distribute the proceeds on a pro rata basis to taxpayers as restitution.

I don't think homesteading in this case is practical or ethical. If you steal $1000 from me and use it to build some structure, is it just to then let some third party homestead it? No, it was my money, it's my structure. Since in the case of public infrastructure there are multiple claimants, the property ought to be sold and the proceeds distributed proportionally.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

cab21 — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 23:53:02 GMT

if someone voted for funding of a bridge, would they get money back as well if that route was take, seeing as they did vote for the taxes and they did vote for the bridge. i still don't see how people can vote yes and be a victom to the yes vote at the same time, the could have not voted.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Jargon — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 23:47:58 GMT

You AnCaps just want all the roads to be monopolized so that good decent hard-working folks have to pay 1000$ just to get somewhere!

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Anenome — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 23:27:23 GMT

Jack Roberts:

The same question could be asked for all the "public" assets. Would the state not just auction off all its assets in the event of a libertarian takeover? The question then would be what happens to all the money that the state ends up with after auctioning off all their bridges, road etc.

Not quite, I think the way to go would be to have the state hand over its assets to a trustee while claims on property are sorted out, then an auction can be handled by an auctioneering company or the like.

The money should then be used to pay back the people who were appropriated to pay for those things, as best as can be determined.

To the guy who said something to the effect of "good luck tracking all those people down" it's really not that difficult. You publicize the fact that there's no more X-county government, those who've paid taxes to X-county government can establish their claim via public record, tax records, etc. Some clearly paid more taxes than others. You set a reasonable date for the end of filing of claims, say three years. People who miss the deadline are locked out.

It's not going to be quick or easy to disburse the ill-gotten property of the state, but that's not to say that there's not rational ways to go about it, and reasonable claims existant on that property based on who actually paid for it.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Jack Roberts — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:55:33 GMT

The same question could be asked for all the "public" assets. Would the state not just auction off all its assets in the event of a libertarian takeover? The question then would be what happens to all the money that the state ends up with after auctioning off all their bridges, road etc.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

HabbaBabba — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:51:55 GMT

Yeah, that's all well and good for Mother Goose stories, but it's not how things go down. Ever hear people talk about how cash is untraceable? That's what they mean.
But go ahead. Try and tell business owners negotiating over disputed property to just stop and wait about 14 years while you trace people down that have live there in the last 212 years since the bridge was built. Or a bank that all that money is all of ours. They'll give it up, I'm sure.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Anenome — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:46:13 GMT

No, the principle is that if a thief takes your money and buys an apple with it, what should be done with the apple when the thief is caught.

At the very least, it should be given to him whose money was taken.

It's ridiculous to think your claim to value stolen from you should end just because the thief bought something with it. The person stolen from certainly has a better claim on the stolen goods by virtue of having their own money spent on it by the thief than to assume that it's abandoned property and open for appropriation by all.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

HabbaBabba — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:33:22 GMT

The flaw there is, their money was stolen. Not their bridge. The money is long gone. Sorry you got ripped off but that was yesterday's system. And yesterday, it was totally legit.

A bank account is property of the bank. In any case of claim of loss, the burden of proof that you were damaged, is on you. It cannot be proven. Thus arbitrarily handing property out by some fictitious boundary, and a fictitious percentage. All of which is eaten in the process of determining what that percentage and boundary was by the way.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Anenome — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:21:59 GMT

HabbaBabba:

How is it not unowned? The government owns it now.

The government's ownership is illegitimate. It had paid for a bridge from money it has stolen from others. The question of ownership when the current owner is removed from the equation is a question of whom has the best claim on that property. It is only just that those whom were forced to pay for that bridge should have the highest claim to it so that they can try to reclaim at least some of the wealth appropriated from them in order to build it.

In a similar way, if the government taxed people that year and failed to spend any of the money before it was disbanded, we would not say that the bank account with all the funds in it is now suddenly unowned and open to appropriation by anyone at all. We should instead say that the money should be divvied back out to those who paid into it by force.

A bridge is no different than that bank account, it's just the account has been spent on the bridge. Since that money was never legitimately the government's, neither was the bridge. It was actually owned by those who paid for it, but government had used force to prevent their claim from taking force.

HabbaBabba:
If they go away, then nobody owns it. Everyone has a chance to own it at whatever proportion they want it at. Remember, it is as of now perfectly legal for government to not only steal, but to own property. You don't have a claim to the road jsut because you live there. It is arbitrary, as arbitrary as the boundaries you wish to use. No single tax dollar can be traced toward anything.

I disagree. It may impossible to completely and correctly compensate those who've been stolen from by the government, that doesn't mean all government property is suddenly up for grabs if it goes away. Those people whose wealth were taken to pay for those things have the highest claim, even if you can't prove what exactly it was spent on. The answer is to give proportional ownership over everything. And it's quite likely that once you'd given everyone who claimed one a proportional claim that all that property would be liquidated to pay people back as best as possible.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

HabbaBabba — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:57:41 GMT

How is it not unowned? The government owns it now. If they go away, then nobody owns it. Everyone has a chance to own it at whatever proportion they want it at. Remember, it is as of now perfectly legal for government to not only steal, but to own property. You don't have a claim to the road jsut because you live there. It is arbitrary, as arbitrary as the boundaries you wish to use. No single tax dollar can be traced toward anything.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Anenome — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:49:31 GMT

HabbaBabba:

It goes back to the same principle. In order to claim ownership of something, you actually have to claim ownership of something. Applying ownership to everyone inside an arbitrary radius is just communism. Unowned property can be staked by anyone.

Again, this is within the context of supposing the world suddenly capitulated to libertarianism and asked us how to dispose of public property.

If I say the bridge rightfully belongs to those who paid for it, and we should make a corporation and give each shares in it and run the bridge for profit from there. That does not say anything about the mechanism of achieving that.

Probably you'd begin by putting the word out in newspapers and internet. Create a claims-website for people to put in claims, ask them for details of how long they've lived there, figure out a "tax multiplier" where you could translate taxes paid into shares owned.

It would be a mess, but my point about the principle that people who paid for it should own it is that, that should guide the process. A bridge is not immediately unowned just because the government went away. Nor is this an "arbitrary radius" as you say. There's nothing arbitrary about figuring out how much everyone paid for it and offering everyone a chance to own it to that proportion.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

HabbaBabba — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:15:12 GMT

It goes back to the same principle. In order to claim ownership of something, you actually have to claim ownership of something. Applying ownership to everyone inside an arbitrary radius is just communism. Unowned property can be staked by anyone.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

gotlucky — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:15:24 GMT

I see what you did there.

Re: who ought to own bridges currently owned by government?

Anenome — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 10:30:31 GMT

Yeah, it's a point. Cross that bridge when we come to it :P