This is an austrian economics forum. I expect you to properly understand the austrian definition of monopoly before objecting.
This is exactly the problem.
Clearly the state is not going to go through this process and then just cease to exist. They’re not going to just willingly sell off all their stuff and then cease to exist and cease to continue to function as states and cease to enforce laws. States don’t just willingly dissolve themselves, sell off everything and then take a permanent vacation.
The goal of libertarians is not to change the law but to take away the monopoly on it.
The law, as it currently exists, is a perversion of justice. Surely you’ve read your Bastiat, haven’t you? It does not establish proper action in society. It is created and enforced through improper action. And I do not advocate theft from just owners. The state is not a just owner of anything. That you even have the conviction to argue that “they are acting from what civil society expects of them” astounds me. Such an argument is a blatant legitimizations of the state.
You seem to be taking a very conservative position on law here, as if because “it’s the law” it must be just and/or it must be obeyed. I don’t support obedience to unjust laws. Ever hear of civil disobedience?
What you advocate fits the austrian definition of monopoly, for what you advocate is an exclusive state privilege to a single private institution over a territory, a city, a county, goods and services, and so on.
Decentralization is a problem? Since when? Since when is different groups in competition a problem compared to one central group exclusively controling something?
One singular collective controling the entire thing is what would lead to a tragedy of the commons. A whole bunch of different individuals and groups exclusively controlling their own portions autonamously would not.
I don’t know about you, but I prefer multiple, independant and separate private entities to control stuff to one single private entity controlling stuff. The latter scenario represents “private” centralization. I don’t believe that centralization in the “private” sector is necessarily any better then centralization in the “public” sector.
Changing the law towards justice is precisely the purpose of abolishing the monopoly on justice.
What I hate most about the open borders people is their self-righteousness. It is irrelevant what you think of the law’s justice. People still behave in accordance with the law, and to declare that what they are doing is really illegal in your view means going to war on them. You’re not going to win if you fight everybody. We’ve had enough war anyway.
You’re going much farther than civil disobedience, you are imposing a new standard of law on other people. It is your right to disobey unjust laws, but not to punish the people who obey them, for example, by depending on government-controlled properties for their wellbeing, which you want to destroy.
What do you mean it’s irrelevant what I think of the law’s justice? Libertarianism holds the law and the status quo up to an independant standard of justice. It does not accept the law for the sake of it, as conservatism does. People do not uniformly behave in accordance with the law, there are acts of civil disobedience and black/grey market activity that goes on all the time. I’m not declaring that what people are doing is “illegal” (isn’t that what you’re doing with respect to “illegal immigration”?), I’m declaring that what the state is doing is unjust despite it being “legal”. I’m not advocating fighting everybody. I don’t know where you implied that.
I’m imposing a new standard of law on other people? How? By advocating that currently existing laws be done away with? By advocating non-intervention in the labor market and with respect to the migration of people? Where did I ever advocate punishing people who obey laws? And of course I want to destroy government control over property. That’s exactly why I oppose state-defined borders, which by definition is government control over property.
Brainpolices are from Venus and Strangers are from Mars.
I guess I did misunderstand you. But it’s obvious that a city can be privatized “in chunks.” Random chunks wouldn’t work very well, as you illustrate by talking about “Linden Street and a handful of parking spaces,” but there’s no reason that the subway and garbage collection must be kept together as a package deal. Splitting them up in fact makes the most sense every way you look at it.
–Len.
Such a judgement is not informed by economic calculation and, since it will be imposed by force, is socialism.
I think you’re taking more of a “Constitutionalist” approach (more state rights - Amendment X).
I find it hard myself what kind of immigration policy I would like as an anarchist. I mean, if there were no government, communities bound by social contracts would be able to deny any “immigrants” they don’t want for whatever reason.
However, I think that currently I would support stricter immigration policies against Latin American, African, and many Asian nations while supporting a much, much looser policy for East Asians and most Europeans. Or if we have too much outcry against “racism” with that plan, why not reinstate the IQ test requirement?
Dunno, I don’t think it’s fair to have a uniting immigration policy for all of USA or even an individual state. It would be better to have such policies decided on a case-by-case basis by communities, not an external all-powerful force.
I don’t see how your own judgement is any more informed by economic calculation.
I don’t propose to reassign property rights.
We propose to allow homesteading of unowned property. This is fun, John Locke the communist.
Neither do I. I propose to eliminate unjust property claims. The state has no property rights.
Of course, current assignments of property titles are not compatible with a libertarian theory of property rights.
Keeping “property rights” the way are certainly is no change.
Homesteading is the proper principle to arbitrate conflicts over previously-unowned resources. Everyone agrees on that.
It provides absolutely no insight over conflicts concerning government-owned property, despite your fantasy that such a thing cannot exist.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “economic calculation” in this context. “Every way you look at it” covers a lot of ground. For starters, it’s harder to sell something as an all-or-nothing package deal, so from the seller’s perspective it’s better to parcel out. The seller also stands to make considerably more money that way. The buyer of a subway system probably has some business dealing in trains, and doesn’t want to also operate the parks and the garbage dump, so the buyer is much happier buying only the parts he wants.
And on a meta level, subdividing maximizes the benefit from division of labor. Forcing cops to collect garbage, and bus drivers to plan road construction, is idiotic. Roads for road experts; garbage dumps to sanitation professionals; that’s a recipe for efficient allocation of resources.
“It will be imposed by force”? I really don’t know what you’re referring to. If the municipality decides to sell its buildings, I DO see an element of force there: the buildings were stolen in the first place, so we’re describing a fencing operation. If there’s no other way to divest the criminals of their booty, we might decide to hold our noses and tolerate that. But whether there is one buyer or fifty has nothing to do with coercion. How is it coercive to sell my house to one person, and my car to another, yet not coercive to sell both to the same person?
If you mean that privatization takes “public” resources “forcibly” away from the “public,” then you’re inverting the meanings of words. “Public” property is stolen property. It belongs to those from whom it was originally stolen. If the original owners or their heirs cannot be located, the property is unowned and available for homesteading–but the thief who stole it in the first place is disqualified from homesteading it because his hands aren’t clean.
–Len.
Ah, the penny has dropped. You really do believe that the government legitimately owns property?
Cool. So if I steal your property, it becomes mine! And if you try to take it back, I can shoot you in self-defense. After all, it’s my property now…
–Len.
That is not the law as the mainstream of the population understands it.
It is not your property. You do not have any insight on what the efficiency of the allocation of resources is in each and every case of every municipal enterprise in the country. You are just guessing, which is why it is not economic.
I am referring to the fact that you claim to know how a property that isn’t yours ought to be reorganized.
So the hell what? The mainstream of the population of Germany once understood the law to be that Jews should be rounded up and killed. The mainstream of the population of many Muslim countries understand the law to be that the penalty for being raped is to be stoned. The fundamental premise of libertarianism is that there is a higher standard by which human laws may be judged legitimate or illegitimate.
If being legal is sufficient justification, then what are we even talking about? The only question left to as is, are you voting for McCain or Obama?
–Len.
There’s that “inverting the meaning of words again.” When I point out that privatization into a free market will most likely involve many owners dividing the various functions, you call it central planning. When you advocate passing the whole shooting match to a single owner, though… that’s something else again.
There are infinitely many ways to privatize. You’ve picked exactly ONE: giving the whole thing to a single guy, lock stock and barrel. I’ve picked all the rest, namely every approach that doesn’t involve a single owner. And I’m the central-planner type who thinks he knows just how a city should be run. You’ve got some important vocabulary completely upside down.
–Len.
The hell what is that there is a material reality to the universe, and pretending otherwise is not rational. If you start building yourself a house in a public park on the grounds that it should be homesteadable by anyone because, obviously, if the government taxed it, it is no longer property, the next thing that is going to happen is that a bulldozer will visit you and you will be taken to jail, and no one will take up your side because they will all think you are crazy and they enjoy going to the park.
The point therefore is that you can fight to take their park away in which case you will be crushed, or you can let them keep the park so long as the law is changed such that there can no longer be any takings from then on. (Keep in mind granting ownership of the city to the people that control it is perfectly compatible with the notion of homesteading since they are, after all, using it as much as anyone else.) You can fight over property or over justice. The Jacobins are obsessed over reorganizing property.
If you are deciding how a property ought to be privatized, then you have already appropriated it for yourself.