In a capitalist economy, it is known that the most productive owner of a capital good is the owner willing to big the highest to own that good. (His productivity with the good and his ability to protect capital are both expressed by his willingness to bid high.) If the good was previously privately-owned, the previous owner is rewarded for his sale of the good and production of it by receiving payment. However, when it comes to a sale of public property into private ownership, no previous owner has a claim to having produced the good. The question then is who deserves the reward.
There are several individuals and groups of individuals who will want to bid for the good. All therefore express a desire and an aptitude proportional to their bid. The old Roman road conflict can resolve the problem. Two chariots run into each other on a one-lane road, and one must yield to the other. The problem is resolved by bidding for the right to pass first. The high bidder pays the other to yield to him. The yielder is compensated for his inconvenience.
How would this solution be adapted to privatization? A third party auctionneer must take anonymous bids from individuals and groups of individuals for the public property, and the bids must be deposited before the winner is revealed to show that the bidders are willing to assume the risk of owning the property (this is to eliminate free riders). Once the auction is over the winner is revealed and the losing bids are refunded along with a proportional share of the winning bid. The winner becomes the owner of the property.
Suppose, for example, that the Postal Service goes on sale. The bids are 6 billion from Federal Express, 4 billion from Deutsche Post and 2 billion from a joint-stock company of Postal Service employees and other investors. Federal Express gets the Postal Service, DP gets its 4 billion back plus 4 billion from Federal Express, and the employees and investors get 2 billion back and 2 billion from Federal Express.
This might work - if there’s no legitimate owner before. But you have argued previously that the government is a legitimate owner. Others have argued that the workers are entitled to the property. Others think the taxpayers are. Don’t we need to answer this question first?
I like the idea behind this, but I have one question - what about those who are wealthy due to ill-gotten gains (e.g. politicians)? Should they be allowed to bid as well? I don’t see why they should have much of a role in any of this.
If there is no previous owner, it should be homesteaded, just like any other resource with no owner; but if you’re talking about a state-owned company like the postal service, the people who work there have effectively homesteaded it already, so they already are the legitimate owners.
Things like parks and other property are easy. I find difficulty with such things as waste disposal systems, electric transmission systems, water treatment and distribution systems, roads and highways. As much as I hate to think this I do believe the only way to resolve this issue is to allow the State to sell “ownership” of these things to whoever would buy them. Some of you are going to say “that can’t happen because the State doesn’t legitimately own anything” but how else do you do it? How do you homestead water lines and sewage pipes? How do you homestead roads since you aren’t going to be the only one using them?
I don’t see the problem with water and sewage pipes - you can perhaps argue over what part of the pipe is owned by the homeowner and what part by the water supply/sewage disposal company, but there’s not much room there (we’re talking a few feet of pipe, not the majority of the network) - the company itself has already been homesteaded by its employees. Roads may be a bit different, since there’s not usually a “road company” to consider; but probably initial ownership should go to those who maintain them at the moment - the guys who lay the asphalt, paint the lines, etc., on any given section of road.
You should abolish the Federal government so that federal holdings default to local(or State) control, that allows for decentralized privization. Of course, it would be impossible for all levels and types of government in every part of America to collapse at once. Privization will depend on how the market comes to replace government.
I am completely against the idea that USPS employees own the USPS. Government employees are not productive members of society, I see no reason why we should further reward Government Employees and further exploit tax payers, which is what gifting the USPS to the mailman would do.
Of course, giving the USPS to the employees is not even a solution. The USPS can not operate without tax subsidizes, so it would instantly close down. Making employees the owners is only going result in them getting a payment from the liquidation of its assets. Something they certainly do not deserve, as they have already been compmensated for their labor. The employees did nothing more than sell their labor, the people who bought that labor are the real owners.
Following this employee ownership logic, the Army’s resources should be handed out to Pentagon employees. Nonsense.
False. Local municiples should be incorporated and all customers should be shareholders. They were the ones that built the network after all.
This is the most pratical and the most just solution.
Neighborhood roads could be owned by the neighbor hood collectively as a corporation, or each home could own the road in front of their house with an easement. Depends on what the homeowners want.
Highways should probably be sold to the highest bidder. City roads would depend on how they came into existance. Some would probably belong to however built the road, likely the landlord of a shopping center.
It seems common for anarchists’ attitudes toward State property to be influenced by modern conservativism’s stigma against state welfare. Modern Conservatism looks down on anyone who extracts wealth from the State.
Because the State is incapable of owning property does not mean State property is unowned. All the money that the State holds is actually still owned by the people who it was taken from. It is not aggression for a tax payer to demand the return of his wealth from the State, even if it is no longer liquid.
If a thief takes your money and uses it to buy a car, you can’t get your money back but you can take the car.
Tax payers can’t take back tax money that was spent on wages for government employees, but they do own anything created through that labor.
Actually, that’s very much wrong. The USPS is the ONLY part of the federal government that isn’t supported by the taxpayers. For the past decade the USPS has run a surplus in revenue. It is the only agency that is completely self-funded. Now, that might not be so true in the future. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (P.L.109-435) really kind of screwed the USPS. Before the law they were looking at a $1 billion surplus but after the law was passed they saw a loss of something like $5.4 billion. We can’t blame this one on the USPS though. Congress is the critter that screwed that. Congress also cut into their business by raising the rates causing people to change their mailing habits. That made business fall short of what it was in 2006. If it hadn’t been for the rate change and the new law the USPS would have seen multi-billion dollar surpluses. If it weren’t for Congress passing P.L.109-435 the USPS wouldn’t have had an additional $6.8 billion expense thrust upon them. This is of course not a defense of the USPS or its monopoly but I am merely pointing out the fallacy of your statement.
Which government employees? Only people who are doing something that would not be done at all under freedom are entirely “useless eaters”; many government employees - teachers, police, postal workers - only work for the government because the government has essentially monopolized that particular area. Rothbard worked for the state!
Who “bought that labor”? If you mean whoever actually paid them, that’s the government, in which case you’re saying the government is the legitimate owner and you have no complaint with statism. If you mean the customers, that “logic” can be applied to all private businesses and you’re supporting communism [:)]
No, not to Pentagon employees - they haven’t done any “homesteading” of those resources - they’re just an arm of the state apparatus controlling them now; the people who actually homestead them - by actually maintaining them, etc.
Actually, your “the workers own the means of production,” which is derived from the labor theory of value, is the closest thing to Marxism I’ve seen so far on this forum. I wasn’t going to point it out until you demonstrated a lack of understanding of what really is “communism.”
Now being anti-manager is communism. Maintaining an item is not any more of a legitimate labor than is managing their use. Managers are not “exploiters”, they are workers.
It’s not a “workers own the means of production” thing - I wouldn’t expect the ownership to stay there very long, and it’s exactly the same argument Rothbard made.
I don’t think it would instantly collapse. There is nothing to suggest that it would since it does not rely on taxpayer dollars to fund it like other government entities. If anything is possible it is more than likely that it would thrive because it is now freed of government controls and regulations that place limits on its business activities. If it were not for the change in law the USPS would have seen a several billion dollar surplus. I do think, however, that over time as more competitors set up you’d see more pressure being placed on USPS. But it would have one competitive edge in that its infrastructure is already built.
I believe in time regular mail service will disappear anyway. The only mail I get is junk mail and letters from creditors. All of my bills are paid online, I correspond through email, I send packages through FedEx and if I need to get a copy of something to someone I can either fax it or scan it and email it to them. Paper letters will eventually die and go the way of telegraphs and we’d be left with an organization that focuses on delivering packages. Which is much better anyway because you don’t need all of that infrastructure so you can reduce your overhead cost.
I think what this debate shows is that it is really not known who the legitimate owner of public property is, whether it is employees, customers, taxpayers, or whoever else. And the big concern is not so much finding who is the biggest victim, but who is most likely to protect the capital goods. After all, we are interested in promoting economic welfare and not settling disputes of government agents. What good is giving the Postal Service to its employees if it shuts down from bankruptcy the next day? It would be bought out by a more solid company and the employees would get a small compensation, which is exactly the same result as the auction system.
It is irrelevant how they have gotten their wealth. What matters is that they are accountable to it. If they risk their wealth on a bid, it is because they believe themselves to be competent to run the business. If they are not, they will lose their wealth.
Such a decision implies your ownership of the USPS. If the USPS is more valuable as multiple companies, its new owners would break it up and spin off the divisions as independent companies.