I wonder how to prevent free riding from taking place in a market anarchist society. Given coercion is immoral, an individual should not be obliged to pay for a given service, but given the nature of police service, military defense and even roads, that individual is going to take advantage anyway. This justifies the use of coertion in certain cases? How is this justified by anarchists?
defense would be handled by private contractors. if you’re not one of their clients expect them to ignore you when **** goes down.
Interstate, or inter-county roads would probably be tolled. intra-state or county roads would probably have fees that are part of the contract for living there in the first place (like homeowners taxes now).
No.
If a certain thing can not be withheld from the public, then it is not a good. A classic non-good is air. Its available free to all. The fact that no one is making a profit off the consumption of air is not a “failure.”
But your examples, “police service, military defense and even roads”, do not fall into that category. An individual can be denied police and military protection and can be banned from roads.
Even if they ignore you when **** goes down, they are taking advantage. Suppose you live in a neighbourhood where they contract several private officers. After that action, that neighbourhood will be much more safe. The probability of a crime in that neighbourhood will drop, lets say, to almost zero. That client took advantage of the situation.
There is no such thing that is entirely non-excludable and non-rival. And if there was it would be because the State’s geographical monopoly makes it so.
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historically all the services we consider public are not really so public after all, they were all provided voluntarily at some point in time.
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No, coersion is never justified
David Z has some good stuff on public goods:
http://www.nothirdsolution.com/2007/09/26/public-goods-1906/
http://www.nothirdsolution.com/2007/04/25/fire-protection-as-a-public-good/
/ blog plug
And remember what Rothbard said: “the free rider did not ask for his ride”. Why should we force him to pay for something he never asked for or may not even want?
Well, according to that quotation from Rothbard, I can assume that society should leave the free rider get all the advantages without paying?
I believe that position would be viable if there are only a few free riders in a, lets say, neighbourhood, but there can be so many that the service will never be implemented at all.
Here I am not talking about competition, rivalry, exclusion, or private / public ownership of the service. What I am asking is how will society prevent individuals from free riding, taking in account that free riding occurs when they DO benefit of the service even not paying at all. You can disconnect him from the road, policemen would not protect him, and so on, but he is beneficiating anyway. You should also put him in a society’s black list, boycott him, but he didn’t do anything wrong, he only doesn’t want to pay for that service.
people who want to pay for certain services would probably have gated communities and not let people sponge off them.
That is not a solution. Suppose a person lives in that gated community and one day he decides that is not worth paying for the protection service any more.
Lets say I buy a house in disrepair and fix it up. The house had previously lowered the property values of its neighbors,because of its unsightliness. But now that it is on level with the rest of houses on the block, property values have risen for everyone. Can I now coercive payment from all my neighbors for the entire amount that their property value has risen? Clearly these people are “free riders” benefitting from my labor.
The answer is, of course, no. These people never agreed to pay me to fix up the house, so have no obligation to pay me for my labor.
You went wrong in assuming intrinsic value, but value is subjective.
The only moral price for a good or service is one mutually agreed upon. Since no price was agreed upon the only moral price is no price.
That would be a matter of contract. Each gated community would have their own way of dealing with the property that is public between the several houses(gates, roads, pool, etc).
So that scenario has nothing to do with forcing people to pay for a service they never agreed to pay for.
the gated community would hit upon the idea of owning the gated community jointly and working together to further the best interests of the entire community. BAM back to collectivism.
you can’t kill them. They’ll immediately spring back up even if you instituted ideal anarchy tomorrow. and they will slowly start assimilating others. that is the nature of collectivism. I honestly don’t think humans can win unless we gain mastery over the environment or self-modify our brains.
You need to be more specific with your question.
The market is not absolutely efficient. It is just way more efficient than the state.
Homeless people in our current society pretty much get to free ride off of government “services”. So what?
Many services would probably be provided for by charities in a stateless society. Or people would just be charitable, just like they are today. Most doctors observing someone dying will probably try to help them, with no expectation of compensation.
As to “defense”, I do not think there would even be a need for such a thing in a stateless society. Except for the revolutionary war in the U.S., every other military action has been unnecessary or provoked, as far as I know.
As to “police protection” if you do not pay for the protection, you probably will not get it.
Again though, you need to be more specific.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
The difference between property jointly owned between individuals and property made public by the state is that individuals tend to resolve disputes peacefully(think business partnership) unlike state property. Why this is so is appearent in the way these properties came to be shared, two businessmen enter into partnership throught mutual consent but governments cause property to be made public through thievery and violence.
I was just wondering how would individuals feel the necessity to pay for those services that benefits everyone in that society. Free riding is not a problem when there are few individuals, but there are many that know that they can get advantage of the service which is being paid by everyone else, without having to contribute themselves. This is actually a problem when individuals join to decide if certain service should be implemented, because if some people don’t pay, the came costs will be distributed among less people, with chances of not implementing the service at all.
Thanks for the plug!
Earlier today, I also published Who Are the Real Free Riders?
You might also like Public Goods Do Not Justify Taxes:
That a good happens to be “public” in nature says nothing about whether that good ought to be produced, or in what quantities it should be produced (if at all). The “public” nature of certain goods is not enough, in its own right to justify as a moral imperative, the taxes used to provide for their production, since, by virtue of the good’s “public”-ness, we can’t deduce that it must be provided
insurance and contractual requirements might mitigate a lot of this “free rider” problem. E.g., your insurance policy (which protects you from burglars and fires and hurricanes) also protects you from foreign invasion. Your mortgage company requires your property to be insured, etc. An employer might require that you carry a certain amount of coverage with certain qualities, etc.,
I think that the demise of the state and the subsequent rise of true communities, of mutual aid societies, etc., would put an end to most of the “free rider” problem.
Also, I think there is a lot of room for research on the topic of Dominant Assurance contracts, which AFAIK was put forth a few years ago by Tyler Cowen.
Which is a great post, and goes nicely with our recent discussion here about Hoppe’s class theory.
The provider has the option not to provide the service. Or to provide it regardless and perhaps ask for remuneration for it on a purely voluntary basis. Perhaps individuals who do not contribute will be subjected to social sanctions. What the provider has no right to do is coerce nonconsenting parties to pay for the services. If they try this, like present governments do, one has every right in the world to violently oppose them, whether it’s a PDA, a civilian’s militia or whatever else it is.
Generally firms will avail themselves of defence services, the cost of which they will at least in part pass on to their consumers, reducing the number of possible free-riders greatly.
Read this and this on public goods.
Also, don’t underestimate social ostracization. If someone isn’t contributing like most others think they should, they may be looked down upon or even banned from participating in some aspects of the market. If a guy isn’t paying for security services, the store down the road might not do business with them. You’d be surprised how much social pressure can change one’s behavior. Imagine working in a factory or as a mechanic and wearing a pink tutu to work.
I fail to see how owners of any community wouldn’t make some form of protection or insurance compulsory.