Agreed. Nobody is going to topple the system in a single, glorious revolutionary moment. The new society should spring up organically, within the dying remains of the old order. That’s the essence of counter-economics, which starts by extricating oneself from as much tyranny as is feasible. In order to begin smashing the State, you only need to look out for Number One. People will catch on, eventually, and if they don’t, you’re still better off.
I.e., I’m not aware of any places where you can’t abstain from public water/gas/electricity. These generally aren’t funded explicitly through taxes, they are a genuine “usage fee”. So long as you don’t live in a city, then you should probably be able to do some of these things eventually.
Yes, a hell of a lot of people are dependent upon these monopoly suppliers. Most modern cities in their current form are entirely unsustainable. If it starts to become easier and/or more profitable to live outside of the urban center, people will migrate. Again, this won’t happen overnight, either, but over time.
That’s the key to understanding the issue right there. Cities compete with country life. A city, to attract new residents, must provide all the goods that land in the country would provide. They have to deliver water, electricity, and drain away waste with sewers and garbag removal. That means that the city, as a whole, is an indivisible business that rents land retail.
A city is not a government, it is a public enterprise just like the post office or a hospital.
I disagree that the gov isn’t profit oriented - they did after all just give themselves another raise. If this theoretical new owner wanted to maximize profit, he could easily give the people the shittiest water for the highest price - and in this case competition has a significant hurdle to overcome as the first buyer bought the infrastructure which was already in place. It’s not good for him i the long run because people will demand water controls and then boom, there’s your state.
Go look outside your window - how feasible would it be for a new water treatment plant to dig up those roads and get people to authorize running water pipes through their land? Not very.
As you said, its not academic its whether it is feasible or not.
You have to think about it through the eyes of joe six pack or jane box of wine. Remember, the people which would give us the most trouble are the ones who can appeal to these people en masse and convince them that reorganizing government is the best thing for them. So If we can figure out how the current infrastructure could be decentralized or introduced to competition such that the average person accepts it then we win.
Apples to oranges. Politicians are profit motivated, the state is not.
Time for economics 101.
Monopolies don’t charge the highest price possible, they charge the price that will generate the highest revenue. Any increase in price past that would cause a loss of profit due to a reduction in volume sold.
You missed my point. Once an infrastructure network becomes privatized(in the real sense) competition exists. Even without competition between networks, there is still competition for the ownership of the monopolist network. Through this competition market forces will direct the infrastructure towards the most effective use.