That goes to show you that the only reason the interstate roads were even pushed for and made is due to War, in the name of “national security” much is coerced by the State. I don’t know enough of that time period to know if toll roads were just-property rights of individuals. You just say they were “toll roads”. Could a private individual make a road then? I don’t know.
And the military interjection as your side note doesn’t cover the Minute Men on the southern border that President Bush disapproved of. So it’s obvious any movement to privatizing border patrols is strongly opposed by the State.
I was thinking about the scenario that came up in this thread I believe about giving back an existing State road to the known rightful owners, the taxpayers, which are the just and legitimate owner of the road. Yet if those tax payers are in the numbers of say 10,000 in a small city, then I think the argument still stands that they all own that road. Now what do all 10,000 do with that road? I think all of them would have to agree on the same outcome. No one man or woman can be overrode in a majority decision. For each individual is of equal ownership, which just goes to show how fowled up and messy a State is. So each individual has just as much voice in the decision as each other individual. The majority cannot violate the property rights of the individual even in this absurd mess. So will a decision ever be made by all 10,000 people that is an agreement by all 10,000 people? I don’t know. It may pass down to their heirs and now there’s 25,000 people that need to decide. [I know this is how the land on some Indian reservations have actually been divided up. It’s even to the point that some heirs on reservation land by unclaimed recipients if tracked down would put the land ownership to some absurd land quantity of something like a foot per person or maybe even worse (lower quantity).] So will a decision ever be made? Could this go on ad infinitum? Quite possibly unless somehow they agree to sell it to an individual(s) or some other shared agreement. But it would be up to all 10,000 as far as I can see for the moment.
Are you suggesting that each taxpayer in this transfer from State to free market ownership could be considered a shareholder? hmm, interesting. I would need to give more thought on this. I don’t know enough about shareholding and publicly trading companies and such. I am wondering though, don’t these companies have a CEO and management? How would the transfer lead to that or maybe the transfer need not lead to a CEO and management? The shareholder capability could be explored more and then the complications of a CEO and management could arise in this thought-experiment once that’s figured out. Thanks, I would like to hear more opinions on this. I think we’re getting somewhere.
Yes, they could vote, I think as long as the infringement of property rights doesn’t occur because of democracy, meaning, the majority doesn’t dictate what happens to the road. For instance, the majority decides to destroy the road. The minority voted against this action but lost. But due to democracy the road gets destroyed and thus the property of the minority is destroyed, thus, a violation of property rights occurs. A criminal activity. Now if they all decide on a CEO and management to go ahead and make all future decisions on the road, and then the road is destroyed. No violation of property rights has happened due to the contract made. Imagine a city of 10 million or 30 million having to make this decision in which all need to give an anonymous vote. Seems impossible, but a society that rid the State out of the road sector would probably be a society capable of making these difficult decisions. Or at least It definitely would be a different kind of society, a society with a different mind-set. So I think that would need to be considered, too.
this issue links directly back to the mechanism of transferring from public to private.
i mean, in regular publicly traded companies, shareholder voting is a democratic method etc. but this is legitimate since shareholders know this when they buy shares or receive the shares as gifts, it is implicit in the meaning of the share. so there is no ‘crime’ of majority outvoting minority. however in public road to private shareholder model, it is a crime for some arbitrary third party decided that such and such tax payers get such and such a shareholding stake in a sharehold type arrangement.
I’m going to think this through out loud here: Yes but by also looking at history I don’t know if it can lawfully be considered a shareholders claim until after the State dissolves its monopoly. What I mean by this, is, are taxpayers considered shareholders from the beginning? Or are the taxpayers considered shareholders only after the State dissolves it’s monopoly on the road? Maybe a more important question is are all shareholders considered democratic from the outset/beginning? If all shareholders are really just a democratic institution, then the name change from taxpayer to shareholder would also be a change in approach to the road. A democratic approach in what the shareholders decide. Now the tricky part for me since I’m not educated enough on what a shareholder is and I don’t know therefore if there are other kinds of lawful shareholders that tricky part would be are all shareholders a democracy?
I definitely can see the change from taxpayer to shareholder for all those previous taxpayers have a claim to the road. But I’m not sure if the meaning of shareholder is universal, which leads back to are all shareholders democratic? If they are, then what you said would thereby resolve this issue. The one part that makes me hesitant is when you said, “…shareholder voting is a democratic method… since shareholders know this when they buy shares or receive the shares as gifts…”. I’m hesitant cause I don’t know if the taxpayer knew they were shareholders when they bought into the road or did they by some universally reasoned argument?
The reason that would resolve this, I’m thinking, is to answer: Are shareholders universally defined? If they are, and that includes they are democratic methods on voting, then this issue of transfer from State owned to individual owned is complete. I’m hesitant though on this for a democratic method is counter to property rights from the beginning. The majority versus minority dilemma. So even if that’s how all companies with shareholders resolved this issue it doesn’t mean they are following Natural Law. There’s too many social influences that sway democratic outcomes and thus social patterns can easily trump what can be intellectual argued as more proper.
I think your injection on the taxpayers now are considered shareholders helps bring this much closer than what has developed in this thread thus far I think, but now I’m wondering what is a universally accepted shareholder (definition of universal extracted from Natural Law).