so if government owned property is illegitmate, since government currently owns bridges, who ought to be the rightful owners of these bridges that multiple people cross everyday and boats go under?
A good rule of thumb when privitizing state property: whoever is using it ought to be the ones to own it. After that it’s probably a mixture of auction and homesteading. In the case of bridges, if it’s an regularly maintained bridge, it’s probably best to leave it to the people who have been maintaining it. If it is not, then it’s probably best to consider it a public road, or whoever maintains it first gets to own it.
Even that might not be a good rule. It’s probably best to leave it to a case by case basis. The Golden Gate Bridge is not equal to some rickety thing out in the sticks. One requires active maintainance, and the other might not even be necessary.
It’s a good question, but I don’t think there is a good universal answer.
The company that built the bridge out to own it.
That could probably work in the majority of cases. The problem is that not all of these companies are still in business.
I agree with Gotlucky’s first post. I don’t necessarily like the idea of giving bridges to the companies which built it. It would be a way of doing it and it could have beneficial side effects (here we have a bridge building company which now has a solid form of income, incentive to build more bridges perhaps?) but it’s important to remember that the bridge was, when all is said and done, commissioned by the government and paid for with other people’s money.
By that logic, it should be transfered into the collective hand of the tax payers.
We would all own it.
Then you must go back to the maintainer. The maintainer then would have the control of the property.
What I was saying was not an argument as such against giving it to the companies, merely an important consideration.
What do you mean by “the maintainer”?
I actually have to say that I do enjoy the idea of communitarian control of bridges. It would help to prevent monopoly prices.
What is communitarian?
I would say that it would become the property of the inhabitants of the nearest town.
Interestingly enough, if everyone owned it or even just the relevant tax payers (good luck figuring out who that was), then it would pretty much be impossible to hire a company to maintain the bridge, as no decisions could be easily made. So after the bridge falls into disrepair, another company can seize the day and construct their own in order to compete! All is solved.
I can only see communitarian ownership if in a small enough community. If it were something as large as the relevant tax payers for the Golden Gate Bridge, I bet that would be a death warrant for the bridge. However, in a relatively small community, it might work relatively well.
However, I wonder if people would sell their shares in the bridge. What good would it do you to own one share in the Golden Gate Bridge with no dividends? Or even with dividends? But if someone were to make an offer to buy up the shares, that might be a good way to privitize the bridge. What’s a $30 share in the Golden Gate Bridge going to do for any one particular person?
It would be for the market to decide.
@Kelvin Silva
In a manner concerning control by the individuals within a community in general as opposed to statist, centralized, and communistic (egalitarian) control of certain resources.
That’s a bold prediction.
That’s not really for you to worry about.
Chapter 11 in “Privatization of Roads and Highways” covers this topic:
https://www.mises.org/document/4084/The-Privatization-of-Roads-and-Highways
That’s not really for you to worry about.
This is one of the most important realization people have to come to to understand market economies.
What’s a $30 share in the Golden Gate Bridge going to do for any one particular person?
What’s a $20 share in Facebook going to do for any one particular person?
If they were to elect a board of directors, then it would probably be business as usual without any problems.
Well it’s a good thing I’m not worrying about it. Thanks for expressing your concern.
I hope you aren’t suggesting that it is typical for people to only trade in one share at a time. Certainly people can and do that that…but it’s not the typical trade. My point was that Joe San Francisco might not have much use for one share worth $30, but Bob Entrepreneur might be interested in acquiring many shares. So Bob buys from Joe and many others. It’s logically possible that every single person will never sell their one share, but it’s also logically possible all Americans will burn all their cash tomorrow.
Could you please explain yourself here?
I hope you aren’t suggesting that it is typical for people to only trade in one share at a time.
I must have misread your post the first time. My objection is withdrawn.
On a related note, I think privatisation of the state factories was done in a similar manner in Russia. As a result, the management managed to buy all shares from workers for a song in most places. Not saying that privatisation always ends like that, or that workers must be baby-sitted, just an observation.
ON EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Russia#Voucher_privatization_.281992.E2.80.931994.29
That’s pretty interesting. I wonder if the same thing would occur in a wealthier society like America. Would the poor be as quick to sell anyway? If only the government would privitize and let us find out.