Thank you, very much, for the information. I had to swap my passion for shooting (not well enough) out to make room for a new high-attention hobby at the time, and I did not keep track - I was unaware that the boycott had been effective. It warms my heart.
All this time, I’d been seeing, at a distance, new S&Ws come out (and they do make sweet machinery, do they not?), and had thought they’d survived being turncoats. Now, I can buy with a clear concience.
I’m not often offended at being proven wrong - but I’m very rarely this glad to be. Thanks for the information, indeed.
Danno, looking fondly at his 915 (bought used, mind you - but it’s sweet).
I never said such a thing, I simply pointed out you favour the use of violence to provide roads, if not you wouldn’t have been arguing with the rest of us for the past few pages.
It’s not difficult.
No I feel I should expose bad ideas for what they are. Your socialist roads just so happen to fit in that category, and as this is a forum for discussing economics I figure it’s a good place to do so.
First off that’s not fraud in the sense that Rothbard uses it, secondly I assume Jon was merely doing so to make his post more understandable as there would be no other reason to do so, you’ve spent pages explaining that you think capitalism is unable to provide roads and that they need to be socialized. No “fraud” is necessary.
The Liberty Colony my friend. I should have given you the link. Here it is www.libertycolony.com . You will find I am much more interested in results than disagreements we may have in our thinking. As long as we are headed the same direction I don’t mind sharing a cab.
This is why I really don’t think it makes sense for anarchists to automatically assume the minarchists are our allies, they’re not, they’re just one other type of statist, granted, they believe in less government than the rest but they still believe in the use of coercion to reach their ends.
That puts them closer to the communist than it does to the anarchist.
Yeah, it’s not that bad. How many people were killed during the 20th century in the west by ‘their’ governments ? Here’s just one number WWII : 48 millions ? Not that bad.
That’s just a smoke screen. Fact : politicians cooperate in order to rob and kill their subjects. Division-of-power and checks and balances are mostly myths.
They can do whatever they please with their property as long as they don’t harm others.
A city in which home owners are surrounded by roads they don’t control and are thus subjected to the will of the road owner is NOT a ‘free’ city - if anything it is an example of absolute monarchy…
I don’t think so.
As far as I know ordinary people don’t run concentration camps or the DEA. Maybe your neighbors do ??
See above. If the only way to get out of your house is by doing whatever the road owner wants you to do we’re dealing with tyranny (or monarchy - same thing), not with a free society.
Even if that was true, how can they do that in a free society ? By definition they can’t use force. So they only can use persuasion and boycotts.
No, only a state can do real damage.
Well, too bad for redheads, or libertarians or homosexuals, but there’s nothing they can do about it because their rights have not been violated.
No, but that’s different from the hypothetical case in which control of the roads gives the road owner absolute control over citizens.
Well starting a colony in Somalia might be a little farfetched…however, the Free State Project may be the closest we get to liberty in our lifetime. Check out www.freestateproject.com
Sorry about the delay in my response - things got busy on this end.
Juan - I’m not saying that governments have not done horrendous things, or that they’re good - just that they’re not omnipotent. If the people running my government had done whatever they’d pleased, I’d be living in a fascist state, rather than a state headed towards fascism.
Many people in my government would prefer that I not own guns, that the Democratic (or Republican) Party be the sole political party, that I not use a car for personal transportation, that I not use tobacco, and that everyone have the same income, regardless of skill or effort. They are trying as hard as they can to make this happen, and it does look like I’m in danger of them achieving some, if not all, of their goals. But, at this point, those goals have not been reached.
It’s as much a mistake to overestimate your opponent as it is to underestimate them.
Can we just posit that it’s easy to show the evils of present government and leave that section of the discussion? I agree with you - government is a dangerous and destructive master. The crux of our disagreement is whether it can be done without as a servant. I’m fond of the idea that government could be done away with entirely - I’m just not certain that it would not be an even worse mistake to do so, and wish to examine the tricky details carefully before I commit to such a path.
The people in Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution had clear cause for despising the system that they rebelled against, and were certain that the system they were replacing it with would be wonderful. They did not understand how socialism would work, had not carefully examined the ramifications of what they were striving towards. They set out to do good, but it turned to evil, leaving them in worse conditions than they’d had before.
I see no reason to repeat that mistake.
There is overwhelming evidence that less government is better than the big-government system my countrymen are trying to expand. My countrymen often do not believe the evidence presented, if they’re willing to look at it at all. They believe that government programs can improve situations, despite the evidence. It’s an article of faith to them - a religion worshiping a philosophy instead of a deity. There is amazing vitriol if you even question some of their tenets.
Global Warming? Of course it’s a crisis, and any evidence to the contrary must be ignored, and anyone presenting that evidence is evil, a willing tool of the polluters. Cigarette smoking? It’s evil, disgusting, and palpably harms anyone using the same atmosphere - and anyone presenting evidence to the contrary is a liar, paid by the tobacco companies. There is no reasoned discussion - you’re a True Believer, or you’re Evil Incarnate.
Personally, I use ‘willingness to examine evidence that may be contrary to what one already believes’ as a touchstone. If someone disagrees with me, but is willing to examine the evidence and reasoning that does not support what they believe, there’s a fair chance that they’ve reached their conclusions by way of looking at all of the evidence and arguments they could find, rather than deciding emotionally and turning the issue into a quasi-religious dogma - and it is worthwhile to look at the evidence that convinced them, and leave myself open to the idea that I may indeed learn something from them. I won’t always change my mind and agree with them, but I’m almost certain to learn something that refines my own view - at least, I’ll have a better understanding of why they believe what they believe.
For what it’s worth, I often examine the evidence and arguments of those who fit the True Believer mold - it’s often dreadful, but I do get a better understanding of just what I’m opposing - and ‘know thy enemy’ is good policy.
Frighteningly, I see a fair bit of the religious fervor among anarchists - if you do not agree with them wholeheartedly, you’re an Evil Socialist, as blindly wrong as any fervent Marxist. As much as I dislike government, this attitude gives me pause, and I examine the evidence and arguments that they present carefully, looking for mistakes they may be making.
Far more often than I like, people who agree with me on a given issue display the same behavior - vilifying those who disagree rather than explore the issue with evidence and reason.
Looked at from that angle, it’s not a war between liberals and conservatives, or statists and anarchists, or warmongers and peaceniks - it’s a war between those who wish to decide via reason, and those who decide based on their emotions. And I know which side of that divide I prefer to be on.
Sorry about the sidetrack, but it’s been on my mind. Now, where were we?
I totally agree - which is why I’d like to know how that situation can be reliably prevented under an anarchic system of road ownership.
My neighbors have certainly been known to bring situations they disapprove of to the attention of the folks who run the concentration camps and the DEA. They have been known to manufacture evidence, to harm people they dislike, or are in dispute with, or simply to further their own, unrelated goals.
Yet, how would you prevent a property owner from using their property in any fashion that they liked in a libertarian community? I see no easy, obvious solution, but a solution must be found, lest freedom-fighters become like the Bolsheviks, throwing off the “yoke of oppression” only to find themselves in worse oppression as a result.
Force of monopoly can exist outside of government control, if there is only room for one. Looking out my window, I see a road, and cannot imagine how another road could fit in the space it occupies - not without serious problems. The neighbor across the street probably does not want to turn his home into a thoroughfare, either.
Yet, the wages that they can command are reduced, because of the attitudes of the primary employer. Yes, they can move away, or open their own business - but these are not trivial costs. Is it just?
Justice is, decidedly, a secondary goal, probably never perfectable - and rights must take precedence. I do not dispute that. But we must remain aware that free market capitalism, while an obviously better system, is not going to be a perfect system.
Yes, it is - and I apologize for the poor choice of example. Let’s stick to the problem of the roads, shall we? There is plenty of evidence that Socialism does not provide good roads or transportation. While government does have serious other problems, it can provide roads, paid for by user fees, that are functional for almost all of their citizens. Free-market capitalism is clearly the best provider for so many other goods and services, it’s not hard to see that it could provide better roads as well - if there is room for competition. Where there is no room for competition, we may be stuck with government as the best known method of making local travel available in urban areas.
The situation we have now is unacceptable. It may well be that there would be a way for the free market to reliably provide functional transit routes in urban areas - it would be good to find that method. If we cannot find such a method, we’ll need to find a way in which a government that provides those roads could be reliably made to fill the role of servant rather than master.
There may be a perfectable solution - but there often isn’t. Everything has a cost - that’s a basic, undisputed tenet of economics. Getting the most benefit with the minimum of cost should be our goal - and I’ll cheerfully agree that I’d rather spend cash than spend my freedom. Getting more cash is a fairly simple task - getting freedom back, once it’s lost, is demonstrably difficult.
But not only present government is evil and fails. All governments do - it’s in their nature. If we regard power as a threat then it seems to me that, by far, the biggest threat is not ‘private’ tyranny but state tyranny.
Yet the argument I’m not sure you’re addressing is this : It’s true that people are not angels, so anarchy is not going to be paradise, BUT for that very same reason - people not being angels - centralizing power is a worse solution than not centralizing it.
Well, the only answer I can come up with is public sidewalks, so I guess I’m a commie after all =] - although I don’t think a government is needed in order to have public sidewalks.
Also, gated communities or private cities in which roads are jointly owned sounds acceptable to me.
I can’t think of a case in which that is necessarily true.
Maybe we’re talking past each other to some degree. The issue is not how to provide roads, but how the land used as roads is owned. That land can be jointly owned - no government is needed for that.
Of course. And the ‘anarchist’ position is that government solutions are always more expensive than market solutions.
So you have a bunch of unemployed/underemployed workers waiting for someone with liberal views to snap them up and undercut the primary employer.
The primary employer would have to pay higher labor costs so any competitor would receive a benefit from their discrimination which any good entrepreneur could turn to their advantage since there’s nothing stopping them from hiring the gay libertarian redheads.
Nobody is saying it will be a perfect system but if you have to take full responsibility for your actions, like discrimination, then you will be at a competitive disadvantage without Jim Crow laws to subsidize your beliefs.
How you jump from that to governments must provide roads is somewhat of a mystery…
You seriously can’t envision any system that would both provide road service and not exclude people from using them for completely arbritrary reasons? Not that the government does anything like that already by forcing safety restrictions on cars or using a driver’s license as a club to modify a person’s behavior in some other area but that’s not very important because that would all magically change under a system where the State only provided services that are in the ‘public good’.
I do somehow wonder how you would do away with the ‘free rider’ problem since the State can’t deny anyone access to the roads according to your argument for State provided roads? A private owner can’t force you to pay up but the State can break down your door and haul you off to their courts where all your property and liberties are in jeopardy. All a private owner can do is deny you access until you pay up.
I think it all comes down to you believing that only through violence can we have free roads. The violence necessary to ensure free passage, the violence to ensure a ‘fair’ fee schedule, the violence to maintain roads where traffic isn’t high enough to pay for upkeep, the violence to ensure drivers are safe, etc, etc…
Because, you see, the State is violence. They have no other way to enforce their will on the hapless people who don’t want their monopoly services.
They say The Road to Serfdom is paved with good intentions…
I do not regard power as a threat, per se - it’s remarkably useful. Power over myself, by others, is the threat - but unavoidable. If nobody has power over me, then I am a threat to everyone around me. If I contract for a good or service, then violate that contract, and nobody has power to enforce that contract - what good is the contract? If nobody has the power to stop me from using my neighbor’s house to build a bonfire, one would suspect that their insurance rates would skyrocket.
If, to live in society, some entity must have the power and authority to regulate my behavior to ensure the safety and rights of others in that society, that power may be abused. Whether by nobleman, legislature, or security provider - it can be abused. Preventing such abuse is a non-trivial problem.
It seems so - in that a larger, more centralized power may become to large to control. This is true whether that power is a government agency, or a free-enterprise security provider that has become so successful and widespread as to become the equivalent of a government agency. This is not a problem peculiar to government - it stands for any group that is capable of violence. Power is unavoidable, and not the villain here - it’s power against which we have no recourse.
If there is public anything, some entity must administer it - collect fees for maintainence, assume authority over how it may be used, etc. - and that entity becomes a government, no matter what it’s called.
Do we need a public entity to give charity to people without money, collecting it from people who have enough to spare? Oh, hell no. Do we need a public entity to collect funds for scientific research that will improve the state of the world? It’s not quite as obvious in this case, but no - for nobody has the right for force another to support such research. Do we need a public entity to ensure that everyone has a right to travel away from their own property, that they cannot be hemmed in by another property owner who happens to have surrounded their property? Mayhaps - nobody seems able to point me toward a free-enterprise solution to this problem that would be practicible in an urban setting.
Can you give me any case, even hypothetical, in which control over available local transport (urban roads, sidewalks, etc.) could be gained by private enterprise in such a way that such control could not be abused?
Joint ownership of land, used as roads and sidewalks, by all people who will need to use those roads and sidewalks. Paid for in some just fashion, maintained and regulated in usable condition, expanded at need by purchase of additional land. How, exactly, would this oprerate differently than a government?
There is, indeed, a lot of data that supports that position - I’m prone to use it as a basic hypothesis myself. I am not quite ready, though, to agree that there are no cases in which minimal government is not the best (or only practicable) solution.
When the anarchist counter to this proposition is to call me names (such as socialist, statist, etc.) rather than explain how free enterprise could fill this need, I suspect that I’ve run afoul of a religious, faith-based tenet, rather than a reasoned stance.
Danno - just about done committing violence to this equine corpse…
You can say that because you fail to address the basic contradiction in your minimal government system.
Fact is, there’s nothing left to explain :
You say that government is needed because if there was no government we would all kill each other - or there would be some sort of private tyranny or whatever.
If that’s the case, meaning humans are basically evil, then creating a monopolistic human government to reform or check human nature is sheer nonsense.
The contradiction that there is no obvious, perfect way to prevent abuse of power?
More nonsense than expecting the market to prevent abuse in the few situations in which it cannot operate freely?
I keep hearing that, but apparently, I’m missing the flaw. If the flaw, as you seem to imply, is that government is flawed, and therefore never a workable solution - I guess I’m just going to have to accept that there are some things I just don’t understand. This will not, however, lead me to taking them on faith.
Danno - probably as tired of the circularity of this as you are.
My previous reply to this not having appeared, I’ll have to assume that it disappeared into errorland, and try again.
I understand your assertion, and, in any case in which the market can operate freely, I agree with you.
It may well be that the market would operate to provide roads in the limited space of an urban environment just fine - I can’t point to an example of where it has been tried, yet failed to do so. Nor can I point toward any modern-era government system that has not grown into an intrusive, tyrannical system. As has been pointed out earlier in this topic, there have been minimally-intrusive governments that have been remarkably stable, though they imposed rules I’d consider intolerable by today’s standards. It may be possible to design one that would remain stable, not growing beyond the bounds originally intended - though previous attempts to do so in the past several centuries have demonstrably failed.
The maintainence and regulation (traffic laws, etc.) of such jointly owned systems is usually referred to as government, is it not? A private city, owned by someone other than myself, may work just fine for its inhabitants - but it’ll be governed by the owners, and if that ownership is widespread, it’ll look like a government. There may be ways for this to be set up that will prevent tyranny - exploring those seems to me to be a worthwhile task.
Necessarily, no - but urban roads, the case under discussion, does seem to be a case that requires further examination.
As I’ve said before - widespread joint ownership, even on a city-by-city or neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, must have management, and must take action to maintain and regulate those roads - and, in practice, is indistinguishable from a government. If I am mistaken here, and there would be a method that would provide the service without emulating a government, it has passed my notice, and I would appreciate it being explained to me.
Change that to “almost always”, and I’ll agree wholeheartedly. Give me a viable plan for a market solution to this problem, and you’ll have convinced me.
Danno, wondering where my first reply went to… very possibly a glitch on my end.
1 - A competing road that runs the same route, alongside the existing road. Viable, with enough land to expand upon. Less efficient, due to duplication of effort, and probably needless unless the initial road provider is mismanaged. Workable, unless there is no room for it because it’s an urban area.
Doing just that, but at different elevations, because urban land use prevents it from being side-by-side. Picturing this running in front of my house is somewhat horrific. Just as I’d strenuously object to someone building a house elevated directly above mine, I can see property rights issues. Even with just two layers, the on-and-off ramp issue would take some very creative engineering. Without further explanation, I don’t see this as remarkably viable in urban environments.
2 - Joint/committee ownership of roads. I have yet to see any explanation of how this will work differently from government. If this is, indeed, the proposal - we have been talking past each other on an issue of mere labeling, and we can switch focus to how to design this system to minimize future problems.
3 - Trust the entity that owns the roads to be reasonably benevolent. This has worked so poorly in other endeavors (notably socialist systems people were enthused about starting) that I consider it’s inapplicability to be self-evident.
4 - Count on a new technology of transportation that will make roads irrelevant. Even if this does happen, those of us who enjoy walking will be stuck with right-of-way issues, and counting on this happening seems rather risky to me.
5 - Everyone whose property adjoins the road owns a specific, adjacent piece of the road. I’ve raised concerns about this method earlier - primarily, the people who own any given part of the road may want to use it to obstruct motor traffic - nor could I claim the right to prevent them from doing so.
If there’s one I’ve missed, I’d appreciate it being pointed out to me specifically. Largely, that’s what I’ve been asking for all along.
It could be. I expect that I’m not the only person who has grown tired of this being such a circular debate. I may, indeed, have missed important points, and may owe an apology to the person who made that point. It does not, however, look like that to me.
Danno, overdue at work. It’s perhaps not good that the boss is so understanding about such things.