The principle doesn’t really apply.
To get out of my home ??
We’re talking about streets in a city. Are you going to build a bridge to the grocery store, bridges to your friends’ houses, and so on ?
That was, indeed, the original question - how this could be prevented under a free-market, non-government system. For a bit this morning, I was thinking that contractural easements would perhaps be the answer - but, upon reflection, I realized that a business intending to make money on their road would not be eager to contract with anyone to make them free riders.
Danno, who has re-established 'net access. One’s day can be useful, and yet not profitable.
What he said. Air taxi? I’m remembering the one-man jet units that seemed so futuristic and nifty in the 1960s. I’d like to be a rocket man, but I’m an Olde Phart, and doubt that my knees would take the landings well.
HOA? In effect, a mini-government. Without a carefully written constitution, capable of even worse abuses of power than my current government. With a carefully written, no-loophole constitution - it’s become a government solution. Let’s face it - my next-door neighbor, facing the same street, would not have the option of declining to do business with the HOA, would she?
It it matters at all, the street my property faces is a 4-lane (one bicycle, 3 auto), one-way major route. The difference in vision between this and a quiet residential street that is not often used as a thoroughfare may be some of the disconnect in this conversation.
Danno, who won’t skateboard anymore, either.
I agree, it is nonsense.
Yes, and there is no way that just one person can homestead or voluntarily exchange for literally every square inch and every utility of an entire city. Not only is it logistically impossible, but it’s impossible to achieve without all of the pre-existing owners either agreeing to give it away or sell it to this single person or it being essentially robbed from the pre-existing owners. A city government selling itself off wholesale to a single individual is a transferance from a monopoly to a monopoly and would be a case of the theives peddling stolen goods, and the stolen goods are peddled off to whoever produces the best bribe. Hence why Juan is concerned about this being indistinguishable from a monarchal mini-state.
So any solution that could possibly turn into a abusive monopoly is out and the only valid solution, to your thinking at least, is to institute a potentially abusive government monopoly?
WTF, dude?!?
I give up…
No. I simply am not going to guess what people might or might not prefer.
Is it consistent with the NAP? Then it is most certainly anarchist.
But it is precisely why the edicts of states have no moral force. A monarch claims land that is not his and presumes to be able to rule over others without their consent. A privately owned city that does not violate the NAP does no such thing.
Absent easements, it does. Private ownership implies total control over the resource under one’s command.
-Jon
Exactly. You still control that which you own, but do not control that which you have transferred control to others for.
For one brief, shining moment, we’re on the same page.
That’s not at all what I said. What I said was that it’d be potentially workable, with remarkable care in crafting the contract/constitution. I also said that any Home Owner’s Association operates like a limited government - majority rule, the unpopular get eaten by the majority, looting is done where a loophole left it possible, etc. - so calling for a HOA solution was, philosophically, identical calling for a mini-state solution.
Where, in that quote or elsewhere, do you find me preferring such a solution over a free market solution? This is all assuming, of course, that someone can think of a free market solution that would work.
Evasion. You know that the kind of ‘voluntary’ monarchy you seem to envision can’t exist.
Absent easements, what Stranger, you and others are describing is a jail, not a free society.
What the hell are you on about now? You’re assuming you know people’s preferences (including mine.) You don’t. I don’t and I refuse to pretend otherwise. But a privately owned city is certainly a possibility. Privately owned tourist villages, housing compounds &c. already exist. It is only a step further for a privately owned city. The only evasion here is of the fact that this in no way conflicts with the NAP.
You said it’s a monarchy. If it is consistent with the NAP, such a claim is void. That’s all there is to it.
-Jon
I think we’re discussing what an actual free society would look like. I could say “in the future the majority of people will commit suicide” – logically possible ? yes – probable ? no.
I’m assuming that the majority of people prefers freedom to slavery – and I’m further assuming that people who like freedom won’t live as tenants in some private city where the owner can lock them in their houses.
Really ?
If the city owner owns the sidewalks and streets, can he prevent people from getting out of their houses ? Yes ? No ? If the answer is ‘yes’, is this consistent with the NAP ?
So, can the owner prevent people from using his streets ? Yes ? No ?
Who said anything about majorities?
I have not seen a demonstration yet as to how it is inconsistent with the NAP.
If they were too stupid to get easements, then sure. You could I guess assume that at common law easements will become automatically a feature of any property (as access to it is technically necessary for it to be homesteaded in the first place) absent a clause in the contract explicitly stating the opposite, but again absent easements there is nothing in contradiction with the NAP here.
-Jon
Is that necessarily so ? We’re supposedly talking about a system in which ‘security’ is provided by competing firms - that should rule out, by definition, the possibility of the HOA acting as a rogue government. If they tried to, all you’d need to do is call your security provider.
I’m not sure how that follows. Allegedly the purpose of government is to ‘enforce’ individual rights, not to pave the streets - so a proper HOA and a government are not the same thing, in my opinion.
Again, are we talking about a free society or about a club for monarchists/nudists/whatever ?
You mean jailing people is consistent with the NAP ?
In which case private cities are not possible.
I guess not. People are free to remain locked in their houses. If they try to get out they might get killed, but that won’t be aggression because the city owner is just protecting his property from trespassing. It makes a lot of sense…
It depends which rights he has contracted out, so it is impossible to give a straight yes-or-no answer. If he contracted out control of the road to me in the form of accessing the road to go to the mall, he cannot turn around and unilaterally declare that I can no longer do so. If he did not contract out control of the road for the purpose of my neighbor’s KKK Holocaust denial rally, then he can prevent them from using the road.
The difference between him and a city government is that, while the city government gets to decide what is going to the mall and organizing a hateful demonstration because it is its own judge, the city-owner does not. He owns the rights to the road that he has not transferred to other.
We’re talking about one where people are free to enter any agreements they wish, so long as they respect legitimate property rights.
Jailing? Out of context nonsense. One does not have a right to trespass on other people’s property.
Non sequitur and red herring. The owner of a city could easily grant easements so one can access the city’s roads and yet still remain its overarching owner. Or they could explicitly rule it out in their contracts with tenants.
Indeed. It does. There is no such thing as a “right” to free movement under libertarian doctrine. Easements or joint ownership over a road are the only guarantees to accessing it.
-Jon
Evasion. You’re talking about a theoretically possible system which has no bearing in reality.
So people would own their houses and would be able to always access them ? If that’s the case the city owner has no control over ‘his’ city.
Try to understand : an apartment building is not a free society.
So, your vision of a free society is a jail - cool.
Guarantees to access what ? A non existent right ?
So…in this ‘free’ society there would be some sort of ‘social contract’ making clear what kind of thoughts are acceptable and what other thoughts are not acceptable ? All sorts of possible conflicts will be foresaw and solved contractually in advance ?
Amazing…
What an interesting fairy tale…
ps: Oh, and roads will be used for political purposes after all ?