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I meant the question seriously and your answer was informative. However I suspect your example really stems from an argument that "common property" like roads

by chwahoo 16y ago

I meant the question seriously and your answer was informative. However I suspect your example really stems from an argument that "common property" like roads should be minimized and that a private owner would better price road use. I think libertarians would not argue that the government should create a fancy new road-taxing system. Correct me if I'm wrong. Many other externalities are harder to privatize. For example social costs/benefits of hiring or firing employees, of providing employees with insurance or not, of destroying local businesses with everyday low prices and shipping the proceeds to China, of promoting education and/or research, of taking advantage of peoples' poor choices in credit use, of selling highly-addictive drugs, of polluting, of destroying the Gulf's tourism and fishing industries, of global warming, etc. I doubt libertarians advocate private ownership of the atmosphere. I certainly don't like the idea of the government micromanaging every conceivable, nebulous externality, but I think there is a time and a place for regulation, taxes, government investment, government subsidies, etc. as tools for dealing with the most troublesome systemic problems.

stretchwithme 16y ago
The time and place for government action is when individual rights are being violated. A right is something that authorizes the use of force to defend it. You have the right to live, to breath and to own property. You're free to buy insurance, promote education, bargain with people who are dumber than you, use substances or sell them to others. You have the right to hire and fire, and capriciously change where you buy your gasoline. But you don't have the right to force others to fund your pet projects or make their decisions for them if you think they're being dumb. And we gain no special right to do so just because a group of us get together and decide to do so. Our system is stronger specifically when individuals are free to disagree and to try many competing ideas without a central approving authority. But, yes, some things are inescapably shared like the atmosphere and we must cooperate on protecting it.
- chwahoo 16y ago
  Your take on government's "time and place" doesn't resonate with me. I value many functions of government that I don't consider "rights" such as antitrust enforcement, insider trading prosecution, radio frequency allocation, long-term research funding, deposit insurance, unemployment insurance, driver licensing, pharmaceutical testing..... I also don't see completely unregulated industry as remotely tenable. I suspect that wealth and power would rapidly concentrate in a small number of companies (and probably individuals) and competition would be minimal. While I don't exactly understand how the interplay between consumers, workers, share-holders, and corporations would work in that world, I suspect it would be something like a less democratic, less accountable, less liberty protecting, government.
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    I think more can be accomplished when people cooperate voluntarily. There is nothing that says people cannot voluntarily enter into contracts to cooperate on many things often seen as things coercive governments must manage. For example, one can enter into agreements with other property owners in an area that could govern all kinds of things. No one need be forced to do anything, other than keep their agreements. Freedom is not being free from all commitments and all arrangements. It is merely being from having them imposed upon you by physical force or threat of it. But some of the things on your list no one would ever agree to. For example, paying someone when they don't have a job, something they have a lot of control over and which simultaneously gives them the means to not have to take a job. We're better off if people learn to save their money. Most can certainly do that. Likewise, deposit insurance takes away all reason to evaluate where you put your money and has certainly subsidized a lot of reckless banking. I think people who make decisions should bare the risks. People who have nothing to do with it should not be forced to bare such risk. Other things on your list would continue under a more private system. People would still fund long term research; companies do that now too. Perhaps you've heard of Xerox PARC, HP Labs, IBM and Bell Laboratories. And if you've got a private highway, you're going to require people know how to drive on it. Why wouldn't you? You lose money when there are accidents. You'll probably even come up with a way to keep drunks off of your road. The wealth concentration you fear is frequently empowered by the very government you think prevents it. The corporations control the government now. Who handed the lands and right of ways to the railroads? Who stood by as they lied to farmers to get them to move out there where they only lifeline was the railroad? Who told BP their liability was limited to $75 million? Some might even go as far as saying it is no coincidence that the rise of big business parallels the rise of big government. And as for being less liberty protecting, I really don't see how a government that fiercely enforces individual rights will not be protecting them. Just because things have been done a certain way doesn't mean things can't be done in a better way. But I certainly don't expect people to drop the current approaches without having those alternatives being demonstrated as better. I see things as very incremental. A lot of things have gotten bad because of whole series of less than optimal choices. We can certainly move towards better systems incrementally.
    - 16y ago

by chwahoo 16y ago

stretchwithme 16y ago

The time and place for government action is when individual rights are being violated. A right is something that authorizes the use of force to defend it. You have the right to live, to breath and to own property. You're free to buy insurance, promote education, bargain with people who are dumber than you, use substances or sell them to others. You have the right to hire and fire, and capriciously change where you buy your gasoline. But you don't have the right to force others to fund your pet projects or make their decisions for them if you think they're being dumb. And we gain no special right to do so just because a group of us get together and decide to do so. Our system is stronger specifically when individuals are free to disagree and to try many competing ideas without a central approving authority. But, yes, some things are inescapably shared like the atmosphere and we must cooperate on protecting it.

chwahoo 16y ago
Your take on government's "time and place" doesn't resonate with me. I value many functions of government that I don't consider "rights" such as antitrust enforcement, insider trading prosecution, radio frequency allocation, long-term research funding, deposit insurance, unemployment insurance, driver licensing, pharmaceutical testing..... I also don't see completely unregulated industry as remotely tenable. I suspect that wealth and power would rapidly concentrate in a small number of companies (and probably individuals) and competition would be minimal. While I don't exactly understand how the interplay between consumers, workers, share-holders, and corporations would work in that world, I suspect it would be something like a less democratic, less accountable, less liberty protecting, government.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  I think more can be accomplished when people cooperate voluntarily. There is nothing that says people cannot voluntarily enter into contracts to cooperate on many things often seen as things coercive governments must manage. For example, one can enter into agreements with other property owners in an area that could govern all kinds of things. No one need be forced to do anything, other than keep their agreements. Freedom is not being free from all commitments and all arrangements. It is merely being from having them imposed upon you by physical force or threat of it. But some of the things on your list no one would ever agree to. For example, paying someone when they don't have a job, something they have a lot of control over and which simultaneously gives them the means to not have to take a job. We're better off if people learn to save their money. Most can certainly do that. Likewise, deposit insurance takes away all reason to evaluate where you put your money and has certainly subsidized a lot of reckless banking. I think people who make decisions should bare the risks. People who have nothing to do with it should not be forced to bare such risk. Other things on your list would continue under a more private system. People would still fund long term research; companies do that now too. Perhaps you've heard of Xerox PARC, HP Labs, IBM and Bell Laboratories. And if you've got a private highway, you're going to require people know how to drive on it. Why wouldn't you? You lose money when there are accidents. You'll probably even come up with a way to keep drunks off of your road. The wealth concentration you fear is frequently empowered by the very government you think prevents it. The corporations control the government now. Who handed the lands and right of ways to the railroads? Who stood by as they lied to farmers to get them to move out there where they only lifeline was the railroad? Who told BP their liability was limited to $75 million? Some might even go as far as saying it is no coincidence that the rise of big business parallels the rise of big government. And as for being less liberty protecting, I really don't see how a government that fiercely enforces individual rights will not be protecting them. Just because things have been done a certain way doesn't mean things can't be done in a better way. But I certainly don't expect people to drop the current approaches without having those alternatives being demonstrated as better. I see things as very incremental. A lot of things have gotten bad because of whole series of less than optimal choices. We can certainly move towards better systems incrementally.
  - 16y ago