Will people driving on our road still be forced to pay taxes to fund the others? Will they pay taxes on the gas they use to drive on our road?

It’s impossible to compete, if your customers are going to be forced to pay for the competition’s product anyway.

You make the assumption that a free system now would give us the same exact product as we got in the 1800s. No offense, but that’s about as absurd as saying that we’ve needed government control of computing since the 50s, because our computing power in the 50s would not have met our needs today., or that we’ve needed government control of cars since the 1800s, because the horse and buggy wouldn’t meet our needs now. A free road system would have evolved much the same way as other technologies have evolved when people are free to exchange goods and services, rather than being forced to use one on pain of jail. That is, very quickly, and cheaply.

Your singling out of food kitchens is switching the subject from roads to charity. My point was that government running roads makes about as much sense as government running food production, or radio/tv. That is, none at all. What we have in roads now is not even the equivalent of a social safety net — in which case perhaps government would buy road passes for the poor — it’s a completely government controlled industry — the equivalent of government running food production and distribution.

We’ve seen how that turns out — bread lines. What we have now in transportation is the equivalent of bread lines. We don’t see the amazing possibilities for transportation, because they have not been permitted. We haven’t seen the Shaw’s. If we had a system which allowed free choice in roads for these almost 200 years, I believe the technologies and options available would blow our minds — the way USSR defectors accustomed to bread lines were astonished by super-markets here.

I feel that you zeroed in on one aspect of my post, and maybe didn’t address other points.

All I want is a system which does not require me to use the threat of violence to extort money from a peaceful person. That is immoral to me, and I want no part of it. Yet, I am being forced to fund what I consider immoral. There are plenty of solutions which do not require this, and which have been demonstrated in the past.

. Comparing the scope of a road system needed to accommodate the needs of our population in 2009 with that of the era running from 1790 to 1830 is analogous to comparing a watermelon to a peanut. Building a Keene to Boston road in 2009 would be an exponentially more complicated matter than doing so in (for example) 1810, and it is this much greater level of complication (in the form of many more property owners with many disparate interests) that defines the core of the question.

We also have much better technology than they did from 1790 to 1830. Science fiction authors envisioned flying cars, tube-shuttles and all sorts of other possible methods of transportation long before the first punch-card, vacuum-tubed computers filled up entire buildings. Government moves at a glacial pace and inhibits creative ideas. “Well, we can’t do that because it would damage my campaign-contributing pals at Acme Road Corporation or my voting pals at the Hi-Tech Roads Are The Devil Church”, etc.

Government is inefficient as well. Roads tend to wind this way and that rather than going from point A to point B, thus reducing the cost. Years ago I read about then cutting-edge road technology that contained millions of tiny capsules embedded within so that as the road breaks down, the capsules crack open and leak out a material that seals up the damage thus making the road last longer. And yet the roads are still built with the same old tech and we get to enjoy road construction every other year and put up with massive potholes just months after local governments have just spend millions of dollars repairing those roads with old technology. There’s just no incentive to be efficient when it isn’t your money and there’s no profit to be made.

If I wanted to own a road, I’d do as you suggest. I have other plans regarding super-sturdy, low-cost housing instead.

Out of all the things government does wrong, roads are the least concerning.

Although I’m writing “on the run”, I wanted to quickly acknowledge the efforts you put into writing your posts. Quickly, I still think that most of the analogies you raise are flawed, for a couple of reasons:

1. Comparing the scope of a road system needed to accommodate the needs of our population in 2009 with that of the era running from 1790 to 1830 is analogous to comparing a watermelon to a peanut. Building a Keene to Boston road in 2009 would be an exponentially more complicated matter than doing so in (for example) 1810, and it is this much greater level of complication (in the form of many more property owners with many disparate interests) that defines the core of the question.

2. One line that stood out for me was:

“We only assume government must do it today, because we haven’t seen the potential of the alternatives — we haven’t seen the food kitchens, the WKBKs, and the one dollar hamburgers.”

I took note of the reference to food kitchens in particular, primarily because the history of the 19th century and early 20th century is filled with examples of charity being an entirely insufficient way of providing a human “safety-net”. To wit, orphanages, poor houses, and the like. As I’ve mentioned on this site, even a cursory reading of Dickens, Sinclair and the like provide ample testimony to this fact. It would be a mistake to let our admiration for the early patriots morph into a blinding romanticism; the level of poverty in this country during the 19th and early 20th centuries was simply stunning, dwarfing anything we see today in terms of scope.

But since I have to run, I’ll make a final quick suggestion: Make your ideas manifest with concrete action; if they are indeed superior concepts, or even just very good ones, people will gravitate to them in numbers that are truly significant. For instance, here’s a project: find some area in Keene or the surrounding area that could use some sort of access route or short cut. Start small; make it just 5 miles long. Form a business that studies it, plans it, builds it and maintains it. If it’s a success, that example will do far more to advance your cause than any amount of mere verbiage, as “doing” tends to be more impressive than talking in the abstract. The fact that such a project would be difficult to accomplish shouldn’t be a deterrent, since many things that are worthwhile are incredibly challenging to bring to fruition. It comes with the territory.

Thanks again,

Ann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oelw8R-6_YM

I think, Amazed, it may be hard to imagine roads not run by government, simply because we haven’t experienced it much. Suppose all TV and Radio were run by government, and we had never experienced anything else. No doubt we would say, “Of course TV and radio can never be private — how on earth could anyone make any money providing a service that anyone can tune into for free any time?” But, we would not have imagined the possibilities of ads, or of satellite radio and TV, which can operate by subscription. Suppose all food were provided by government. We would surely say, “Of course food distribution can never be privatized — only the rich would eat!!” but, we would not have imagined the possibility of the food kitchen, or the homeless shelter, or church based and secular charities — or the greater efficiencies in food production that we have because of competition. Any idea how much a McDonald’s hamburger would cost, if government produced it, and people were forced to buy them, no matter what? A lot more than a dollar, I can tell you that.

Many of the things we take for granted as being run by government in this country were run very sucessully privately, in the past. We only assume government must do it today, because we haven’t seen the potential of the alternatives — we haven’t seen the food kitchens, the WKBKs, and the one dollar hamburgers.

The problem is in this country, whenever there is a problem, we look to more government to solve it — despite the fact if we dig just a little, it’s usually government that caused the problem in the first place. Do we like the way the country has headed, based on this policy, with ever incresing Government in all aspects of our lives, and ever increasing debt? Has it helped our economy? Has it helped our foreign policy? Are our civil liberties more or less protected? Do we have more or less freedom, and wealth, in our finances? Do we have more or less choice in our lives?

I am just saying, let’s try the alternative, if only in certain ways, and if only in certain areas. Let’s not keep doing the same thing, hoping for a different solution.

Maybe freedom works after all .

Maybe your road would be built the same way the first highway in NH was built, which connected Portsmouth to Concord, and is now called route 4.

http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=93bd9fed-91bc-415e-8080-19d044fc0dbe

It was a privately built toll road.

In fact, there were quite a few of these being built. As a percentage of GDP, the amount invested in these roads from 1790 to 1830 was greater than the total amount invested by all levels of government in the interstate highway system between 1955 and 1995. These investments produced at least 40,000 to 50,000 miles of road, and built many of the covered bridges we see today, without any government involvement at all. In fact, in New Hampshire alone, there were 51 turnpike incorporations during that period, representing more than 1/6 of all incorporations at the time.

Other ways roads could be built:

- Farmers, or loggers, etc, clear dirt roads connecting their property to a local town or highway. These roads are often quite long — providing plenty of new rural areas with road access, and locations for new houses, for those who want to live in the country.

- Land developers would need to build transportation to their new development, in order to sell homes. It’s the same reason hallways and elevators exist in condos and business rental properties.

- Business owners would want to connect to the road grid, in order to provide easy access to customers and employees.

- Private road associations, as community efforts, could join together to fund road development and maintainance.

- Some roads might be built and funded by roadside ads, rather than tolls. Others might require a subscription.

I have to go, and perhaps we can talk about this more later, but take note of what Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), a French historian who visited the U.S., and recorded his observations, wrote regarding how our country used to work:

“If it is a question of taking a road past his property, [a man] sees at once that this
small public matter has a bearing on his greatest private interests, and there is no
need to point out to him the close connection between his private profit and the
general interest. . . . Local liberties, then, which induce a great number of
citizens to value the affection of their kindred and neighbors, bring men
constantly into contact, despite the instincts which separate them, and force them
to help one another. . . . The free institutions of the United States and the political
rights enjoyed there provide a thousand continual reminders to every citizen that
he lives in society. . . . Having no particular reason to hate others, since he is
neither their slave nor their master, the American’s heart easily inclines toward
benevolence. At first it is of necessity that men attend to the public interest,
afterward by choice. What had been calculation becomes instinct. By dint of
working for the good of his fellow citizens, he in the end acquires a habit and
taste for serving them. . . . I maintain that there is only one effective remedy
against the evils which equality may cause, and that is political liberty. (Alexis de
Tocqueville, pp. 511-13, Lawrence/Mayer edition)

In this hypothetical example, there is no road leading from Keene to Boston. Most people in the affected area think the road should be built, but a significant minority thinks it shouldn’t. Do you build the road? If so, why, and how? Who pays for the building and subsequent maintenance? Who gets to use the road?

The majority that thinks the road should be built could form a joint venture to construct and maintain the road and thus put their money where their desires are by funding it themselves?

OR maybe a business-savvy entrepreneur might raise or borrow the funds to create the road or perhaps even compete with an existing road by creating a rail or some other method of transportation.

Perhaps they’ll even choose to use cutting-edge methods that will allow the road to last much, much longer than they usually do.

Those who own the land would be good prospects for getting in on such a joint venture. Or one could offer them a fair sum for the necessary property. Unlike government, they would not be able to steal it by force. If an owner refuses to sell, then road creators are going to need to work around that.

My only desire is to remove force and coercion from the equation. The best method I can think of doing that is to create a business entity that doesn’t have a monopoly on force.

If you’d like other ideas on how the roads in a voluntaryist society might work, I highly recommend Wes Bertrand’s Complete Liberty, available in podiobook format or PDF eBook entirely free online.

Believe it or not, there have been decades of thought on these topics. These ideas aren’t coming out of the ether willy-nilly. They’re built on the philosophies of people like Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Linda and Morris Tannehill, Lew Rockwell and many, many others.

Zeus:
Your response seemed like a generalized, stereotyping rant, and so it was hard to take from it anything more than a sense that you were forcefully repeating a series of well-worn phrases that are so general they could mean all sorts of different things. So it occurred that it might be instructive (to me, at least) to suggest a realistic hypothetical for you to deal with; I’m thinking that your response would provide me with an opportunity to see where your thought processes are in terms of depth, realism, detail, etc. So, here goes:

In this hypothetical example, there is no road leading from Keene to Boston. Most people in the affected area think the road should be built, but a significant minority thinks it shouldn’t. Do you build the road? If so, why, and how? Who pays for the building and subsequent maintenance? Who gets to use the road?

I believe that I might find your answers instructive, Zeus. Thanks.

Paul:
I do think there are many other alternatives that are open to local people and local law-enforcement in terms of the way they react to “Free-Staters”, mostly in the area of the character of the responses. “Infractions of the law” occur all the time, and police have the discretion to overlook them, based on the circumstances in front of them. I say overlook them when you can, and if you have to address them, do so in as calm and neutral a manner as possible. Deal with the protestor in a manner similar to the way you’d deal with the town drunk; gently and efficiently. Likewise for local citizens and commentators who get so worked up by FSP members, much in the same way a “progressive” might get worked up by the latest rantings of Rush Limbaugh. Just let it go. The world is filled with disparate voices; it was ever thus.

For example, if someone holds an unlicensed nail painting, there really are only two options for them:

1. Crack down, and show how dictatorial and petty they really are. Most people are not going to support arresting people for happily coloring each others’ nails, because it’s absurd.

2. Let it go, and effectively make that law moot. If they don’t crack down, people gain the freedom to participate in that activity.

The reason some people express sentiments like Schuman’s is because they don’t want the obvious immorality, and absurdity pointed out. They want people to be quiet, because it is uncomfortable to them to see that many of the policies they support are really nothing more than petty tyranny over their fellow man.

It’s as if you were painting your house, and someone on the street pointed out, “It looks like the left side of your house is lighter than the right”. Instead of admitting that the house will need to be repainted, people like Schuman yell, “Shut up, shut UP”, cover their eyes, and pretend they can’t see or hear, because they don’t want to.

There are plenty of solutions which do not involve initiation violence against your peaceful neighbor. But, it might take some intellectual work to get there, and it might take reconsidering some assumptions. Some people just aren’t anxious to do that, so they’d rather plug their ears and hum.

As for workable human societies, the current one’s not doing so well. Maybe… just maybe… you could let us opt out and not use violence and coercion on us? Go ahead and continue to vote and lobby each other and force each other to pay for everything under the sun, but leave those who’ve had enough alone. Is that really so much to ask? Just stop killing, kidnapping, robbing and assaulting us. It’s easy if you try.