Libertarian Positions on Roads, Water etc.

[insidemanpoker]

I know you all must get this a ton when people are trying to debunk the libertarian message. "What about the roads? What about the drinking water?" Blah blah blah. I also know Ron Paul likely has no issue with state and local governments supplying these services as long as the federal government stays the hell away even if he believes they would have been better of in private hands.

But what is the general libertarian philosophy on these services? Is it 100% that they should all be privately owned and operated? Is there any legitimacy to the claim that you just can't logically have competing water supplies and subway tunnels for physical reasons?

Of course these things are a major distraction as they are relatively inconsequential compared to the big things the government (local, state, and federal) is wasting money on, but from a philosophical standpoint, where do libertarians stand on this stuff and what do you say to people who bring it up to argue against limited government??

[fisharmor]

Of course these things are a major distraction as they are relatively inconsequential compared to the big things the government (local, state, and federal) is wasting money on, but from a philosophical standpoint, where do libertarians stand on this stuff and what do you say to people who bring it up to argue against limited government??

Police are a major distraction from what? Getting prison time for driving reasonable speeds? Having your daughter tazed and crack her skull open on the concrete and end up a vegetable?
Without police, the state is nothing. It's vapor. It ceases to exist without police.
I don't think that's a distraction.

[pcosmar]

Oh Boy,
another one of these.

[Travlyr]

Oh Boy,
another one of these.

This is good. Each time we go through this more and more people learn what a police state is, and they learn that police didn't rule over the people in 1787. Around the time gold was confiscated is when police began brutalizing people.

[insidemanpoker]

Ugh, guys, no one is more disgusted by the power of the police but please forgive the sound of my post and take the police out of it. I don't want to go down that path right now. By inconsequential, I was only referring to the fact that infrastructure type spending is completely irrelevant when compared to the huge bills from wars and social welfare programs. Please don't make this about the police!

Edit: I removed police from the OP so please help me more specifically with what I am clearly getting at for the sake of this thread. I just want to know if libs believe the state or local government can/should deal with ANY services at all with the most obvious being subway tunnels/water etc.

[Danan]

Well, there is not only one libertarian philosophy.

For example those who follow the philosophy of the non-agression-principle will (if they are consequent) end up being (effectively) anarcho-capitalists (even if they might not label themselves like that). To them taxation is theft and therefore no service should be financed by taxes. If consumers of every good have to pay for them voluntarily then there are no "public goods" in this environment. A neo-classical economist will tell you that non-rivalrous and non-excludable goods won't be offered in a society without taxation. Here is a good and very interesting lecture by Walter Block (a self-descibed anarcho-capitalist) on the topic of public goods contrary to the neo-classical belief:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kPP...eature=related

Other libertarians are "minarchists" who basically just want to have a night watchman state (Ron Paul would most likely be in this category). In their perfect society government's only function is to make sure that our freedoms are not infringed by others. So police and national defense would be ok. Firefighters, roads and watersupply is not a proper function of government according to pure minarchists (of course there are many shades of gray).

And the last group I'd like to mention are libertarians that are in general for the free-market. But they do believe in the concept of public goods and that government is a necessary evil to enhance "overall utillity" by providing goods that otherwise wouldn't be provided (or at least not at the "equilibrium quantity"). The problem with this position (imho) is that it's quite easy to argue for all kinds of things that the government has to provide (some libertarians even advocate the Federal Reserve on that basis).


So it's not that easy to answer. But I'd like to give an example regarding one of the services mentioned by you:

I live in Austria. The only places where we have publicly funded firefighters are the big cities. Everywhere else the job is done voluntarily by private societies. It's quite common to be a member in some kind of society (firefighters, ambulance, etc.) and they are funded through donations and the profits of festivities they arrange (where everybody accepts overpriced beer because it's for a good cause ). And these firefighers are extremely effective (compared with international statistics). They arrive only a few minutes after a emergency call comes in, because there is a station in every small town. And they also have really good (and expensive) equipment.


So I don't think that roads, the police, fire brigades, water supply wouldn't exist without coercion.

[pcosmar]

Well, there is not only one libertarian philosophy.

This is what my first post referred to.
And there always seems to be the inference that whatever we think, it can't work.

So I don't think that roads, the police, fire brigades, water supply wouldn't exist without coercion.

I think I disagree with this,, I believe they can all exist voluntarily. I think that free people an work together and often do without the state.

And that what "state" exists can be very minimal and limited.
Some of these "services" should not be privatized they should not exist and are in fact unnecessary.
Some are common and should be respected such as "Right of Way".
Some things are simply duty to ones fellow man as a society.

I do not believe that State coercion should be acceptable though. The State need to be limited from this at every level.

[insidemanpoker]

Firefighters are an easier thing to argue against. What about water supply and subway tunnels? They are both very important both come with very substantial barriers to entry that could be very difficult to overcome to provide for a competitive market. It isn't like there can be 10 different subway lines and 10 different water suppliers each using their own infrastructure. Or maybe there could be but there is certainly a real case that can be made that these things have substantial barriers to open competition.

So what about these physical things that towns and cities want but are not easily open to competition? I'd be all for competing subways and giving my business to the best water supplier but it doesn't seem overly practical and I am curious your thoughts on this....It also doesn't seem to be as offensive of a government overreach for a town to provide water from local tax revenue as a lot of other, more intrusive government services but I know a lot of purists don't like to use that kind of logic.

[Travlyr]

There is no one correct way for everyone, imo. I'm not a libertarian, so I cannot speak for them.

It seems to me that government is created by standards, contract law, and land law. The meter, the liter, the acre, the gram & grain, etc. Those standards govern trade. If someone wants to sell me a liter of gasoline, then it is the same no matter where I travel in the world. If someone sells me 1/2 liter of gas, then I can prove to an impartial judge that 1/2 liter does not equal a liter by the standard definition.

Land is wealth creating. Money must be earned through mining gold or whatever, growing food or whatever, or building something useful for which others are willing to trade. All resources are tied up in the Earth. When ownership of land and the resources it contains is reasonably equitable, then individuals can prosper.

Contracts should be enforceable.

In my perfect world, land can be owned outright privately with the right to keep others off of it. The land under the roads should be owned by everyone so that nobody is denied access. Private land for individuals and public land for travel and enjoyment. It is the same with parks, rivers, the oceans, and the air ... owned by everyone.

While government is natural it should be benign and only used to verify claims provable in a court of law and to apprehend those who violate the rights of others ... thieves and assaulters.

The right to life, liberty, and property should be protected by governing documents.

[Danan]

I think I disagree with this,, I believe they can all exist voluntarily. I think that free people an work together and often do without the state.

And that what "state" exists can be very minimal and limited.
Some of these "services" should not be privatized they should not exist and are in fact unnecessary.
Some are common and should be respected such as "Right of Way".
Some things are simply duty to ones fellow man as a society.

Maybe I wasn't quite clear. Writing at philosophical topics in English after a night of excessive alcohol consume seems to be a little bit harder than I thought.
But I agree with you: these services would exist without coercion.


I have to say though, to stay intellectually honest: There are things like the free rider problem. And they do affect the way services are provided. I thought about these problems a lot, since they are really challenging to my belief system and I have to agree with neo-classical economists that it's true that without coercion there are services that wouldn't exist in a quantity like aggregate demand would request. The counter argument to that thesis is that government can't determine aggregate demand properly either.

A good example is the millitary. Nobody in Nebraska would pay for a US defense army. They know that people on the borders would pay anyway so why should they? So it's clear that not everybody would pay the price "defense" is worth to him. But to give the government the ability to fund a millitary with taxes has turned out to be even worse (just look at all the unecessary wars).

But I feel it's a little bit dishonest to dismiss the argument that a free rider problem exists at all and it doesn't help to make that argument. It's much better to point out that the alternative has even worse unintended consequences.


That's also my answer to insidemanpoker's question regarding tunnels and watersupply. Without government there would be watersupply. Would it be perfect? Maybe not. But it's better than to give the government an excuse to tax. Also everything run by burocrates is extremely uneffective and wasteful since there is no feedback through prices and profites.

Also that's a totally utalitarian discussion to this point. The moral argument is that taxation is theft and even if these services wouldn't exist in a free society at all it would still be the way to go. "I would rather live free but poor than rich but unfree." - Ron Paul

[kuckfeynes]

Some relevant videos that come to mind...



And re: water supply... My buddy owns a nice 12 acres that was once part of a 100+ acre farm. There are two privately owned wells in the area that both reach his property and thus are forced to compete. When the second one opened and he and people had options, the operators of the first one went out of their way to do more purity testing (southwest PA... proprietary fracking chemicals are a big concern, and the lobby pretty much runs the state). There is literally nothing that the government provides that the market would not do and do better in its absence.

[fisharmor]

What about water supply and subway tunnels? They are both very important both come with very substantial barriers to entry that could be very difficult to overcome to provide for a competitive market. It isn't like there can be 10 different subway lines and 10 different water suppliers each using their own infrastructure. Or maybe there could be but there is certainly a real case that can be made that these things have substantial barriers to open competition.

I have a well in my back yard. I own my own infrastructure for water supply.
There is also a septic field in my back yard. I own my own sewer supply.
I live in the suburbs.
As a stipulation of my purchase of my home, the county forced the previous owner to disconnect the well and feed in county water, and re-route my sewage into the county sewer system.
True story.
So.................... where's the barrier to entry in this scenario, exactly?


I live south of Washington, DC.
There is a subway system.
Sometimes I take it into the city.
Sometimes I drive.
Sometimes I take a bus.
Sometimes there's a shuttle.

So........................ where's the barrier to entry there?

[Danan]

It is the same with parks, rivers, the oceans, and the air ... owned by everyone.

While I can understand that position it is exactly the reason that oceans are overfished, parks are unsafe and the air is polluted. Were they owned by private owners these problems wouldn't exist, because they could go to court if somebody else violates their property.

And to solve these problems when that property is publicly owned there needs to be quite excessive government with certain agencies and burocracies, fishing quotas, international sea associations, international air pollution agreements, etc.

So everything has it's downsides.

[Travlyr]

While I can understand that position it is exactly the reason that oceans are overfished, parks are unsafe and the air is polluted. Were they owned by private owners these problems wouldn't exist, because they could go to court if somebody else violates their property.

And to solve these problems when that property is publicly owned there needs to be quite excessive government with certain agencies and burocracies, fishing quotas, international sea associations, international air pollution agreements, etc.

So everything has it's downsides.

Where is the air polluted? I hear people say that, but the air where I live has been good for decades... ever since Mount St. Helens blew up. Are people really overfishing? Where are the parks unsafe?

[Danan]

Where is the air polluted? I hear people say that, but the air where I live has been good for decades... ever since Mount St. Helens blew up. Are people really overfishing? Where are the parks unsafe?

Would you feel safer walking around Hyde Park at night or walking around inside Wallmart?

I don't think it's a secret that the oceans are overfished. Many species are close to extermination.

And the best example for pollution is my home city Graz. It's also often called the "fine dust capital". Fine dust is a product of heating, traffic and industrial production and it causes all kinds of diseases.

[Elwar]

My water company is private. A private cooperative where every customer is a member who can vote for leaders. I ran for water commissioner in January, lost by 4 votes. Same with my electric company. Our fire service used to be private as well. We have competing trash. We have a private sewer company. I am pretty sure that the police, roads and post office are the only government bodies in my town.

As for the roads:


"what about the roads?"

What about the roads...

What about the roads is so great? Sure, they get you from point A to point B, but they get you there in the most inconvenient way possible. It's like dealing with the DMV on a daily basis.

What about the roads is so great...is it the long waits at red lights? Is it the amount of time wasted sitting in traffic? Is it the fact that roads are so dangerous? According to the CDC, accidents on our roads are the leading cause of death for US teens accounting for 1 in 3 deaths in this age group. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports over six and a half million car accidents per year. A Federal Highway Administration study showed that 34% of serious accidents had contributing factors relating to the roadway. People are literally dying in the streets and yet we put up with it because the government owns the roads.

Let me ask a question...has anyone here ever been in a car accident? Been stuck in traffic? Waited too long at a red light?

Why do we put up with this?

The blame gets shifted to cell phone use or drunk driving. More laws to fix bad government. The real question should be, why do we put up with a road system that hasn't changed in the past 100 years?

For 50 years we lived under a government mandated phone monopoly where we were stuck with the home telephone where we pick up the handset, dial the number and talk to the person on the other end. And we were fine with this. We didn't want anyone to mess with it because it worked. But competition was allowed in and we had more choices. The telephone system got better. Now hardly anyone uses the old system, there are so many better choices out there. The same could happen for the roads.

The next time you are stuck in traffic, you are at a red light or have the unfortunate thing happen, where you are in a car accident I want you to just give this some thought. To just imagine...

Imagine...

Imagine being able to get to work with no hassle and no delays.

Imagine being able to get in your car in the morning and have your car drive you to work on the smart road while you catch up on that last bit of sleep or eat your breakfast or read a paper.

Imagine driving in an electric car that is charged by the road with wireless induction.

Imagine a world without the need for foreign oil.

All of this is possible, the technology is there.

But we are stuck in the belief that what our government has provided for us in the way of roads is the best solution.

It is time we accept alternatives, it's time that we stop accepting the same old roads as a given and allow the free market to offer us more.

What about the roads?

I agree, What about the roads!

[ProIndividual]

Insidemanpoker...first off, props on the name as someone who played exclusively online until Black Friday for a living. Secondly, I think the videos on Mises' website under the category "anarchy" in the audio/video section answer best the libertarian position on roads and water. True, many, if not most, libertarians here (and anywhere in America) are minarchists, but as your question does not pertain to actual necessary functions of a state, this should not be a huge issue (unless they're for a little more government than they let on).

Since privatized roads and water can exist simultaneously with a state (a monopolist on violence and law within a certain geographic area), there should be very little dipsute to what the "pure" libertarian position is on these subjects. Even the minarchists over at Reason have a group of videos on road privatization.

After watching the rest of the videos on Mises under that category "anarchy" one may very well, however, see the value in privatizing truly eveything, including law and security (policing).

PM me sometime to talk poker...my 2nd favorite subject, after individualist free market anarchism (what I consider "libertarianism").