Results 1 to 21 of 21

Thread: What Would or Wouldn't a Free Society Look Like?

  1. #1

    What Would or Wouldn't a Free Society Look Like?

    IMO, here's what it will NOT look like:



    It could. But that would be long after multiple revolutions in technology that would render the citizens of such a city immune to price gouging of their basic needs. In order for that picture to exist; land, water, and a portion of profits of the food producers had to be either stolen or subsidized in order to enable those people to live there. Coercion built that.

    Until those revolutions in technology occur, this is what a free society looks like:




  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2
    I do not share the view that an agrarian economy will return in a completely free market (a stateless society). I agree that cities are being held together artificially, and some would disappear, while others would shrink...but some might grow, and some might begin elsewhere. We're no more going back to the widespread starvation, high levels of child labor, high worker fatality rates, low productivity per man-hour, etc. of agrarian society (which is much romanticized in spite of the numerous downfalls as compared to industrial economies, let alone automation and technological economies), than we are going back to the economic system that preceded agrarianism (hunter-gatherer economics).

    There would be cities in a stateless society, because cities first materialized in stateless societies thousands of years ago. They were simply a product of mass employment, trying to reduce traveling distance to a job, and sedimentary human organization instead of the nomadic life that occurred due to hunter-gatherer economics. If you create mass employment opportunities which are more productive, better serve consumers with lower prices, higher quality service, and/or more accountability to consumers, you'll have people flock to that employment. Since they don't want to travel 10 hours to get to work, and work is no longer nomadic, they will settle where the job is. This creates masses of people living near a mass employer, and this creates other needs (in free market economics this is known as "supply creates its own demand"). So, soon small stores, services, goods, etc. appear to serve other needs and wants of the newly sedimentary employees. This creates stationary communities and cities.

    No state is required for this...just a lack of hunter-gatherer economics. And I see no signs of the masses wanting to return to all the relative horrors associated with that. I also don't see them ever clamoring to go back to mass agrarian economics. We simply don't need that many farmers anymore, due to technological advances in farming. That's not to say the state hasn't used coercion to create Big Agriculture...I'm sure without a state we'd have MORE farmers with smaller chunks of market share, income, and wealth than Big Agriculture holds now through force of laws, regulations, taxes, subsidies, etc. But, the masses will not be required for agricultural needs and wants of society even then.

    And as anyone who studies economics in depth knows, total self-sufficiency is a recipe for less trade, and therefore a poorer population. In a free society some will choose this poverty, and that's fine (like the Amish do now, for the most part, via their rejection of technology in favor of human labor instead, for example)...but most will choose instead to be interdependent economically via trade, choosing to find ways to maximize their talents and preferences by being more productive via technology and trading their labors for the thing that maximizes their utility individually. This wealth is then traded to people who want to farm (or find that farming is how to maximize their individual marginal utility in the economy). In short, some are good at farming, and some are good at dentistry...there is no need for the dentist to grow food and for the farmer to learn dentistry; they can simply trade with each other, and in the process make each other richer, make themselves richer, and receive better services and goods than they could supply to themselves through self-sufficiency. That's the entire function of Division of Labor in market economics...to maximize your talents AND preferences (you may or may not want to take on the job that makes you happiest or pays you the most, and most will choose the job which does neither, but fulfills both to the highest degree possible simultaneously - maximizing marginal utility). That enlightened self-interest enriches everyone, including you.

    Next to neo-Luddite beliefs about technology (that technology advancing will somehow put everyone permanently out of work - as if human want, and want to toil in some pursuit or another, isn't infinite), the myth of utopian self-sufficiency is maybe the second most pervasive misunderstanding in economics.
    Last edited by ProIndividual; 04-20-2014 at 08:34 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Xerographica View Post

    Yes, I want to force consumers to buy trampolines, popcorn, environmental protection and national defense whether or not they really demand them. And I definitely want to outlaw all alternatives. Nobody should be allowed to compete with the state. Private security companies, private healthcare, private package delivery, private education, private disaster relief, private militias...should all be outlawed.
    ^Minimalist state socialism (minarchy) taken to its logical conclusions; communism.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    IMO, here's what it will NOT look like:





    Edit: Hmm. In my original post, I thought I had made some sort of derisive crack about Chicago (all in good fun, of course!) but apparently only the smiles came through. Weird. Of course, I had downed a few drinks shortly before going on.

    Moral: Don't drink and post!
    Last edited by KCIndy; 04-21-2014 at 07:16 PM.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by fr33 View Post
    IMO, here's what it will NOT look like:
    Here's what some of it would look like.
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Kowloon-Walled-City-1.png 
Views:	0 
Size:	604.3 KB 
ID:	2352
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Girard_kowloon015.jpg 
Views:	0 
Size:	157.9 KB 
ID:	2353
    More pics here
    http://www.greggirard.com/work/kowloon-walled-city--13
    It could. But that would be long after multiple revolutions in technology that would render the citizens of such a city immune to price gouging of their basic needs.
    One of the things that kept Kowloon Walled City interesting and afloat is the fact that it was renowned as a place to go for unlicensed medicine. The opposite of what you're suggesting is the case. If there is no central authority which rounds people up for not competing in the officially cartel sanctioned way, then prices drop.

    In order for that picture to exist; land, water, and a portion of profits of the food producers had to be either stolen or subsidized in order to enable those people to live there. Coercion built that.
    Yes, coercion built your example and you can tell plainly by the fact that everything is laid out in a grid, there's a lot of wasted space, and the only real thought put into how that modern grid-city is going to operate was thought put into how severe a punishment will be meted out for breaking arbitrary rules.
    Think about how ridiculous the "who will build the roads" argument is when you connect it to a modern city: not a single large modern city in the world is easy to get into and out of. The only ones that are easy to travel to are the ones that had the wisdom not to obliterate their rail systems.

    I think in a free city you'd see a lot more movement toward intelligent transportation systems. Grid layout roads would immediately be seen for the farce they are. They're nothing more than a way for the state's monopoly on postal service to be able to cut their loss rate down under tar-and-feather levels.
    In reality, people don't want to live on grids - you can see that in older city designs, but also in non-urban settings. Both historically and today. Historically because our grid-layout farms in the US are not the way things are in Europe or China... older civilizations worked things out in a much more fluid manner, before the state was dictating that everything had to have frontages in line with some bureaucrat's personal pet peeves. And today in that modern subdivisions are never grid layout... people want to live on winding streets.

    So your rural picture of living isn't the way things would be, either, IMO.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  6. #5
    If you want to try out a free society for a week, go to the Porcupine Freedom Festival. It is perhaps the best example we have right now. Something like this. http://porcfest.com/

    Here is the NPR story on a free society.

    Libertarian Summer Camp
    June 28, 2011 5:33 PM ET
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/...an-summer-camp
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith and stuff View Post
    If you want to try out a free society for a week, go to the Porcupine Freedom Festival. It is perhaps the best example we have right now. Something like this. http://porcfest.com/

    Here is the NPR story on a free society.

    Libertarian Summer Camp
    June 28, 2011 5:33 PM ET
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/...an-summer-camp
    If you want to see what it would physically look like, here is where PorcFest happens. This is an empty version of the campground and motel park.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  8. #7
    That's it? It's not even as big as burning man.
    I would hope they could at least get it as big as a state fair.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  9. #8
    I'll tell you a couple of things we wouldn't have: private police or traffic rules, laws, or regulations of any kind.
    I'm an adventurer, writer and bitcoin market analyst.

    Buy my book for $11.49 (reduced):

    Website: http://www.grandtstories.com/

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/LeviGrandt

    Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/grandtstori...homepage_panel

    BTC: 1NiSc21Yrv6CRANhg1DTb1EUBVax1ZtqvG



  10. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    I'll tell you a couple of things we wouldn't have: private police or traffic rules, laws, or regulations of any kind.
    Why would you say that? That's not how past stateless societies seemed to operate. They had private forms of law (nonviolent dispute resolution services), regulated justly those who FIRST victimized others (ex post facto regulation, as opposed to preemptive regulation), and they often had private law enforcement (whether in the form of crime prevention security guards, or in the from of professional bounty hunters who hunted down outlaws who were outlawed using outlawry).

    I can tell you a couple things we wouldn't have for sure...state police, state traffic rules, state laws (statutory law), preemptive regulations, OR any kind of state.
    Quote Originally Posted by Xerographica View Post

    Yes, I want to force consumers to buy trampolines, popcorn, environmental protection and national defense whether or not they really demand them. And I definitely want to outlaw all alternatives. Nobody should be allowed to compete with the state. Private security companies, private healthcare, private package delivery, private education, private disaster relief, private militias...should all be outlawed.
    ^Minimalist state socialism (minarchy) taken to its logical conclusions; communism.

  12. #10
    I actually agree with PCWV on one point. We wouldn't have private police because there is no market demand for police.
    Statists refuse to acknowledge that the whole point of cops is to murder homeless people, senior citizens, and seven year old girls. But once you take away the power to murder, rape, and rob with absolute indemnity, you're not talking about cops anymore.

    I of course base this on the fact that cops did not exist prior to legislative fiat. In a free society they would disappear overnight, along with fractional reserve banking, the medical cartel, zoning law, and every other "modern convenience" that exists only because of the giant crutch called the state.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    That's it? It's not even as big as burning man.
    I would hope they could at least get it as big as a state fair.
    I think it was like 1600 people. There are a ton less people that like liberty then like what Burning Man is about (art, drug use, communism...). Plus, the is on a small plot of private land, not a large section of government land crawling with dozen of government agents.

    As for state fairs, again, those are government events crawling with and in this case, even run by government agents.

    Freedom has to start somewhere. This year will be the 11th annual PorcFest, 13th in you count year zero (which had only a few dozen people).

    Edit: I accidentally said 13th if you count year zero. I meant to say 12th if you count year zero.
    Last edited by Keith and stuff; 04-22-2014 at 12:30 PM.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith and stuff View Post
    I think it was like 1600 people.
    ....This year will be the 11th annual PorcFest, 13th in you count year zero (which had only a few dozen people).
    Those are some decent numbers (I didn't know it was so young).
    I had gotten the idea it was in September, so in the spirit of "$#@! or get off the pot" I resolved to stick my AC crunchy family friends in the van with us and drive up there... but unfortunately it's the same time the father of that family and I are supposed to go to a hands-on study of extant medieval armor.
    I know for a fact David Friedman will forgive me.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    I actually agree with PCWV on one point. We wouldn't have private police because there is no market demand for police.
    Statists refuse to acknowledge that the whole point of cops is to murder homeless people, senior citizens, and seven year old girls. But once you take away the power to murder, rape, and rob with absolute indemnity, you're not talking about cops anymore.

    I of course base this on the fact that cops did not exist prior to legislative fiat. In a free society they would disappear overnight, along with fractional reserve banking, the medical cartel, zoning law, and every other "modern convenience" that exists only because of the giant crutch called the state.
    I disagree there is no market demand for private law enforcement in a stateless society. There are two reasons for this...that fact they existed in the forms I already described, AND because if legal insurers (sureties), aka contractual law, was to re-emerge into a free society, then those sureties will have a market incentive to preempt crime by patrolling certain high risk areas where their customers are likely to be victimized regularly, so they can decrease claims against them that they'll need to pay out to victims they insure. That doesn't mean they act like today's police...it just means they patrol certain areas where claims are being made so much they either have to cancel all the policies in that area OR they can patrol those areas with their customers' consent. That patrol doesn't include searching people, pulling people over, etc...it just means they create a deterrent to crime happening (picture these cops as very similar to Threat Management in Detroit).

    Private police are not equivalent to a private version of statist police. They don't have the same function, the same tactics, the same objectives, or the same accountability. Statist police have no accountability to consumers because the consumer has to pay or go to a rape cage...that isn't the case with contractual law and legal insurers who hire private police and direct them in their duties. If you don't like how statist police operate, too bad, you still have to pay. If you don't appreciate what stateless private police do, you can simply switch legal contracts and have their private cops run off the bad private cops (by protecting you from them) - but that wouldn't even be necessary since just withdrawing your payment to them and giving it to a competitor will make in financially impossible and unprofitable for them to continue to police a non-customer (not to mention the fact it would likely be seen as a crime by all other insurers and private police they hire).

    There will still be pro bounty hunters who hunt down those who are outlawed in a free society (we can't let serial killers run around killing until someone kills them in direct self defense). Ostracism includes ostracism from legal protections (hence outlawry). And there will still be sureties who seek to be as profitable as possible by paying out as few as claims as possible to their customers who are victimized. The only way to do this and not lose customers is to hire security for them if they are in areas that are high crime, assuming they can't afford to move when the market signal of higher insurance fees appear for living in a high crime area. The sureties wouldn't seek to lose customers who couldn't afford to move, and it would cost them less to provide some type of private security for those people rather than cancel their policies or keep paying them settlements when victimized.

    Also, we'd need detectives to investigate crimes when they occurred to people (whether insured people, or the uninsured who have their claims homesteaded because they are poor and not outlaws without insurance). These investigators are essentially just private police too.

    I know the word "police" has a certain colloquial meaning today because of the state, but that connotation is a function of the state, not the original or market-demanded function they would serve outside the state monopoly. Police today have certain powers that none of us do. The power they are supposed to have is to use force when legitimate (the same places anyone else can legitimately use force). Unfortunately, the legitimate use of force is ONLY AMONG the powers statist police have, whereas free market cops would ONLY have the power to use legitimate force, and nothing more.

    If you can see how Threat Management and similar services in Detroit are not equivalent to state police, then you can see the difference between cops in a stateless society and the cops as they exist now.
    Last edited by ProIndividual; 04-22-2014 at 12:11 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Xerographica View Post

    Yes, I want to force consumers to buy trampolines, popcorn, environmental protection and national defense whether or not they really demand them. And I definitely want to outlaw all alternatives. Nobody should be allowed to compete with the state. Private security companies, private healthcare, private package delivery, private education, private disaster relief, private militias...should all be outlawed.
    ^Minimalist state socialism (minarchy) taken to its logical conclusions; communism.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by PI
    Private police are not equivalent to a private version of statist police. They don't have the same function, the same tactics, the same objectives, or the same accountability.


    The word 'police' has a specific connotation.
    Sheriffs and their deputies are in law enforcement. The TSA is in law enforcement. The FBI is in law enforcement.
    None of those bodies incorporate a patrolling element. TSA agents are stationed in a particular place. The FBI investigates specific crimes that they already know to have happened. Sheriffs serve warrants for suspicion of crimes already committed.

    Those law enforcement jobs would exist in a free society.
    What differentiates police is that they are tasked with policing. They are the original law enforcement branch which invaded every aspect of our lives in an effort to find targets of opportunity.

    I'm not saying those others don't look for (or create!) targets of opportunity. What I'm saying is that police stuck their leg in that door, and everyone else followed.

    Do they need to be police in order to respond to emergencies? No.
    Do they need to be police to help people broken down on the side of the road? No.
    Do they need to be police to make warranted arrests for documented crimes? No.

    Do they need to be police to hand out excessive fines for driving reasonable speeds? Yes.
    Do they need to be police to get away with breaking & entering into the wrong house at night and murdering little girls? Yes.
    Do they need to be police to manage accident scenes... to the point of disallowing helpful strangers from attempting to drive people to the hospital themselves instead of waiting 20 minutes for an ambulance? Yes.

    That's my contention... everything that makes police police is at BEST a complete waste of time, and at worst murder.
    Everything they do which the market would actually require was already figured out before the police came about. So I think we ought to stop using the term in conjunction with law enforcement altogether.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by ProIndividual View Post
    Why would you say that? That's not how past stateless societies seemed to operate. They had private forms of law (nonviolent dispute resolution services), regulated justly those who FIRST victimized others (ex post facto regulation, as opposed to preemptive regulation), and they often had private law enforcement (whether in the form of crime prevention security guards, or in the from of professional bounty hunters who hunted down outlaws who were outlawed using outlawry).
    That is not what I meant by police. Bounty hunters and security guards are not police. Law enforcement is the duty of every individual, and bounty hunting is a good way to provide incentive for law enforcement. Furthermore, I did not say there would be no legal system. What I am against is the notion of constables on patrol, whether they be state-sanctioned or private, whose job it is to go around and look for crimes.

    I can tell you a couple things we wouldn't have for sure...state police, state traffic rules, state laws (statutory law), preemptive regulations, OR any kind of state.
    That is true. The point I was really driving at is that some people here seem to believe that there would be private roads and private police who would patrol those roads to enforce a bunch of traffic rules that the road owner hand down on the notion that it would enhance safety and drive (literally) more "customers" toward that road. I don't believe there would be any traffic rules, even from the decree of some road owner. The free market would not support a system of private police who enforce a bunch of rules that tell people how to drive in order to enhance safety somehow. No road owner, if there ever were such a thing, would find it profitable to control how people drive, which is really the point I was getting at. I don't know if there will be private road owners at all; the concept seems a bit impractical to me, but I know there wouldn't be any form of policing on the roadways.

    As long as it doesn't involve preemption and doesn't give any state-sanctioned authority or pay to a particular group, I'm fine with it.
    Last edited by PaulConventionWV; 04-22-2014 at 12:47 PM.
    I'm an adventurer, writer and bitcoin market analyst.

    Buy my book for $11.49 (reduced):

    Website: http://www.grandtstories.com/

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/LeviGrandt

    Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/grandtstori...homepage_panel

    BTC: 1NiSc21Yrv6CRANhg1DTb1EUBVax1ZtqvG

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    Those are some decent numbers (I didn't know it was so young).
    I had gotten the idea it was in September, so in the spirit of "$#@! or get off the pot" I resolved to stick my AC crunchy family friends in the van with us and drive up there... but unfortunately it's the same time the father of that family and I are supposed to go to a hands-on study of extant medieval armor.
    I know for a fact David Friedman will forgive me.
    It's been in June as long as I remember. Don't worry, I think PorcFest will happen in June 2015 also This year, PorcFest overlaps with the Laconia Motorcycle Rally for 1 day. Motorcycle rallies, like PorcFest and Burning Man, give a slightly different take on a functioning society.
    http://porcfest.com/
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.



  19. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    The word 'police' has a specific connotation.
    I know that, and acknowledged it specifically....but that connotation is not the denotative meaning of the word (the actual meaning). I understand you mean the connotation, or the colloquial meaning of the word, but I mean the denotative meaning of the word, or the actual meaning.

    We have to remember what "anarchy" means colloquially and connotatively...and it isn't what you or I mean by the word in philosophical discussion about a free society. We mean the denotative, actual, meaning.

    I'm simply saying we should do the same for "police" as well. Private police should not carry the statist connotations anymore than "anarchy" should.

    The word police comes from Middle French, Latin, and finally Greek, and it meant "city citizenship, city administration" roughly. And anarchy, as you know, doesn't mean chaos; it means "without rulers" in Greek.

    I guess this just comes down to semantics. In practice, however, we probably agree.
    Last edited by ProIndividual; 04-22-2014 at 12:52 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Xerographica View Post

    Yes, I want to force consumers to buy trampolines, popcorn, environmental protection and national defense whether or not they really demand them. And I definitely want to outlaw all alternatives. Nobody should be allowed to compete with the state. Private security companies, private healthcare, private package delivery, private education, private disaster relief, private militias...should all be outlawed.
    ^Minimalist state socialism (minarchy) taken to its logical conclusions; communism.

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by PaulConventionWV View Post
    That is not what I meant by police. Bounty hunters and security guards are not police. Law enforcement is the duty of every individual, and bounty hunting is a good way to provide incentive for law enforcement. Furthermore, I did not say there would be no legal system. What I am against is the notion of constables on patrol, whether they be state-sanctioned or private, whose job it is to go around and look for crimes.



    That is true. The point I was really driving at is that some people here seem to believe that there would be private roads and private police who would patrol those roads to enforce a bunch of traffic rules that the road owner hand down on the notion that it would enhance safety and drive (literally) more "customers" toward that road. I don't believe there would be any traffic rules, even from the decree of some road owner. The free market would not support a system of private police who enforce a bunch of rules that tell people how to drive in order to enhance safety somehow. No road owner, if there ever were such a thing, would find it profitable to control how people drive, which is really the point I was getting at. I don't know if there will be private road owners at all; the concept seems a bit impractical to me, but I know there wouldn't be any form of policing on the roadways.
    I see...you and I are having the same semantics problem as fisharmor and myself. I'd refer you to the above post #17...that way we can all agree in practice, if not in semantics.

    We're all on the same page where it is important
    Quote Originally Posted by Xerographica View Post

    Yes, I want to force consumers to buy trampolines, popcorn, environmental protection and national defense whether or not they really demand them. And I definitely want to outlaw all alternatives. Nobody should be allowed to compete with the state. Private security companies, private healthcare, private package delivery, private education, private disaster relief, private militias...should all be outlawed.
    ^Minimalist state socialism (minarchy) taken to its logical conclusions; communism.

  22. #19
    In before roads and polic--ah, $#@! it.

    Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and anti-statism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul. - M. Rothbard

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by fisharmor View Post
    Here's what some of it would look like.
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Kowloon-Walled-City-1.png 
Views:	0 
Size:	604.3 KB 
ID:	2352
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Girard_kowloon015.jpg 
Views:	0 
Size:	157.9 KB 
ID:	2353
    More pics here
    http://www.greggirard.com/work/kowloon-walled-city--13

    One of the things that kept Kowloon Walled City interesting and afloat is the fact that it was renowned as a place to go for unlicensed medicine. The opposite of what you're suggesting is the case. If there is no central authority which rounds people up for not competing in the officially cartel sanctioned way, then prices drop.



    Yes, coercion built your example and you can tell plainly by the fact that everything is laid out in a grid, there's a lot of wasted space, and the only real thought put into how that modern grid-city is going to operate was thought put into how severe a punishment will be meted out for breaking arbitrary rules.
    Think about how ridiculous the "who will build the roads" argument is when you connect it to a modern city: not a single large modern city in the world is easy to get into and out of. The only ones that are easy to travel to are the ones that had the wisdom not to obliterate their rail systems.

    I think in a free city you'd see a lot more movement toward intelligent transportation systems. Grid layout roads would immediately be seen for the farce they are. They're nothing more than a way for the state's monopoly on postal service to be able to cut their loss rate down under tar-and-feather levels.
    In reality, people don't want to live on grids - you can see that in older city designs, but also in non-urban settings. Both historically and today. Historically because our grid-layout farms in the US are not the way things are in Europe or China... older civilizations worked things out in a much more fluid manner, before the state was dictating that everything had to have frontages in line with some bureaucrat's personal pet peeves. And today in that modern subdivisions are never grid layout... people want to live on winding streets.

    So your rural picture of living isn't the way things would be, either, IMO.
    You make some really good points. I just searched "homestead" and picked one for that 2nd image. There are better ways to farm than the traditional way, for sure, but when we are talking cities as we have now, a balanced diet for everyone is not going to be produced within.

    That city of 33,000 that your images are from looks like what I would imagine as a transitional phase from what we have now to what we could have in the future. There are just so many basic needs not represented in the images from that link. When we consider things like food, water, etc in a city; we must consider the society that city exists within where such things are being shipped in from.

    Transportation as we know it has been so monopolized, I do think we'd have a lot of trial and error competition before we got it right. Imagine competing roads, rails, and runways side by side. Older civilizations did not have the technology of engines and speed so I wouldn't throw the grid system out completely. I envision a competition of more grids to compete in order to provide a better road system than what we have.

  24. #21
    A lot like the current one, except much richer, much safer, better educated, less crime, and most importantly freer.

    As far as the infrastructure and population density, I would imagine both major cities and farm land would shrink in favor of suburban areas and small cities. Most people don't like dealing with a traffic and noise of cities or the isolation and distance from markets in rural areas.
    Last edited by Cutlerzzz; 04-23-2014 at 12:14 AM.



Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 1
    Last Post: 04-14-2014, 08:57 PM
  2. Replies: 7
    Last Post: 05-14-2012, 10:59 AM
  3. Thought Experiment: Tax Free Society
    By denison in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 49
    Last Post: 08-27-2009, 03:11 PM
  4. Tax-Free Society - Introduction
    By nickcoons in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 26
    Last Post: 03-15-2009, 03:59 PM
  5. Free Market wouldn't have allowed this mess to happen?
    By MrNick in forum Economy & Markets
    Replies: 30
    Last Post: 02-24-2009, 11:11 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •