I'm still watching, but I'm hoping he'll bring up the 'HOV' lanes: RESTRICTING a lane during rush-hour, and he people who pay the highest share of gas-taxes don't get to use it.
How does the free-rider problem apply to privatizing roads? Since people would be paying via tolls, it seems to me that the free-rider problem would be the least of the road builders "problems".
either tolls for longer roads over stretches of featureless land... or paid for by homeowners in residential areas, or by businesses in retail or industrial areas. I can't see any road that would suffer from the free-rider problem at all.
Everyone on Earth needs to watch this video. I've seen almost every video of Mr. Block's on YT and he sums up the entire philosophy of Libertarianism in less than 15 minutes. If you don't agree with him then you aren't a peaceful person.
I think he explains this a little more clearly than reading an article by Hoppe!
I really wish I could go afford to attend a private university. Art Carden teaches at Rhodes here in Memphis and Block at Loyola in New Orleans. I would love to take one of their classes.
How does one get to drive on all these private roads? Does one have to pay to ride on them? who keeps track of who pays who doesn't? If some people don't pay will trespassers be shot or fined for driving on these private roads? I don't know if I'm quite on board with private roads. Sounds interesting I just don't know how it will work in the real world.
@lashkaretoiba Probably the way private roads work today... Maybe you'll have to pay, maybe you won't. It would be up to the owner to decide. What you may do to people who don't pay depends on the prevailing laws (yes there are laws in a free society too, only private ones) against trespassing, just like today.
@lashkaretoiba 1.) Yeah, you have a point. Just like how insane private shoemakers may make shoe weapons of mass destruction... Thank God only the government is allowed to make shoes, just imagine the chaos. 2.) Private courts. Please, if you are going to comment on a Walter Block video, please at least check the wikipedia article on anarchocapitalism first.
@jrgenkratz I don't see people (who do nothing wrong) going to jail for driving on a public road but I do see that happening with private roads. Roads are different from shoes. You can't get arrested/killed for for tresspassing on a shoe. ie. one can avoid a shoe maker. What about speed limits? Stop lights? Stop signs? 2.) Private courts run by whom? I'm trying to understand the logic here but you want to be a jerk toward me.
@lashkaretoiba 1.) Well, they would be doing something wrong if they drove on a private road without permission, just like they do something wrong if they take a bus without paying for it. A road is a means of transportation, and someone has to pay for it, just like with air travel, trains, etc. And you can indeed get arrested for trespassing in a shoe store, so I dont get your point there. Things like speed limits and stop lights are addressed in the video. It would be up to the road owner.
@lashkaretoiba 2.) Private courts run by people. Maybe you would pay for a private insurence against crime or for legal representation, in which case any legal dispute would be handled in a private court agreed upon by the organisations offering legal representation to the two parties in question. Really, how it would work is not suitable for a discussion in the comments on youtube, but if you really are interested, I have a lot of material I could recommend for you.
@jrgenkratz Last questions: Would that involve private judges or just ordinary people doing the judging? What if you can't afford a legal respentation will the pro-bono rule still apply? Please send me the infromation. I'm quite interested.
@lashkaretoiba I am not very familiar with the American legal system, so I do not know what the pro bono rule is. I did some googling but didn't find anything with any particular relevance to this discussion. And yes, it would involve private courts and judges, whose services are purchased by protection organisations and insurance companies. Possibly, but who really knows that the most efficient system would be.
@lashkaretoiba You would probably pay on highways, but you have to remember how many people use a highway in a day. The price would be as cheap as possible or a competitor will build a new road because he can undercut prices. There would also assuredly be VERY cheap public transit on highways. Small roads may make deals with businesses regarding roads going to their business, I dunno. but you can be sure all parties involved will find the most efficient way to make profit, so it will be cheap.
I like how he looks at the board (at 12:30) and realizes Malfunctioning Vehicles has absolutely nothing to do with the public sector but rather the incompetence of the private sector.
@NaderAdvocate I don't know how things work where you live but here in Sweden the government has strict regulations on what sort of cars you may drive on public roads and you are forced to regularly get your car serviced to make sure it's working properly. Such a system would possibly arise on the free market as well. Maybe people arent comfortable driving on roads where other people's cars may explode any second. It's always in the interest of the owner to ensure that his roads are safe.
The biggest problem with privatizing roads has always been the mechanics of payment. A ticket booth requires the car to stop, which massively lowers the quality of the road. This makes the tax form of payment the only viable or competitive option, with the exception of bridges and long roads with few intersections. However, with the advent of electronic tolling, fully private roads will one day be ideal.
So you think that having tolls to exclude certain alcoholics and dangerous drivers at the private owners' discretion, is worse than having all the deaths caused by Statist roads i.e., praxeologically speaking, roads upheld by initiation of coercion to extract funds to cover unlimitedly the losses incurred in spending on those roads. Besides the wealth that would have been saved by the operation of the loss system (without force) would have allowed electronic, wireless auto tolling.
@Nintendomanwill I suppose what I mean't was 'registration' rather than ordinary tax, i.e. paying to use your car on the national road network. The fact remains that, given that the national road system is not purely a market item, i.e. it has nation-forming/military uses (since it is the highest-mobility section of the whole nation-state), and physical tolling of all divisible sections (market solution) reduces the mobility more than is workable for a state.
Big mistakes: equating safe with profitable- without gov't intervention there is no incentive for a road to be safe, and people will go on it if it's convenient enough. Second- he's saying that individual choices are the government's responsibility? He makes the argument that it's because the opportunity cost of doing so outweighs the punishment- the fact remains that there's not a whole lot more we can do to punish drunk drivers, and the death penalty for DD would fall under the 8th amendment
@drummerboy202 You say "without govt intervention there is no incentive for a road to be safe". Iif that's the case, then you'd have to say the same thing about everything. What incentive would a private dental company have to produce dental floss that doesn't slice your mouth open?
Oh, and even if it were the case that private institutions had no incentive to produce safe products for their consumers, what is this magical thing about government that compels it to do everything right?
@Nielsio It just sounds like he suggested that the government should be in the business of protecting private property. Now, I never read an entire book by Rothbard and I'm just barely starting ME&S, but does not anarcho-capitalism hold that the existence of any institution that obtains even a penny of its funding through violence is illegitimate?
@highonhayek His examples of government property protection showed how government fails at property protection. This is not an argument for government property protection but against it. If you're paying someone to protect your property and they don't do it, it's a breach of contract. The thing though is that there is no contract with the government, and this is precisely why they don't bother upholding it.
Feel free to join our forum via the link in my profile page for further questions.
Thanks, but I would like to keep this discussion on the YouTube comments section for all to see, including Dr. Block in the unlikely event that he watches his own videos :)
Please have patience if I am confusing things. On the topic of contract breaches in the event of a counterparty default, who would provide the legal remedy? How could I seek justice in the event of vandals spray painting graffiti all over my private road? For these and similar reasons, I just can't accept anarcho-capitalism.
@highonhayek I've answered your question regarding the video. If you want to talk about the much wider topic of anarcho-capitalism then my suggestion for the forum remains. The comments-section on Youtube is not good for that.
@highonhayek This may have already been answered but anarcho-capitalism still believes in laws and rules, it just states that only private police and judges should administer them. The motto or axiom is: "Non-aggression against non-aggressors" If someone steals your stuff, anybody has the right to stop the thief and take it back for you.
I would suggest the video series titled "anarchy comes to UBc" or something like that, in it Block answers your question directly. I think its somewhere in 4-7.
Friedman, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, etc. they could fill; the two are the most approachable and humorous. The last thing we need is another moronic Sarah Palin-type, pretending to warrant the honor.
Walter Block and Thomas Woods really, REALLY need to make the rounds more on cable television shows to assist in the intellectual opposition of the recent gov't expansionist movement. Go on Glenn Beck if need be or eviscerate O'Reilly's neanderthal economics. The free market, anti-state movement is experiencing another revival and there is currently a power vacuum in its leadership with the deaths of titans such as Milton
look, the road in front of peoples house they now own it and maintain it and they need to,to get to the store and the cops and ups to come there!! the interstate roads are now toll roads to pay for maintenance only !! next on to bigger issues!! as far as new roads their will not be a government to need to go around a land owner it's more like landowners that want a new road will organize and build it on their land!!
I wonder how many people would be opposed to privately owned supermarkets."No", say the critics."The supermarkets would charge any amount of money they wanted. The supermarket owners would go into collusion and establish artificially high prices.Everybody knows supermarket owners don't really care about their customers. Without government control over supermarkets, there wouldn't be food or other items to purchase." And yet,lo and behold, we have privately owned supermarkets.
The lack of imagination concerning the privatization of just about any government controlled entity is truly amazing, especially from those who profess a love and respect for freedom. Walter Block's ideas are apt and succinct. He cannot predict how a private road structure would work precisely, because no one can. The free market will make all necessary corrections in that regard.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
Is this clown serious? It's not "our system" that impedes competition, but physical reality. Unless you want to live on a vast asphalt patchwork, roads are a natural monopoly and whoever owns them controls everyone elses' passage with no democratic accountability. Welcome back to feudalism. Please tell me he's not "teaching" this pap at a university.
This is a wrongheaded objection. Why would privatising naturally lead to a vast asphalt patchwork? People set up businesses because they apprehend a gap in the market - i.e., when they judge that demand outstrips supply. If people don't WANT roads everywhere, then the market simply won't work to that eventuality. Building thousands of roads wouldn't be profitable, and the frenzied road builders would quickly go broke.
As for "democratic accountability", of course the owners of roads would be accountable - they'd be accountable to their actual and prospective customers. If they mistreat or neglect them, they lose business, lose money, and get outperformed in the market by those who provide superior road services. Food is currently privatised - a very basic good. Are food producers unaccountable? Are we subject to the tyranny of restaurant owners?Of course not! If they screw up, we buy elsewhere!
As for feudalism. Could you maybe elaborate on what you take feudalism to have been? Certainly it wasn't a free market scenario. People didn't primarily produce and exchange voluntarily. There was vast and systematic coercion, repression, exploitation, taxation, slavery etc. Private property rights, for the most part, weren't respected at all. Feudalism and libertarianism are fundamentally incompatible social arrangements.
Physical reality isn't the constraint: it's government's mandate of what physical reality is to be.
Private roads aren't pap. It's been done. You only need to look at the state of things 100 years ago. We had a private "road" system, but it was called "rail".
And it encouraged centralized populations, meaning you could actually walk places, and less pristine wilderness got turned into housing developments.
Any time there are taxes, tariffs, currency inflation, blockades, official violence, etc. you do not have a free market, you have a hampered market. That is the difference between free and hampered markets. The government's threat of voilence is what hampers the market.
What happens if you don't pay the various taxes you're assigned each year? (Federal, State, Medicare, Social Security, Property/Estate Tax, Corporate Tax, etc.)
The government threatens you with violence, i.e. IRS.
Well, you are ALREADY paying ridiculous tolls for roads that you already paid for. That's the point of a free market versus a monopoly: to get prices down and to get quality up.
The GUNvernment has a monopoly on roads. Consequently, the people do not profit in ANY way.
The govt is inept at making roads safer or more efficient. As Block points out, there are about 40k deaths per year on the govt-run roads, and every big city has ridiculous traffic. Plus, there ain't no such thing as a free road!
The variety of methods that would be tried in the marketplace would end up finding the best solutions for lowering the # of deaths, the congestion on the roads, and the $costs
@locjeb I think the term government is incorrect, I'd rather call it State, as government is not the same as State, and State is the trully scam that's run upon us.
Are you holding the water supply hostage? Because that's not according to libertarian principles. You have to homestead something, meaning to turn it into valuable use, for something to become yours.
You've undoubtedly not turned ALL the water into valuable use (or else there wouldn't be a problem to begin with), so that means the only way to do this is through violence. And that's precisely the problem with the roads: the government has a monopoly.
In a real free-market economy monopolies dont exist without the assistance of government intervention. Read Dominick Armentanos books on anti-trust; you can get one for free in pdf form, just google armentano antitrust
For the sake of argument though, lets say that you did somehow manage to take control of the entire water supply of CA. If you then began to charge a much higher price for water, that would cause entrepreneurs to come in and compete in supplying water at much lower costs
Small correction: Hitler didn't come to power due to democracy (or a democratic election for that matter) since the Nazis never won any election - he was made chancellor by Paul von Hindenburg who acted upon the pressure exerted by very influental lobbyists and bankers. Other than that a fantastic video.
Darthtails: Wrong. The Nazis won the last(semi) free election in Germany with ~44% and formed a coalition with a minor party which allowed them to put through changes which effectivly ended democracy in Germany. Now I'm not going to comment on the "lobbyists and bankers" line since your obviously just being a commie here...
Part 1: Hitler was made chancellor months *before* the election you're talking about took place. Also, you've got to keep in mind that soon after Hindenburg took action, Hitler got 3 million Reichsmark by a group of big corporates and various industrialists to fund his campaign, the Reichstag was set on fire, the Communist Party got banned ...
Part 2: Hindenburg enacted the "Reichstags Fire Decree" which did override the most fundamental civil rights of the German people and enabled heavy political surpression, arrests without warrant and the assassination of political adversaries of the opposition or of various unions.
I'm still watching, but I'm hoping he'll bring up the 'HOV' lanes: RESTRICTING a lane during rush-hour, and he people who pay the highest share of gas-taxes don't get to use it.
Seravat7 5 months ago
I love the work of Walter Block. He is such an eccentric.
TimothyADonaghue 6 months ago
privatize everything
LibeRevolution 7 months ago
He missed the free-rider problem, which is the real argument against it.
IntellectualPopulist 9 months ago
@IntellectualPopulist
How does the free-rider problem apply to privatizing roads? Since people would be paying via tolls, it seems to me that the free-rider problem would be the least of the road builders "problems".
brrzzap 12 hours ago
@IntellectualPopulist
either tolls for longer roads over stretches of featureless land... or paid for by homeowners in residential areas, or by businesses in retail or industrial areas. I can't see any road that would suffer from the free-rider problem at all.
brrzzap 12 hours ago
Everyone on Earth needs to watch this video. I've seen almost every video of Mr. Block's on YT and he sums up the entire philosophy of Libertarianism in less than 15 minutes. If you don't agree with him then you aren't a peaceful person.
StatismIsACrutch 11 months ago
I think he explains this a little more clearly than reading an article by Hoppe!
I really wish I could go afford to attend a private university. Art Carden teaches at Rhodes here in Memphis and Block at Loyola in New Orleans. I would love to take one of their classes.
VictoryCough 11 months ago
@lashkaretoiba Some material for starters: daviddfriedman (dot) com (slash) The_Machinery_of_Freedom_ (dot) pdf, freekeene (dot) com (slash) files (slash) marketforliberty (dot) pdf, mises (dot) org (slash) resources (slash) 1893 (slash) The-Private-Production-of-Defense.
jrgenkratz 11 months ago
How does one get to drive on all these private roads? Does one have to pay to ride on them? who keeps track of who pays who doesn't? If some people don't pay will trespassers be shot or fined for driving on these private roads? I don't know if I'm quite on board with private roads. Sounds interesting I just don't know how it will work in the real world.
lashkaretoiba 1 year ago
@lashkaretoiba Probably the way private roads work today... Maybe you'll have to pay, maybe you won't. It would be up to the owner to decide. What you may do to people who don't pay depends on the prevailing laws (yes there are laws in a free society too, only private ones) against trespassing, just like today.
jrgenkratz 1 year ago
@jrgenkratz 1.) You better hope the owner is sane. 2.) who enforces this law?
lashkaretoiba 1 year ago
@lashkaretoiba 1.) Yeah, you have a point. Just like how insane private shoemakers may make shoe weapons of mass destruction... Thank God only the government is allowed to make shoes, just imagine the chaos. 2.) Private courts. Please, if you are going to comment on a Walter Block video, please at least check the wikipedia article on anarchocapitalism first.
jrgenkratz 11 months ago
Comment removed
lashkaretoiba 11 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@jrgenkratz I don't see people (who do nothing wrong) going to jail for driving on a public road but I do see that happening with private roads. Roads are different from shoes. You can't get arrested/killed for for tresspassing on a shoe. ie. one can avoid a shoe maker. What about speed limits? Stop lights? Stop signs? 2.) Private courts run by whom? I'm trying to understand the logic here but you want to be a jerk toward me.
lashkaretoiba 11 months ago
@lashkaretoiba 1.) Well, they would be doing something wrong if they drove on a private road without permission, just like they do something wrong if they take a bus without paying for it. A road is a means of transportation, and someone has to pay for it, just like with air travel, trains, etc. And you can indeed get arrested for trespassing in a shoe store, so I dont get your point there. Things like speed limits and stop lights are addressed in the video. It would be up to the road owner.
jrgenkratz 11 months ago
@lashkaretoiba 2.) Private courts run by people. Maybe you would pay for a private insurence against crime or for legal representation, in which case any legal dispute would be handled in a private court agreed upon by the organisations offering legal representation to the two parties in question. Really, how it would work is not suitable for a discussion in the comments on youtube, but if you really are interested, I have a lot of material I could recommend for you.
jrgenkratz 11 months ago
@jrgenkratz Last questions: Would that involve private judges or just ordinary people doing the judging? What if you can't afford a legal respentation will the pro-bono rule still apply? Please send me the infromation. I'm quite interested.
lashkaretoiba 11 months ago
@lashkaretoiba Check out my video 'How Could A Voluntary Society Function?'.
Nielsio 11 months ago
@lashkaretoiba I am not very familiar with the American legal system, so I do not know what the pro bono rule is. I did some googling but didn't find anything with any particular relevance to this discussion. And yes, it would involve private courts and judges, whose services are purchased by protection organisations and insurance companies. Possibly, but who really knows that the most efficient system would be.
jrgenkratz 11 months ago
@lashkaretoiba You would probably pay on highways, but you have to remember how many people use a highway in a day. The price would be as cheap as possible or a competitor will build a new road because he can undercut prices. There would also assuredly be VERY cheap public transit on highways. Small roads may make deals with businesses regarding roads going to their business, I dunno. but you can be sure all parties involved will find the most efficient way to make profit, so it will be cheap.
zoogle1 10 months ago
I like how he looks at the board (at 12:30) and realizes Malfunctioning Vehicles has absolutely nothing to do with the public sector but rather the incompetence of the private sector.
What a goof.
NaderAdvocate 1 year ago
@NaderAdvocate I don't know how things work where you live but here in Sweden the government has strict regulations on what sort of cars you may drive on public roads and you are forced to regularly get your car serviced to make sure it's working properly. Such a system would possibly arise on the free market as well. Maybe people arent comfortable driving on roads where other people's cars may explode any second. It's always in the interest of the owner to ensure that his roads are safe.
jrgenkratz 1 year ago
The biggest problem with privatizing roads has always been the mechanics of payment. A ticket booth requires the car to stop, which massively lowers the quality of the road. This makes the tax form of payment the only viable or competitive option, with the exception of bridges and long roads with few intersections. However, with the advent of electronic tolling, fully private roads will one day be ideal.
tothemax01 1 year ago
@tothemax01
So you think that having tolls to exclude certain alcoholics and dangerous drivers at the private owners' discretion, is worse than having all the deaths caused by Statist roads i.e., praxeologically speaking, roads upheld by initiation of coercion to extract funds to cover unlimitedly the losses incurred in spending on those roads. Besides the wealth that would have been saved by the operation of the loss system (without force) would have allowed electronic, wireless auto tolling.
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
@Nintendomanwill I suppose what I mean't was 'registration' rather than ordinary tax, i.e. paying to use your car on the national road network. The fact remains that, given that the national road system is not purely a market item, i.e. it has nation-forming/military uses (since it is the highest-mobility section of the whole nation-state), and physical tolling of all divisible sections (market solution) reduces the mobility more than is workable for a state.
+ road don't kill ppl, ppl kill ppl
tothemax01 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
In YouTube, search "Chomsky refutes "libertarian" "anarcho"- capitalism".
nothingnothing0 1 year ago
Big mistakes: equating safe with profitable- without gov't intervention there is no incentive for a road to be safe, and people will go on it if it's convenient enough. Second- he's saying that individual choices are the government's responsibility? He makes the argument that it's because the opportunity cost of doing so outweighs the punishment- the fact remains that there's not a whole lot more we can do to punish drunk drivers, and the death penalty for DD would fall under the 8th amendment
drummerboy202 1 year ago
@drummerboy202 You say "without govt intervention there is no incentive for a road to be safe". Iif that's the case, then you'd have to say the same thing about everything. What incentive would a private dental company have to produce dental floss that doesn't slice your mouth open?
Oh, and even if it were the case that private institutions had no incentive to produce safe products for their consumers, what is this magical thing about government that compels it to do everything right?
VTAcraft 1 year ago
Did Walter Block just reject Anarcho-Capitalism in the last 5 minutes??
highonhayek 1 year ago
@highonhayek He affirmed anarcho-capitalism. Why do you think otherwise?
Nielsio 1 year ago
@Nielsio It just sounds like he suggested that the government should be in the business of protecting private property. Now, I never read an entire book by Rothbard and I'm just barely starting ME&S, but does not anarcho-capitalism hold that the existence of any institution that obtains even a penny of its funding through violence is illegitimate?
highonhayek 1 year ago
@highonhayek His examples of government property protection showed how government fails at property protection. This is not an argument for government property protection but against it. If you're paying someone to protect your property and they don't do it, it's a breach of contract. The thing though is that there is no contract with the government, and this is precisely why they don't bother upholding it.
Feel free to join our forum via the link in my profile page for further questions.
Nielsio 1 year ago
Thanks, but I would like to keep this discussion on the YouTube comments section for all to see, including Dr. Block in the unlikely event that he watches his own videos :)
Please have patience if I am confusing things. On the topic of contract breaches in the event of a counterparty default, who would provide the legal remedy? How could I seek justice in the event of vandals spray painting graffiti all over my private road? For these and similar reasons, I just can't accept anarcho-capitalism.
highonhayek 1 year ago
@highonhayek I've answered your question regarding the video. If you want to talk about the much wider topic of anarcho-capitalism then my suggestion for the forum remains. The comments-section on Youtube is not good for that.
Nielsio 1 year ago
@highonhayek This may have already been answered but anarcho-capitalism still believes in laws and rules, it just states that only private police and judges should administer them. The motto or axiom is: "Non-aggression against non-aggressors" If someone steals your stuff, anybody has the right to stop the thief and take it back for you.
I would suggest the video series titled "anarchy comes to UBc" or something like that, in it Block answers your question directly. I think its somewhere in 4-7.
Hashishin13 1 year ago
Friedman, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, etc. they could fill; the two are the most approachable and humorous. The last thing we need is another moronic Sarah Palin-type, pretending to warrant the honor.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
Walter Block and Thomas Woods really, REALLY need to make the rounds more on cable television shows to assist in the intellectual opposition of the recent gov't expansionist movement. Go on Glenn Beck if need be or eviscerate O'Reilly's neanderthal economics. The free market, anti-state movement is experiencing another revival and there is currently a power vacuum in its leadership with the deaths of titans such as Milton
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
Him and Woods are by far my favorite Mises members.
selfrealizedexile 1 year ago
look, the road in front of peoples house they now own it and maintain it and they need to,to get to the store and the cops and ups to come there!! the interstate roads are now toll roads to pay for maintenance only !! next on to bigger issues!! as far as new roads their will not be a government to need to go around a land owner it's more like landowners that want a new road will organize and build it on their land!!
carveawoodeneye 2 years ago
governments job is to protect our ir's only having a military police force and an objective rule of law!!
carveawoodeneye 2 years ago
@carveawoodeneye Taxation is theft, and theft is a violation of individual rights. Thus, government does not protect your rights.
PresidentRich 1 year ago
I wonder how many people would be opposed to privately owned supermarkets."No", say the critics."The supermarkets would charge any amount of money they wanted. The supermarket owners would go into collusion and establish artificially high prices.Everybody knows supermarket owners don't really care about their customers. Without government control over supermarkets, there wouldn't be food or other items to purchase." And yet,lo and behold, we have privately owned supermarkets.
globbo100 2 years ago
The lack of imagination concerning the privatization of just about any government controlled entity is truly amazing, especially from those who profess a love and respect for freedom. Walter Block's ideas are apt and succinct. He cannot predict how a private road structure would work precisely, because no one can. The free market will make all necessary corrections in that regard.
globbo100 2 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Is this clown serious? It's not "our system" that impedes competition, but physical reality. Unless you want to live on a vast asphalt patchwork, roads are a natural monopoly and whoever owns them controls everyone elses' passage with no democratic accountability. Welcome back to feudalism. Please tell me he's not "teaching" this pap at a university.
Muwt 2 years ago
This is a wrongheaded objection. Why would privatising naturally lead to a vast asphalt patchwork? People set up businesses because they apprehend a gap in the market - i.e., when they judge that demand outstrips supply. If people don't WANT roads everywhere, then the market simply won't work to that eventuality. Building thousands of roads wouldn't be profitable, and the frenzied road builders would quickly go broke.
thomasnewman81 2 years ago 2
As for "democratic accountability", of course the owners of roads would be accountable - they'd be accountable to their actual and prospective customers. If they mistreat or neglect them, they lose business, lose money, and get outperformed in the market by those who provide superior road services. Food is currently privatised - a very basic good. Are food producers unaccountable? Are we subject to the tyranny of restaurant owners?Of course not! If they screw up, we buy elsewhere!
thomasnewman81 2 years ago
As for feudalism. Could you maybe elaborate on what you take feudalism to have been? Certainly it wasn't a free market scenario. People didn't primarily produce and exchange voluntarily. There was vast and systematic coercion, repression, exploitation, taxation, slavery etc. Private property rights, for the most part, weren't respected at all. Feudalism and libertarianism are fundamentally incompatible social arrangements.
thomasnewman81 2 years ago
Physical reality isn't the constraint: it's government's mandate of what physical reality is to be.
Private roads aren't pap. It's been done. You only need to look at the state of things 100 years ago. We had a private "road" system, but it was called "rail".
And it encouraged centralized populations, meaning you could actually walk places, and less pristine wilderness got turned into housing developments.
Where's the downside?
fisharmor 2 years ago
Any time there are taxes, tariffs, currency inflation, blockades, official violence, etc. you do not have a free market, you have a hampered market. That is the difference between free and hampered markets. The government's threat of voilence is what hampers the market.
What happens if you don't pay the various taxes you're assigned each year? (Federal, State, Medicare, Social Security, Property/Estate Tax, Corporate Tax, etc.)
The government threatens you with violence, i.e. IRS.
gatorbait20082008 2 years ago 2
Exactly.
Like Ayn Rand said; when force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.
SomeUsefulIdiot 2 years ago
Shit, I wish I knew he was coming to knoxville.
jvittetoe 2 years ago 3
in the end, I was also right.
Nofaris 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
private roads will lead to rediculous tolls.
no way!
I wont be paying any toll to go down a road I already paid for!
803honda 2 years ago
?
If it's a private road then you haven't already payed for it, otherwise it's not a private road.
Secondly, you don't have to pay for all private roads. Shopping centers come to mind.
Nielsio 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
when you say "privatizing" obviously one would think you mean making that which is now public into private.
If you wanna build your own road thats cool but you wont be taking over our current roads.
803honda 2 years ago
Oh I see what you meant earlier.
Well, you are ALREADY paying ridiculous tolls for roads that you already paid for. That's the point of a free market versus a monopoly: to get prices down and to get quality up.
Nielsio 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
the government isnt trying to make a profit on roads. a private owner most surely would. thats not gonna get prices down.
803honda 2 years ago
The GUNvernment has a monopoly on roads. Consequently, the people do not profit in ANY way.
The govt is inept at making roads safer or more efficient. As Block points out, there are about 40k deaths per year on the govt-run roads, and every big city has ridiculous traffic. Plus, there ain't no such thing as a free road!
The variety of methods that would be tried in the marketplace would end up finding the best solutions for lowering the # of deaths, the congestion on the roads, and the $costs
locjeb 2 years ago 6
keep tellin yourself that.
803honda 2 years ago
You really don't think so?? Name one thing government is good at besides stealing, killing, lying, and causing and prolonging economic depressions
locjeb 2 years ago 25
@locjeb I think the term government is incorrect, I'd rather call it State, as government is not the same as State, and State is the trully scam that's run upon us.
signofthehammer 1 year ago
Nothing at all. I love how Michael Moore says government won WW2 it can do anything. Well government caused WW2.
Charlesperalo 1 year ago
@locjeb occupying.
RegainTruth 1 year ago
... you didn't even watch the video. Cause your logic is very juvenile and wrong headed.
return135 2 years ago
cough competition cough
feeknocks 2 years ago
There is one flaw in this "voluntary arumentation".
If you own something what is necessary
for other people they will give you everything you want. There are some precaution about privatization.
disclaimer: I'm NOT a socialist.
vorbeigehende 2 years ago
How can you *voluntarily* own everything of a good that everybody needs?
Nielsio 2 years ago
I make some kind of monopoly.
Example: water supply in California.
If I somehow manage to controle all water supply in CA, I (and not the market) will be able to set the prices.
vorbeigehende 2 years ago
Are you holding the water supply hostage? Because that's not according to libertarian principles. You have to homestead something, meaning to turn it into valuable use, for something to become yours.
You've undoubtedly not turned ALL the water into valuable use (or else there wouldn't be a problem to begin with), so that means the only way to do this is through violence. And that's precisely the problem with the roads: the government has a monopoly.
Nielsio 2 years ago
In a real free-market economy monopolies dont exist without the assistance of government intervention. Read Dominick Armentanos books on anti-trust; you can get one for free in pdf form, just google armentano antitrust
For the sake of argument though, lets say that you did somehow manage to take control of the entire water supply of CA. If you then began to charge a much higher price for water, that would cause entrepreneurs to come in and compete in supplying water at much lower costs
locjeb 2 years ago 21
Small correction: Hitler didn't come to power due to democracy (or a democratic election for that matter) since the Nazis never won any election - he was made chancellor by Paul von Hindenburg who acted upon the pressure exerted by very influental lobbyists and bankers. Other than that a fantastic video.
( 03:55 )
Darthtails 2 years ago
The Nazi party (NSDAP) was the biggest party before Hitler was appointed.
Nielsio 2 years ago
Darthtails: Wrong. The Nazis won the last(semi) free election in Germany with ~44% and formed a coalition with a minor party which allowed them to put through changes which effectivly ended democracy in Germany. Now I'm not going to comment on the "lobbyists and bankers" line since your obviously just being a commie here...
frindo11 2 years ago
Part 1: Hitler was made chancellor months *before* the election you're talking about took place. Also, you've got to keep in mind that soon after Hindenburg took action, Hitler got 3 million Reichsmark by a group of big corporates and various industrialists to fund his campaign, the Reichstag was set on fire, the Communist Party got banned ...
Darthtails 2 years ago
Part 2: Hindenburg enacted the "Reichstags Fire Decree" which did override the most fundamental civil rights of the German people and enabled heavy political surpression, arrests without warrant and the assassination of political adversaries of the opposition or of various unions.
Darthtails 2 years ago