[Eran]

You miss the point, I was refuting your claim that private (and presumably profit-seeking) ownership was required or would be cheaper for road maintenance. I hadn't quite gone as far as to say private roads shouldn't be allowed only that it is an inferior solution and in fact an even more inferior solution than tax funded roads.

Fair enough. I totally disagree with your assertions regarding the relative efficiency of for-profit, communal and tax-funded roads.

Before going into detail, do you consider roads to be different than other goods in that regard? In other words, do you think government or communal ownership of other means of production are also likely to result in more efficient production, or is there something special about roads? If so, what?

Maybe we could broaden this debate to encompass the concept of profit as well as the concept of property. You know profit and property are distinct concepts even if they are often related in some way.

I'll get us started. This, btw, is where Austrian Economics is most valuable - it helps make sense of economic concepts that are normally confused in people's minds.

I'll start by focusing on economic profit (as opposed to accounting or tax profit). Economic profit is broadly the difference between the present value of all the inputs into the production process, and the present value of all its outputs.

Unpaid wages of the business owner, as well as lost interest on the value of the capital of the firm make up part of accounting profits, but not economic profits.

Put differently, economic profit would be equal to accounting profit if the entire capital was borrowed, and the owners were paid fair market wage for their work.

Economic profit is thus equal to the value created by the operations of the business, excluding the value to consumers in having an option which they demonstrably find superior to alternative options.

You know I like the gift economy, well anyone with a non-dysfunctional family or who uses opensource software or 'commons' internet services such as wikipedia, likes the gift economy.

I am happy to be open-minded, but I think gift economy generally works well only in the context of a close-knit community, or when the products being gifted are felt to be "luxuries". Wikipedia, I assume, is maintained by people who have time to spare after their primary existential needs are taken care of through the more traditional economy.

It is quite acceptable that the companies that maintain the road are compensated from funds raised by the consumers of the road 'service' while the road itself remains common property.

I can certainly see that working at the local level. Residential streets would best be owned by the residents in common (through a residential owner organisation), with maintenance contracts outsourcing the work to dedicated companies.

This model breaks down (and is also much less essential) as we move to inter-city roads.

It is the capitalist's presumption that ownership entitles authority and specifically the authority to distribute the wealth created using the owned thing. This may have meaning for a factory but for a road? What is the wealth created by a road?

I actually view it as part of the definition of ownership, rather than any presumption.

The wealth created by the road corresponds to the fact that people are willing to pay to use it, as opposed to a stretch of unimproved land. Starting on a new continent, creating and paving roads, constructing bridges and tunnels, providing road users with credible monitoring of other users' behaviour (traffic rules), signs and other services, all add significant value to the alternative.

If a road is nothing but a frequently-used path, it can have no owners. Ownership can only be legitimately conveyed on people who:
1. Transform the stretch of land in economically-useful way, e.g. by paving it, and
2. Do so over a stretch of land that wasn't previously used for transportation.

The question of how to handle existing roads is a difficult one. While the first condition can be overcome by making proper payment for the value of existing improvements, the second condition cannot as easily be waved, given that existing government roads are used routinely at the moment. I'd have to think (and would welcome other libertarians' suggestions) as to their proper transition from government hands to a voluntary arrangement.

Less controversial would be the status of newly-created roads. As long as the land over which they lie has been legitimately acquired, I see no reason not to allow them to be privately owned and operated.

Perhaps what will happen is that previously-public roads will fall into disrepair, or be maintained at a lower level with voluntary contributions. Or perhaps a model will emerge whereby private enterprises can take over the road and extract economic value through means that do not include toll collection (e.g. by selling ad-space at the edge of the road).

There is a case for private roads only where the owner is the main or only user which pretty much limits private roads to driveways.

What about newly-constructed roads alongside existing free-entry ones?

Do they have that entitlement on private property?

Again, I would distinguish between the status of newly-created cities and that of existing ones. The public does have easement over those spaces it currently occupies, and any private ownership of such spaces would have to respect those easements. Whether that includes sleeping or only using such spaces for movement is not a question I have a categorical answer to.

Newly-created cities or neighbourhoods may choose to restrict entrance or use of their "public" spaces in any way they choose. My guess is that over time, people will tend to migrate towards such controlled environments, as conditions in them could more effectively be controlled to satisfy the needs of residents.

Again, public spaces are likely to be owned by residential neighbourhood associations. Public spaces in city centres are likely to be owned by associations of commercial residents.

I think in the US you are tougher on the destitute. It is generally true that while the rich may be pleased to see the homeless gassed like rabbits if only they could get away with it, working class people are more sympathetic; they know that 'there, but for the grace of god, go I', that they are only a few months of rent arrears away from ending up in the same situation

I'd like to emphasize the role of government regulations in making being poor much more difficult than it needs to be. In the name of consumer protection, government regulations tend to eliminate low-cost alternatives that would otherwise have been open to consumers. In many cities, for example, building regulations restrict developers' ability to offer truly low-cost housing.

As to the psychology try this thought experiment or better do it for real. Dress yourself as well-to-do as you like, Oxford tweeds, gucci handbag whatever then make yourself a really lush sandwich and take it to a town centre. You see a number of private eateries and coffee shops ringed around the public space with its own benches and bins (a typical scene anywhere in europe if not the US). First go into a private eatery and try and eat your sandwich. Not very pleasent was it? The dirty looks, the embarrassment, maybe you were even asked to leave. Now go and sit on a public bench (your bench literally your own property) and eat the rest of your sandwich as relaxed and as entitled as any King in his kingdom. That is the difference between public and private.

Not a fair example. Eateries make their living selling food. When you go into one with the clear intention of not purchasing their products, you are using up valuable resources that could be used to serve paying customers.

Private camping grounds, for example, have no problem with people bringing their own food. Eateries have no issue with people bringing their own newspapers to read.

The general philosophy is that people who have worked to make a space more pleasant than it would have been "by nature" deserve the right to determine what and how it will be used. Some will choose a very restrictive access policy (as would be appropriate inside your own house, for example). Others will want to offer specific services, and welcome any well-behaved people who wish to patron those services.

It is entirely likely that, absent "public" spaces, privately-owned spaces will emerge that offer similarly-loose access control, with various modes of funding (ads, licensing peripheral businesses, contributions, etc.).

Are people forced to buy government bonds?

In a sense. Pension funds and other institutional investors are often required (or strongly "encouraged") to hold such bonds as part of their portfolio.

[SolarCross]

Fair enough. I totally disagree with your assertions regarding the relative efficiency of for-profit, communal and tax-funded roads.

Before going into detail, do you consider roads to be different than other goods in that regard? In other words, do you think government or communal ownership of other means of production are also likely to result in more efficient production, or is there something special about roads? If so, what?

You're talking to an anarcho-communist; I think every public good should be commonly owned, if not by everyone then at least by the workers and consumers that participate in providing the good and using it. I have no use for embezzlers. The case for common ownership of a good gets stronger the more fundamental it is to the provision of other goods. Nobody could possibly care if a high street jewelers was private property, the good they provide is unnecessary and not widely used. Roads in contrast are pretty fundamental for modern society; it is nearly as essential to the wellbeing of all as air and light. The more the road is a common route the stronger the case that the road should be in common ownership. Nobody could possibly care if I claim the driveway to my house as private property as pretty much only I and a few others known to me use it. For what Adam Smith would call the high road, which I, as a brit, would call a trunk road or motorway and you would call an interstate or highway, the case for commons is paramount.

The thing is there no case for private property of such a common resource, even most capitalists would not agree with private highroads. How many owners of hauliers would be comfortable with private high roads? Market-anarchists should get a dose of reality, most anarchists are as a opposed to rent-seekers and embezzlers as they are to the state. Really the objection to the state mostly comes from it serving the interests of the embezzlers before everyone else. Socialists think a state is inevitable so the best chance for tackling embezzlers is by taking control of the state away from the embezzlers. If the state were to collapse under the weight of its own absurdities or be abolished all the socialists would become what you would call left-anarchists; they would change their ideas about the necessity of the state but not about the 'necessity' of the embezzlers.. What then for those who would embezzle from road usage? As Anonymous would say, 'We are Legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget, expect us.'

I'll get us started. This, btw, is where Austrian Economics is most valuable - it helps make sense of economic concepts that are normally confused in people's minds.
.................
Economic profit is thus equal to the value created by the operations of the business, excluding the value to consumers in having an option which they demonstrably find superior to alternative options.

Yes we certainly don't need to consider profit as an accountant or taxman would understand it; this kind of profit would cease to have any meaning or utility to anyone in an anarchy. How about social profit? Profit in the sense of a benefit that is not exclusively measured in some currency. There is more social profit to be had for the users of roads (which is practically everyone) if they are owned in common than if they are the private domain of a someone who is in practice taxing trespassers.

I am happy to be open-minded, but I think gift economy generally works well only in the context of a close-knit community, or when the products being gifted are felt to be "luxuries". Wikipedia, I assume, is maintained by people who have time to spare after their primary existential needs are taken care of through the more traditional economy.

I can certainly see that working at the local level. Residential streets would best be owned by the residents in common (through a residential owner organisation), with maintenance contracts outsourcing the work to dedicated companies.

This model breaks down (and is also much less essential) as we move to inter-city roads.

This is rubbish; all roads, if they are used at all, are local to someone. The motorways are local to hauliers, travelling salesmen, taxi drivers, bus companies and distance commuters. The best case for privately owned roads is for roads that are privately used not the other way around. You have it backwards.

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Lets step back and take a look at what we can definitely agree on in terms of what should be private and what should be public or common. We can both agree (i hope) that the body a soul is born with should be the private property of the soul that was born in it. At the other extreme we can both agree that air and light are common property. I think we can agree on the extremes but the not on the grey area in-between.

What is the real nature of the concept of property? It is nothing but the socially granted right to use and command the thing 'owned'. Property is not intrinsically exclusive unless it is a right that is granted to some but not to some others. Exclusive rights are private property, inclusive rights are common property. This is practically natural law: that rights are granted by society and do not exist otherwise.

So now that is cleared up we can talk in normative terms; how should society grant these rights: what should be common, what should be private and, in-between, what should be common with private easement and what should be private with common easement.

I hold that the fabric of the world: air, light and land, should be common property.

I hold that the flesh of the soul: the body with which a soul is born, should be the private property of the soul in question.

If I and my comrades build a house, workshop or other artifice on or out of the commonly owned fabric of the world then society should grant me and my comrades a private easement over that artifice under such terms as do not injure others. We may give that private easement to another individual or group perhaps in exchange for another private easement. (This is roughly equivalent to your 'homesteading'.)

If I and my comrades through the work of our minds make an idea or information that is entirely new then society should consider that our private property with common easement if there be utility or need. Thus we deserve credit for our creation but may not exclude others from using it if it does not result in injury.

How does that work for you? Note it may allow 'private' roads in so far as the road is not merely land but an artifice such as modern road typically is. But with the caveat that it is a private easement on something common. Thus if the 'private' owner is injuring through his 'ownership' society may revoke that easement..

[Someone5]

I guess this is why I don't understand urban anarchists. They don't understand what the "state of nature" really means.

Anarchists don't usually advocate a "state of nature"? Anarchism is a political system for advanced industrial economies--urban societies. It's what you want after primitive capital accumulation has built an industrial society. It's the system that is best for living industrially.

They also seem to believe that people are innately benevolent such that property isn't needed. In reality, people are psychologically diverse.

I don't really get why non-anarchists assume that anarchists think there is some sort of benevolent human nature. There is a simple way to deal with people who you can't live with--don't live with them.

For example, in the country, population density is very light. The peer pressure people experience in order to respect one another doesn't exist. The strongest authorities in any domain can be tyrants, and simply push everyone else around.

Note; most anarchists aren't anarcho-primitivists. Rural society is not a goal for most anarchists.

[Eran]

I think every public good should be commonly owned, if not by everyone then at least by the workers and consumers that participate in providing the good and using it.

1. What do you mean by "public good"? Is it the technical definition (non-excludable and non-rivalrous), in which case roads, especially inter-city highways aren't, strictly speaking, public goods, or is it the less formal sense, in which case where do you draw the line?

2. There is nothing in my analysis of road management to preclude worker-ownership of some roads. The investment-heavy nature of road-construction would make the involvement of outside financing critical, regardless of who owns the equity on the road.

I don't see how worker-ownership makes any difference to your concerns about use of roads by the public.

3. I can easily see effective consumer-ownership of streets, but not of artery city roads, not to mention inter-city highways.

Roads in contrast are pretty fundamental for modern society; it is nearly as essential to the wellbeing of all as air and light. The more the road is a common route the stronger the case that the road should be in common ownership. Nobody could possibly care if I claim the driveway to my house as private property as pretty much only I and a few others known to me use it. For what Adam Smith would call the high road, which I, as a brit, would call a trunk road or motorway and you would call an interstate or highway, the case for commons is paramount.

OK, so you seem to take an informal definition of public goods.

The thing is there no case for private property of such a common resource, even most capitalists would not agree with private highroads.

It all depends on competition, doesn't it?

Take the following scenario for a transition from current society to a free one.
1. All existing freeways (i.e. excluding current toll roads, but including the vast majority of roads which are currently free) can be privatised, but must remain free. The proprietor would be committed to both maintenance of the road at existing levels, and providing free access to all. I imagine that private for-profit corporations would probably shy away from bidding for major roads under such terms, and only consumer-based organisations would take them on.

Streets and perhaps local roads would be very attractive to current users, residents

2. Private entrepreneurs would be free to create new roads, with full, unconditional ownership of such roads (including the right to charge any toll they wish), provided, of course, that eminent domain is not available to them - they would have to buy any land freely from its current owners, and borrow or use their own capital for the construction.

Market-anarchists should get a dose of reality, most anarchists are as a opposed to rent-seekers and embezzlers as they are to the state.

I am yet to understand how one can have rent-seekers and embezzlers without a state. I agree that there is a sensitive transition point whereby rent-seekers and embezzlers can position themselves so as to benefit from the process of privatisation of state assets.

But skipping that stage (e.g. through the procedure outlined above), how or in what sense would a private owner of a privately-constructed and funded road, serving as an alternative to a free road, is either a rent-seeker or an embezzler?

What do those titles even mean?

There is more social profit to be had for the users of roads (which is practically everyone) if they are owned in common than if they are the private domain of a someone who is in practice taxing trespassers.

"Social Profit" is impossible to define accurately, let alone quantify. This is part of my criticism with government central-planning. Government claims to work towards maximising "social profit" (often under different name, such as "the greater good" or "public good", etc.) but it lacks any tools for rationally making economic decisions.

How much is the use of an inter-city road worth to a particular person, or, in aggregate, to the population as a whole? How much is the addition of another lane worth in terms of reduced congestion? This is a question that is impossible to answer, even in principle, without allowing people to express their preferences through the payment of tolls.

all roads, if they are used at all, are local to someone. The motorways are local to hauliers, travelling salesmen, taxi drivers, bus companies and distance commuters.

They are certainly used by all of those people, but they aren't "local" in the sense of being primarily used by a relatively small and identifiable group of people who can thus be expected to share the cost of construction and maintenance.

At the other extreme we can both agree that air and light are common property.

Light and air aren't scarce resources. I would say that they aren't property at all, rather than that they are "common property".

What is the real nature of the concept of property? It is nothing but the socially granted right to use and command the thing 'owned'

As a positive statement, I agree. I also think it is meaningful to make normative statement, to the effect that such and such ought to be considered this or that person's property, whether or not society happens to respect their right to use and command the thing.

Thus while we both agree that a body ought to be the property of the mind that occupies it, it is clearly not the case that all societies (or even most societies) strictly grant people the exclusive and unconditional right to do with their bodies as they wish, i.e. full property rights over their bodies.

This is practically natural law: that rights are granted by society and do not exist otherwise.

Rights exist in the same sense that right and wrong do. They exist within the context of a specific normative theory. Thus while certain societies may refrain from "granting" the right of self-ownership to certain people (slaves), you and I (and probably most people alive today) can agree that slaves do have the right of self-ownership, but that any society within which they are slaves chose to violate and dis-regard those rights.

So as a positive statement, rights are granted by society. As a normative statement, people have certain rights which may or may not be respect (or, conversely, violated) by society.

While positive statements are, in principle, subject to objective proof or disproof, normative statements are always made relative to a normative theory. You and I may or may not agree on such theory. In the context of public policy, my normative theory is broadly encapsulated in the Non Aggression Principle (expressed in terms of projects, not circularly and meaninglessly in terms of property).

I believe I can demonstrate that certain private property rights may emerge from the NAP. My personal view is that society ought to respect those rights, and any society which doesn't is guilty of aggression.

I hold that the fabric of the world: air, light and land, should be common property.

Here comes our first disagreement. Air and light, I argued, aren't property at all. They are non-scarce resources, and thus not subject to monopolization by any individual or group.

Land, on the other hand, is a scarce resource, and thus subject to ownership. I don't agree that it is a common property, though. My view, derived from the NAP, is that land that has been peacefully incorporated into a person's (or a group's) project in ways that reasonably require exclusive access is that person's (or group's) property in the sense that nobody may invade that land (and thus, by assumption, apply force against that person's or group's peaceful project) without thereby violating the NAP.

If I and my comrades build a house, workshop or other artifice on or out of the commonly owned fabric of the world then society should grant me and my comrades a private easement over that artifice under such terms as do not injure others. We may give that private easement to another individual or group perhaps in exchange for another private easement. (This is roughly equivalent to your 'homesteading'.)

What's the difference between "private easement" over a house, and full ownership of that house (and the land on which it stands)?

If I and my comrades through the work of our minds make an idea or information that is entirely new then society should consider that our private property with common easement if there be utility or need. Thus we deserve credit for our creation but may not exclude others from using it if it does not result in injury.

Ideas are not scarce resources (in the sense that their use by one person doesn't detract from the ability of others to simultaneously use the same idea). In my opinion, ideas are not subject to ownership at all. Ideas are always manifested in physical objects, either human brains or paper, computer memory, etc.

It is only such physical objects that may be owned.

Note it may allow 'private' roads in so far as the road is not merely land but an artifice such as modern road typically is. But with the caveat that it is a private easement on something common. Thus if the 'private' owner is injuring through his 'ownership' society may revoke that easement.

I am not sure whether our differences are substantive or only semantic. It depends on how you define "injure".

For example, may I, as a private person, build a movie theatre, and condition admittance on the purchase of a ticket? If so, could a person who doesn't have the money for a ticket (or chooses not to spend it on purchasing a ticket) claim that he is "injured" by my refusal to admit him (given that the theatre is not full, and his admittance won't cost me anything)?

How about a village green, owned communally by the village. May people who do not belong to the village claim they are "injured" by restrictions placed by the village community over their ability to use the green?

[SolarCross]

1. What do you mean by "public good"? Is it the technical definition (non-excludable and non-rivalrous), in which case roads, especially inter-city highways aren't, strictly speaking, public goods, or is it the less formal sense, in which case where do you draw the line?

There are no bright lines and there doesn't need to be. There are lots of ways of defining a public good but I guess the definition I am using is 'something where there is more utility for all in common and inclusive ownership and collaborative management'. Science and knowledge in general fits this criteria of a public good as does nature's ecosystems. Roads may be a little less from the centre as science and nature but there is plainly no public benefit from having common routes (such as highways) under the exclusive ownership of a rent-seeking minority. One may argue for the public utility of market forces but market forces don't work well for roads.

2. There is nothing in my analysis of road management to preclude worker-ownership of some roads. The investment-heavy nature of road-construction would make the involvement of outside financing critical, regardless of who owns the equity on the road.

I don't see how worker-ownership makes any difference to your concerns about use of roads by the public.

I don't argue for worker-ownership of roads at least not major routes. I say worker-ownership would be desirable for such goods and services that can be well managed by market forces. The road system (or at least the core major routes) is a complete ecosystem it can only be rationally owned by all. Driveways are another matter; private ownership is harmless enough then.
There is no capital; it is a fiction. All that paper is make-believe. In a sane society human and natural capital is all that is needed to see roads built. If we must use paper, metal or magnetic tokens to represent capital then in an anarchy (with the old currency defunct along with its artificial concentrations) the new tokens will perforce be evenly distributed. Capital intensive projects like roads will then have to be crowd funded. In which case it is defacto commonly owned.

3. I can easily see effective consumer-ownership of streets, but not of artery city roads, not to mention inter-city highways.

This you can see but no else can, therefore you must do more than dogmatically state 'it should be so!'; you will actually have to come up with some rational justifications, for a change.

It all depends on competition, doesn't it?

It is a pretty important reason for avoiding private ownership of trunk roads but by no means the only one. Market forces work well enough at restraining the greed of any sociapathic individuals in a position to abuse control over the provision of some good or another only when the market is tolerably free and the good in question can reasonably be avoided by the consumer or an alternative taken. Then competition works to the advantage of the consumer.

Take the following scenario for a transition from current society to a free one.
1. All existing freeways (i.e. excluding current toll roads, but including the vast majority of roads which are currently free) can be privatised, but must remain free. The proprietor would be committed to both maintenance of the road at existing levels, and providing free access to all. I imagine that private for-profit corporations would probably shy away from bidding for major roads under such terms, and only consumer-based organisations would take them on.

Streets and perhaps local roads would be very attractive to current users, residents

A valid transaction requires consent as well as consideration; without consent it is just theft. You can't get consent from everyone so a public domain property must remain in the public domain for all time. Ownership of maintenance companies can be private and market forces should keep their prices reasonable and that is fine but ownership of the road itself can never legitimately leave the public domain and it doesn't need to.

2. Private entrepreneurs would be free to create new roads, with full, unconditional ownership of such roads (including the right to charge any toll they wish), provided, of course, that eminent domain is not available to them - they would have to buy any land freely from its current owners, and borrow or use their own capital for the construction.

If I buy a pair of shoes from the maker of shoes and buy his ability to mend those shoes from time to time, I expect to have domain over those shoes and not pay rent for them. So it is for roads. Private companies may bid to make or mend roads but ownership must rest with the customer which is the public in general.

I am yet to understand how one can have rent-seekers and embezzlers without a state. I agree that there is a sensitive transition point whereby rent-seekers and embezzlers can position themselves so as to benefit from the process of privatisation of state assets.

But skipping that stage (e.g. through the procedure outlined above), how or in what sense would a private owner of a privately-constructed and funded road, serving as an alternative to a free road, is either a rent-seeker or an embezzler?

What do those titles even mean?

If one seeks to obtain the fruit of the labour of another through coercion, deciet or usurpation then you are a rent-seeker or an embezzler, more generally a parasite with or without the assistance of the ultimate rent-seeking, embezzling parasite, the state. All land is the commons, it was originally so and so it remained until the state emerged as a steward that became an usurper. With the return to anarchy the land will return to the commons. Individuals may have easement over some particular patch that they use, as it was before the state. This is the desirable and inevitable outcome of the fall of the state.

"Social Profit" is impossible to define accurately, let alone quantify. This is part of my criticism with government central-planning. Government claims to work towards maximising "social profit" (often under different name, such as "the greater good" or "public good", etc.) but it lacks any tools for rationally making economic decisions.

How much is the use of an inter-city road worth to a particular person, or, in aggregate, to the population as a whole? How much is the addition of another lane worth in terms of reduced congestion? This is a question that is impossible to answer, even in principle, without allowing people to express their preferences through the payment of tolls.

Social profit doesn't need to be defined accurately or quantified, it can remain subjective, qualitative and ineffable. If there is no social profit there is no profit at all. The transatlantic slave trade was highly profitable in a monetary sense but its social profit for all concerned even the slavers was profoundly negative. If a road is suffering congestion then it needs another lane or an alternate route, you don't need to pay a toll to see that. People may express their preferance by buying ipods instead of mp3 players or bananas instead of apples, but not by paying tolls for roads they have to use. What they feel when paying tolls is hostility and contempt for the dickless little money grabbing shit that had the disgusting uppity nerve to claim ownership over common land and thereby scheme over his hostages to fortune a trespasser tax because he too lazy and selfish to do something useful with his life. Anyone that tries that without the protection of the state's hired goons is going to be swinging from the lamp-posts before long as any thief should.

They are certainly used by all of those people, but they aren't "local" in the sense of being primarily used by a relatively small and identifiable group of people who can thus be expected to share the cost of construction and maintenance.

They will voluntary pay to upkeep that which they own and use unless your suggesting people are idiots that can't be trusted to look after their own property.

Light and air aren't scarce resources. I would say that they aren't property at all, rather than that they are "common property".

It does not matter whether a resource is scarce or not what defines property is the right to use and command. Air is common property because society agrees that generally all have the right to use it same goes for light and ought to go for land. In fact you couldn't legitmately homestead land and thereby earn a private easement if it wasn't your common property to begin with.

As a positive statement, I agree. I also think it is meaningful to make normative statement, to the effect that such and such ought to be considered this or that person's property, whether or not society happens to respect their right to use and command the thing.
Thus while we both agree that a body ought to be the property of the mind that occupies it, it is clearly not the case that all societies (or even most societies) strictly grant people the exclusive and unconditional right to do with their bodies as they wish, i.e. full property rights over their bodies.
Rights exist in the same sense that right and wrong do. They exist within the context of a specific normative theory. Thus while certain societies may refrain from "granting" the right of self-ownership to certain people (slaves), you and I (and probably most people alive today) can agree that slaves do have the right of self-ownership, but that any society within which they are slaves chose to violate and dis-regard those rights.

So as a positive statement, rights are granted by society. As a normative statement, people have certain rights which may or may not be respect (or, conversely, violated) by society.

While positive statements are, in principle, subject to objective proof or disproof, normative statements are always made relative to a normative theory. You and I may or may not agree on such theory. In the context of public policy, my normative theory is broadly encapsulated in the Non Aggression Principle (expressed in terms of projects, not circularly and meaninglessly in terms of property).

I believe I can demonstrate that certain private property rights may emerge from the NAP. My personal view is that society ought to respect those rights, and any society which doesn't is guilty of aggression.

The right to call something property comes from either the might to force that claim or from social acceptance. You might say they ought to do this or that but if they say they ought do something different and they are stronger your normative posturing is immaterial and impotent. The slavers were quite happy to consider slavery a normative good while they could get away with it. The slaves naturally would suggest that normatively they ought not be treated the way they were. In the end the slaves had to smash in the skulls of the slavers with rocks before their normative argument was allowed to trump the slaver's normative argument. All rights rest on force in the end because society is just a larger force when it comes to rights. But we can talk about what ought to be and what ought not to be and if we agree so much the better but if we disagree then in the end it must be decided by who has the most force.

Here comes our first disagreement. Air and light, I argued, aren't property at all. They are non-scarce resources, and thus not subject to monopolization by any individual or group.

Land, on the other hand, is a scarce resource, and thus subject to ownership. I don't agree that it is a common property, though. My view, derived from the NAP, is that land that has been peacefully incorporated into a person's (or a group's) project in ways that reasonably require exclusive access is that person's (or group's) property in the sense that nobody may invade that land (and thus, by assumption, apply force against that person's or group's peaceful project) without thereby violating the NAP.

I already addressed the issue of scarcity and issue of the nature of property being the right to use and command.

What's the difference between "private easement" over a house, and full ownership of that house (and the land on which it stands)?

Ordinarily when it comes to a private dwelling nothing at all. It becomes important only in emergancy situations such as when some freak decides he wants to own the road and tax trespassers. The a revocable private easement over common property gives society a legal as well as a forceful solution to remedying the situation.

Ideas are not scarce resources (in the sense that their use by one person doesn't detract from the ability of others to simultaneously use the same idea). In my opinion, ideas are not subject to ownership at all. Ideas are always manifested in physical objects, either human brains or paper, computer memory, etc.

It is only such physical objects that may be owned.

Ideas and information are the product of human work the fabric of the world such as the space occupied by land is not. That much makes ideas a better contestant for exclusive rights to use and command. But I do think it is desirable that ideas be allowed to be used freely with due credit being given to the creator. This is why it makes most sense to me to consider intellectual property a private property with common easement. The creator should have credit and some reward for his work but any should have use of it.

I am not sure whether our differences are substantive or only semantic. It depends on how you define "injure".

For example, may I, as a private person, build a movie theatre, and condition admittance on the purchase of a ticket? If so, could a person who doesn't have the money for a ticket (or chooses not to spend it on purchasing a ticket) claim that he is "injured" by my refusal to admit him (given that the theatre is not full, and his admittance won't cost me anything)?

How about a village green, owned communally by the village. May people who do not belong to the village claim they are "injured" by restrictions placed by the village community over their ability to use the green?

It should be hoped that the concept of injury would not be bandied about too frivolously. The penniless would-be cinema goer may claim injury if he is not allowed to watch the film but equally the cinema organiser could claim injury for not getting rewarded for organising a film showing. Same goes for the village green. Where there is disagreement that can't be resolved by those involved then it must go to some kind of arbitration by a neutral party. I don't see any problem with that.

I get the feeling that market-anarchists don't care at all about practical benefits for society in their normative arguments. The argument for private property of all things seems to amount to mere fetishism.

[Eran]

The issue of roads seems subsidiary to two primary questions - first, common ownership of land, second, the question of "rent-seekers and embezzlers".

I believe you have accepted in the past private ownership of some land (e.g. my house or self-cultivated field).

Given that alternative means of travel are available, why do you rule out private ownership of roads?

Let's consider the case of railroads. Imagine your society in which roads are publicly owned and operated. Further imagine that an entrepreneur purchased a narrow strip of land (from its previous legitimate farmer owners) connecting two cities. There is already a free, publicly-owned road connecting those cities. The entrepreneur then invests in building a high-speed rail between the two cities, and proceeds to charge people for riding the train.

Is that legitimate?

From here, it is easy to imagine a very similar scenario, but one in which the entrepreneur decides to use his narrow strip of land for a toll-way instead of a high-speed rail. Is there a difference between the two scenarios?



Now for some specific comments.

There is no capital; it is a fiction. All that paper is make-believe.

I think this is a confusion in terms. "Capital" isn't money. Capital is valuable resources (land and machines) utilised in the production process (as opposed to resources used directly by end-consumers).

There is no doubt that constructing a road requires the investment of resources, and those resources have to be paid-for before the road can be used.

"Crowd-funding" doesn't help mitigate the knowledge problem. How are members of the crowd to decide whether it is worth-while to invest a given amount (say $100,000,000) in adding two lanes to the freeway connecting two cities, thereby relieving some of the congestion between them?

Obviously, if the cost was $1,000, the addition should take place. Equally obviously, if the cost was $1,000,000,000,000, it expansion shouldn't take place. Thus there is a number below which the expansion makes sense, and above which it doesn't. How is government, or the public, or the crowd to decide whether the expansion makes sense or not?

Note that a private entrepreneur can rationally make that decision by weighing the extra income derived from charging people to use the new lanes (even if the old lanes remain free!) vs. the cost of construction. If people are voluntarily willing to pay a certain amount for the privilege of using the extra lanes, that usage is worth at least that amount to them. If the aggregate value of the new lanes, across all potential road users and over time, exceeds the cost of the expansion, the expansion is rational. Otherwise, it isn't. With private ownership, the entrepreneur benefits from the added value, while paying out of his own pocket for any loss (due to an entrepreneurial mistake).

Note that even if the entrepreneur makes a profit, society still benefits. Each person who decides to use the new lanes benefits (For otherwise they would decline). In fact, even the people who choose not to pay benefit (because the free lanes are now a little less congested). Everybody wins!

A valid transaction requires consent as well as consideration; without consent it is just theft. You can't get consent from everyone so a public domain property must remain in the public domain for all time.

I don't think the public has property rights in current roads. They do have easement over their use. Those roads can be reverted to private ownership, provided that the easement is respected, i.e. that the public is continued to be allowed to use the road freely.

Private companies may bid to make or mend roads but ownership must rest with the customer which is the public in general.

You haven't addressed the question of new roads. Can those be legitimately privately constructed and owned? If not, why are those new roads different from any other private use of land?

If one seeks to obtain the fruit of the labour of another through coercion, deciet or usurpation then you are a rent-seeker or an embezzler.

Fair enough. Where is the coercion, deceit or usurpation in the chain of event described above, i.e. a private entrepreneur (1) buys land from farmers (without coercion), (2) uses his own funds to build a road, and (3) offers those members of the public who wish to do so to use his road in exchange for a toll payment? Note that the public hasn't lost any rights in the process, since they weren't able to use those farmers' fields to commute from one city to another before the entrepreneur started his project.

They will voluntary pay to upkeep that which they own and use unless your suggesting people are idiots that can't be trusted to look after their own property.

People aren't idiots. The tragedy of the commons (which is essentially what I am concerned about in your scenario) isn't a result of people acting like idiots, but rather of people acting rationally. My ability to use the road is unaffected by whether I put my hand in my pocket and pay my share or not. I am just one person out of millions. Why would you consider me an idiot for keeping my money?

In fact you couldn't legitmately homestead land and thereby earn a private easement if it wasn't your common property to begin with.

The way I look at it is that a person may not legitimately initiate force (including through invasion) against another person's peaceful project. Virgin land, to my view, is unowned. Nobody's rights are violated if I incorporate it into my project. Once I did, though, others may not invade it (as such invasion would constitute an initiation of force against my peaceful project, in violation of the NAP). That prohibition on others from invading the land which I incorporated into my project is functionally equivalent to my claim of ownership over that land.

You might say they ought to do this or that but if they say they ought do something different and they are stronger your normative posturing is immaterial and impotent.

As long as I am in a minority, my normative arguments are indeed impotent. But that doesn't mean they are without value. Normative arguments can be persuasive. Abolitionists (at different times on both sides of the Atlantic) made normative arguments ("posturing") that were initially ignored by the majority. Early on, they were indeed impotent. But over time, they manage to persuade majorities on both sides of the Atlantic, and bring about the end to slavery.

Then a revocable private easement over common property gives society a legal as well as a forceful solution to remedying the situation.

I am a little confused. If I peacefully use a piece of land, may society legitimately decide to just take it from me? (Obviously, society has the power to do so, but such use of power isn't necessarily legitimate). At what point does society acquire that legitimate right to force people out of their property? When it is for the "common good", or when it adds "social value"?

Ideas and information are the product of human work the fabric of the world such as the space occupied by land is not. That much makes ideas a better contestant for exclusive rights to use and command.

The exclusive right to use an idea translates to a prohibition on others from using their physical property in ways they wish. It translates, in other words, to an invasion and diminution of the rights of any other person.

As for "space occupied by land", that is indeed not the product of human work. But then neither are the atoms of physical objects such as those making up your private property. All humans do is transform matter from one state to another. Ownership is derived from work that takes valuable resources from an unowned state to one of use ("incorporation into projects"). That principle holds equally for movable objects as for land.

I get the feeling that market-anarchists don't care at all about practical benefits for society in their normative arguments. The argument for private property of all things seems to amount to mere fetishism.

Societal benefits flow from strict adherence to the NAP (and, by derivation, property rights). If people are secure from societally-sanctioned violence against themselves and their projects, they can pursue those projects with confidence and predictability. In all but the most rare insular cases, those projects will benefit the person initiating them only through further voluntary interaction with the rest of society.

The benefits of trade and cooperation are so immense that the result of giving people security from the violent incursion of others into their projects ends up benefiting society.

Once you start making exceptions, you open the floodgates to tyranny. Nothing is easier than for well-meaning people (not to mention cheats and liars) to use the excuse of the "public good" (or any other similar phrase) to justify the most horrible violations of other people's rights, ultimately to the detriment of all.

[SolarCross]

Common ownership of land is indisputable except by a thief. All land was in common ownership by the tribe until elements within the tribe took on a stewardship role. Over the centuries the stewards, kings and republics, usurped more and more power of arbitration abusing it for their own privilege. The time of anarchy will be an undoing of this usurpation not a deepening of it. The land will go back to the people. The only remaining question is who should own the artifices placed upon the common land. Artifices like shops, houses and factories can be privately owned, by individuals or collectives, that much is sensible. When the artifice is a commonly used it should be commonly owned. So roads, especially common or main routes, should be in common ownership not just the land or space occupied but also the artifice such as the road surface and road 'furniture'.

Ownership means the right to use and command. It follows ownership should remain with the user. If I wish to use a pair of shoes it is better for me to own them than rent them. If the entrepreneur wants to make a buck let him sell the manufacture and mending of roads. It will be a very poor deal for the public any other way. I want to own the shoes I pay for and we all should own the roads we pay for any other arrangement is a fraud.

Your comparison of railroads with autoroutes is deceitful. They are not remotely the same. When you buy a ticket for the train you are buying a labour intensive service in a vehicle.. that incidently needs a special road. Rail service charges are more akin to the service charges for taxi, airflight or bus services.

You may believe in a secret elite of magical fairies called entrepreneurs that have some exclusive mysterious sorcerous ability to tell when a road needs its potholes filled and its lanes enlarged but no one else does. That is utter shit. Good old fashion observation and statistical analysis is all that is required; it has worked splendidly so far. Fuck the magic fleecing fairies.

It occurs to me that most people are statists. Anarchists forget that sometimes. They want government to do a better job of managing the public resources and protect them from pirates like the bankers and other capitalists; they don't want the to be totally at the mercy of the pirates. The people always complain about government but their aim is reformist not for abolishment. The anarchist (well the traditional anarchist not these new-fangled market-anarchists) believes that government is irredeemable because it can't be reformed; it will always be in the employ of vampires and pirates. Anarchy won't happen without massive public support and that support will never happen if anarchism means toll roads and the rule of the pirates.

The people DO own the roads now even with the state why the F**K will they support an arrangement where they have to pay rent to some sleazy vainiac in order to use their own property?

[Eran]

Common ownership of land is indisputable except by a thief.

Since I dispute common ownership of land, am I a thief?

All land was in common ownership by the tribe until elements within the tribe took on a stewardship role.

Not so. All land was free for people to make use of, but that is not the same as common ownership. Ownership implies the right to exclude others. Initially, no person had such right individually, nor did that right exist communally. A community of hunter-gatherers had no right to use force to exclude strangers from any piece of land.

Ownership means the right to use and command. It follows ownership should remain with the user. If I wish to use a pair of shoes it is better for me to own them than rent them. If the entrepreneur wants to make a buck let him sell the manufacture and mending of roads. It will be a very poor deal for the public any other way. I want to own the shoes I pay for and we all should own the roads we pay for any other arrangement is a fraud.

No, it doesn't follow at all. A movie theatre is owned by its owner, not by movie goers. A train car is own by the train operator, not by the people who use it. Whether ownership should follow use or not is a practical question for which there is no universal answer.

Some roads, we both agree, ought to be owned by their users. Those are local roads for which the community of users is small and easily identifiable.

Your comparison of railroads with autoroutes is deceitful. They are not remotely the same. When you buy a ticket for the train you are buying a labour intensive service in a vehicle.. that incidently needs a special road. Rail service charges are more akin to the service charges for taxi, airflight or bus services.

This is the second time in your post that you are implying bad faith on my part. My comparison may have been wrong (I am not immune from error), but I certainly meant no deceit.

I take your point about buying a train ticket. But you have avoided answering my question. Do you oppose to private ownership of rail roads?

You may believe in a secret elite of magical fairies called entrepreneurs that have some exclusive mysterious sorcerous ability to tell when a road needs its potholes filled and its lanes enlarged but no one else does. That is utter shit. Good old fashion observation and statistical analysis is all that is required; it has worked splendidly so far. Fuck the magic fleecing fairies.

There is nothing either elite or magical about entrepreneurs. In fact, we are all entrepreneurs in some of our actions. Entrepreneur (as opposed to a bureaucrat, for example) is a person who uses his judgement regarding the likely consequences of his action to decide upon the most profitable choice. In the specific context, an entrepreneur makes a judgement regarding the relative benefit and cost of making road repairs. An experienced and successful road entrepreneur would be one that possesses the skills required to accurately estimate the benefits and costs.

The costs are relatively easy to estimate. Government engineers do it all the time.

The question of benefit is much more subtle. Benefit can only reasonably be understood to be benefit for road users. The benefit has many aspects, including both easily-quantifiable ones (e.g. expected wear on vehicle or slowing down of traffic due to pot-holes) and more difficult to quantify (the unpleasant experience of driving on a pot-holed road). To be compared with cost, benefit has to be quantified in money terms. This quantification is ultimately subjective. In the free market, it is achieved by observing how much people are willing to pay for the benefit. That way (and ONLY that way) can a third party deduce (lower bound on) the benefit to the user.

Only by paying for something ourselves (usually with money, but possibly with other things like our time) do we express the relative importance we have for that something.


The lovely thing about the free market is that there is a natural selection process with regard to decision-making. While in government (or even in a non-market community) people aren't rationally judged on the quality of their decisions (they are judged, but not rationally, as those judging lack the tools to rationally assess the quality of those decisions), in the market place, entrepreneurs are thus judged all the time. An entrepreneur that makes mistakes will lose money and, eventually, lose his business and thus his role in commanding a part of the economy. Over time, only successful entrepreneurs survive.

The anarchist (well the traditional anarchist not these new-fangled market-anarchists) believes that government is irredeemable because it can't be reformed; it will always be in the employ of vampires and pirates. Anarchy won't happen without massive public support and that support will never happen if anarchism means toll roads and the rule of the pirates.

This new-fangled market-anarchist agrees with you that government is irredeemable because it can't be reformed. It will indeed always be in the employ of vampires and pirates. Your mistake is to think that all capitalists are vampires and pirates, rather than recognise that only criminals and those who use government for their ends are.

Peaceful capitalists are neither vampires nor pirates (nor embezzlers, thieves or rent-seekers). They are honest people who benefit society through their profit-seeking activities.

The people DO own the roads now even with the state why the F**K will they support an arrangement where they have to pay rent to some sleazy vainiac in order to use their own property?

At most, people own those roads that exist today.

You have not yet responded to my proposal that those roads that exist today remain free, but that newly-built roads (which do not currently exist, and thus cannot be said to be owned by the people) are allowed to be toll-based.

[Someone5]

Since I dispute common ownership of land, am I a thief?

By definition, yes.

Not so. All land was free for people to make use of, but that is not the same as common ownership. Ownership implies the right to exclude others. Initially, no person had such right individually, nor did that right exist communally. A community of hunter-gatherers had no right to use force to exclude strangers from any piece of land.

Sure they did; force.

[Eran]

1. What is your definition of theft?

2. Are you saying that force gives people a right to use force? If so, does "right" have any meaning to you?

[SolarCross]

Since I dispute common ownership of land, am I a thief?

If you wish to take the land away from the people then yes. The people have had to suffer usurpers for the thousands of years, although the usurpers usually presented themselves as stewards rather than owners of the common land. It seems you would take the usurpation further than even kings and republics dared and call the people's land private property. The time of anarchy will be an undoing of this usurpation, why else would we want anarchy?

Not so. All land was free for people to make use of, but that is not the same as common ownership. Ownership implies the right to exclude others. Initially, no person had such right individually, nor did that right exist communally. A community of hunter-gatherers had no right to use force to exclude strangers from any piece of land.

Now you are being very muddled and illogical. If all land was free for the people to use, then that is common ownership. Ownership means the right to use and command; it is not implicitly exclusive otherwise it would not be necessary to qualify the word 'property' with the word 'private' in order to claim exclusivity. The tribes of men understood the land to be common property; that is all had the right to use it. Particular groups would collectively claim a private easement on the particular grounds they made specific use of, for hunting or gathering, and would defend that easement with force. Still those private easements of the common land were collectively owned and shared. Individual ownership extended only to personal possessions such as jewelry, tools and weapons. This pattern of ownership follows use and is the most practical as well as equitable system of rights.

No, it doesn't follow at all. A movie theatre is owned by its owner, not by movie goers. A train car is own by the train operator, not by the people who use it. Whether ownership should follow use or not is a practical question for which there is no universal answer.

Some roads, we both agree, ought to be owned by their users. Those are local roads for which the community of users is small and easily identifiable.

Ownership naturally follows use for as long as it is used - this is universal answer you are missing. The film organiser uses the cinema all the time so it is natural for him to own it all the time. The cinema goer owns his seat for as long as he uses it which is usually the duration of the film. If I wish to use a pair of shoes for as long as they last ii is most appropriate for me to own them for as long as they last. On the other had if I want to use some special shoes just for a short time then it might be better for me to just rent or borrow them. If you wish to live in one particular house for an indefinitley long time then it is most appropriate for you to own it. If you move around alot then renting makes more sense.

Roads are clearly used by all, all the time, for an indefinitely long time thus they should be owned by all for all time and not temporarily rented.

This is the second time in your post that you are implying bad faith on my part. My comparison may have been wrong (I am not immune from error), but I certainly meant no deceit.

I take your point about buying a train ticket. But you have avoided answering my question. Do you oppose to private ownership of rail roads?

I do suspect your motives, yes. You may be just suffering some irrational ideological fetish for private property that compels you to apply it where it should not be applied but then again there could be a larcenous motive. I wasn't born yesterday, elements in society have been trying to steal the common land from the people by deciet and brutality for thousands of years. Your intentions appear to be the same as these usurpers, okay you don't like force so what other device can you use to part the land from the people except slight-of-hand. The slip from public roads to railroads seemed sly rather than incompetent.

To better answer your question on railroads here is my take. The land under the railroad is common property. The artifice of the rails which lies atop the land should be the property of its permanent users which would be collectively the train operators. This is exactly akin to the permanent users of the car road collectively owning the artifice of the road surface and related road furniture; the permanent users in this case being everyone since everyone uses the car roads. This is fully consistent with ownership following use understanding I outlined above.

There is nothing either elite or magical about entrepreneurs. In fact, we are all entrepreneurs in some of our actions. Entrepreneur (as opposed to a bureaucrat, for example) is a person who uses his judgement regarding the likely consequences of his action to decide upon the most profitable choice. In the specific context, an entrepreneur makes a judgement regarding the relative benefit and cost of making road repairs. An experienced and successful road entrepreneur would be one that possesses the skills required to accurately estimate the benefits and costs.

The costs are relatively easy to estimate. Government engineers do it all the time.

The question of benefit is much more subtle. Benefit can only reasonably be understood to be benefit for road users. The benefit has many aspects, including both easily-quantifiable ones (e.g. expected wear on vehicle or slowing down of traffic due to pot-holes) and more difficult to quantify (the unpleasant experience of driving on a pot-holed road). To be compared with cost, benefit has to be quantified in money terms. This quantification is ultimately subjective. In the free market, it is achieved by observing how much people are willing to pay for the benefit. That way (and ONLY that way) can a third party deduce (lower bound on) the benefit to the user.

Only by paying for something ourselves (usually with money, but possibly with other things like our time) do we express the relative importance we have for that something.

The lovely thing about the free market is that there is a natural selection process with regard to decision-making. While in government (or even in a non-market community) people aren't rationally judged on the quality of their decisions (they are judged, but not rationally, as those judging lack the tools to rationally assess the quality of those decisions), in the market place, entrepreneurs are thus judged all the time. An entrepreneur that makes mistakes will lose money and, eventually, lose his business and thus his role in commanding a part of the economy. Over time, only successful entrepreneurs survive.

You talk about the free market but your solution to the provision of road maintenance is very much less of a free market solution than mine. If the public owns the roads then they have a choice as to whom they contract to do the maintenance and how much they are willing to pay for it, in turn the providers of the maintenance service must compete with each other to get the contract and thus market forces keep prices reasonable. But you would have it that the providers of the maintenance service own the roads and the consumers of the road maintenance service pay through tolls. It is a practical reality that people have few choices if any as to which route to take for their needed journeys. So the market dynamic breaks down and prices do not drop to cost. I have more objections to private ownership of common routes as you know but this is one at least you should understand.

This new-fangled market-anarchist agrees with you that government is irredeemable because it can't be reformed. It will indeed always be in the employ of vampires and pirates. Your mistake is to think that all capitalists are vampires and pirates, rather than recognise that only criminals and those who use government for their ends are.

Peaceful capitalists are neither vampires nor pirates (nor embezzlers, thieves or rent-seekers). They are honest people who benefit society through their profit-seeking activities.

At most, people own those roads that exist today.

You have not yet responded to my proposal that those roads that exist today remain free, but that newly-built roads (which do not currently exist, and thus cannot be said to be owned by the people) are allowed to be toll-based.

I did respond - I said that the profit-seekers can compete with each other to sell the manufacture of roads as well as the mending of them but that the public should be the owner.

[Eran]

At least part of our disagreement appears to be mostly semantic.

What you call "communal ownership" I call "no ownership". Both signify a situation in which any person may use the land in question.

What you call "private easement" I call "private ownership". Both signify a situation in which one person may legitimately exclude others from the land in question.

There may be deeper differences between the latter two designations, to do with the legitimacy of revoking the exclusive use right, but such differences are irrelevant to the question at hand.



You recognise private easement (i.e. legitimate right of exclusive use) for certain types of land-use, e.g. building a house or cultivating a field.

A house may be privately owned even if it isn't inhabited around the clock. Surely you agree that a home-owner may legitimately lock his house even when he is on vacation? A movie-theatre owner may condition entry to the theatre on the purchase of a ticket, even though some of the seats aren't being used? A car-rental company may condition using its cars on paying rental fee, even though some of the cars may be unused?

Now consider a bridge. Imagine a river across which several bridges already exist. An entrepreneur purchases small pieces of land on oppose sides of the river, and proceeds to build (with his own money) a bridge. If the entrepreneur then decides to exclude people from using the bridge, he has harmed nobody, as before his enterprise began, the bridge didn't exist at all.

By offering crossing the river on the bridge in exchange for a toll, the entrepreneur adds one option to all those previously (and still) available to the public, namely paying the toll. Anybody who wants to can still use all the other bridges that were available before the new bridge was constructed.

It is true that the bridge isn't used all the time, but then the same holds for seats within the movie theatre, or the unused car belonging to the car rental company. If one may legitimately ask for rent in exchange for using a car (or a hotel room), why not in exchange for using a bridge that wouldn't have existed but for the entrepreneurial initiative and investment?

I'd like to hear your views on the legitimacy of toll-bridges, before proceeding with the discussion of toll roads.

[SolarCross]

I don't think the differences are mostly semantic, the difference in meaning between common ownership and no ownership may seem subtle to you but they are significant and important, same goes for private property and private easement. Semantics is not the biggest difference between us, the main of it is that I am interested in the common good, the wellbeing of all, even to the disadvantage of myself. Whereas you take the opposite view. Thus for personal dwellings I advocate some private easement and for their opposite public common routes I advocate public ownership. You are stuck wanting everything to be private property regardless of the situation. One has to wonder why.

Of course for personal dwellings there is utility in privacy, for a cinema or a car rental business there is less utility but there need be some. For public roads there is no case for privacy, none, so why would anyone want it?

Toll bridges are no better than tolled private common routes (see how that sounds like a contradiction - private common routes?), if fact they may be worse. You have answered none of my objections to toll roads nor assuaged any of my concerns, so what will make toll bridges different? Must I repeat myself endlessly?

I will have to be inventive and create new objections to add to the mass of unanswered objections I have already presented.

1. Seeking to make a road or bridge for the purpose of shaking down travellers for their cash is itself an act of aggression. If the people had need of a bridge or road they could of organised it themselves if they weren't prevented by the selfish schemer. If they were a bit slow to realise it the schemer could have brought it their attention and helped organise it instead of trying exploit the situation to the detriment of all.

2. Tolls can't practically be collected without disrupting freedom of movement, ease of travel and moreover massively and uselessly increasing the costs of travel. Licence plate recognition would only work if all people keep unique, registered, licence plates on their cars which requires the threat of violence from a state. In an anarchy there is no way you can possibly do that. So the tolls will have be collected the old-fashion way by putting barriers in the road and paying people to take money in return for removing the barrier.

3. Potentially every road and bridge would have its own tolls, a single trip across town might involve getting dozens of bills from a dozen different companies.. A long journey might result in hundreds of different bills.. Noam Chomsky is right I would rather live in hell than a market-anarchist's utopia, and so would most people.

4. If there are alternative routes, people will avoid the toll road altogether even if it means travelling much further, which itself is an inanity but if the avoided route is a bridge it is possible that the larcenous fiend who owns it might not get enough from tolls to pay for its upkeep, so he puts up the tolls, which means even more people avoid it, so he earns even less. At some point the bridges maintenance will be neglected and it will become unsafe.

5. It will never happen, no left-libertarian will support it and they outnumber market anarchists by a long way. No non-anarchist will support it, even practicing capitalists in the main would prefer public roads to toll roads.

[Eran]

Semantics is not the biggest difference between us, the main of it is that I am interested in the common good, the wellbeing of all, even to the disadvantage of myself. Whereas you take the opposite view.

Given that I own very little land, and have no plans to own any roads, I don't see my views as being to my personal advantage.

I firmly believe that the common good would be served by a system that allows private property rights in, amongst other things, roads. You might disagree, without necessarily questioning my motives.

You are stuck wanting everything to be private property regardless of the situation. One has to wonder why.

That's not my position. My position is that people ought to be allowed to retain private property rights under certain circumstances (e.g. when the land they occupy hasn't previously been used, or has been transferred to them voluntarily from its previous private owners, in either case, in other words, when the land hasn't been previously open to the public).

As to why, it is because I firmly believe it is for the common good.

Must I repeat myself endlessly?

No - answering my arguments once would be enough. You haven't addressed the scenario in which (1) alternatives for travelling on toll roads/bridges already exist, and (2) the private owner is only using land that wasn't previously used by the public.

In such circumstances, building the bridge/road cannot be viewed as harming the public in any way. It merely adds an option to those already available to them.


On your specific objections:

1. Seeking to make a road or bridge for the purpose of shaking down travellers for their cash is itself an act of aggression. If the people had need of a bridge or road they could of organised it themselves if they weren't prevented by the selfish schemer. If they were a bit slow to realise it the schemer could have brought it their attention and helped organise it instead of trying exploit the situation to the detriment of all.

You have a remarkable faith in the ability of people to voluntarily organise, fund and embark on large infrastructure projects. I will focus on a bridge because so little (if any) land is actually required for it. In what possible way is building a bridge (which takes nothing away from anybody) an act of aggression?

I would turn your argument over. If people could organise themselves and build a bridge, nobody could, should or would stop them. Yet in my scenario they haven't. Maybe organising is too difficult. Maybe nobody felt it was a priority. Maybe (a likely possibility) most people underestimated the value of the project, and only a visionary entrepreneur willing to risk his own money (or persuade others to risk their own money) was able to carry it to fruition.

In fact, the bridge wouldn't be "for the detriment of all", but rather "for the benefit of all". Provably. Here is how:
1. By my scenario, no person in the world can claim to have been harmed by the new bridge
2. Those who chose to invest in the bridge did it voluntarily, proving they believed such investment benefits them
3. Those who chose to cross the bridge and pay the toll did so voluntarily (by my scenario, they had free alternatives open to them), and thus showed by their very action that paying the toll was a price worth paying.
4. Even those who choose not to use the bridge benefit, because alternative crossings are less busy

How can a project which harms nobody and benefits at least some people can be said to be "for the detriment of all"?

2. Tolls can't practically be collected without disrupting freedom of movement, ease of travel and moreover massively and uselessly increasing the costs of travel. Licence plate recognition would only work if all people keep unique, registered, licence plates on their cars which requires the threat of violence from a state. In an anarchy there is no way you can possibly do that. So the tolls will have be collected the old-fashion way by putting barriers in the road and paying people to take money in return for removing the barrier.

That's silly. A private bridge-owner has every incentive to make crossing as easy and convenient as possible. Keep in mind - people have free alternatives open to them. Perhaps he will give people free transponders for their cars, with a manual collection lane for occasional crossers. Who knows - that's not your problem. If the problem has no solution, the bridge won't be built.

3. Potentially every road and bridge would have its own tolls, a single trip across town might involve getting dozens of bills from a dozen different companies.. A long journey might result in hundreds of different bills.. Noam Chomsky is right I would rather live in hell than a market-anarchist's utopia, and so would most people.

See my answer above. I have stipulated repeatedly that people would always have a free alternative. Choosing tolls will thus only take place if, in the perception of the people actually using the facilities, the value of using them exceeds the total cost of so doing. The total cost includes both out-of-pocket expense for toll, AND any delay or inconvenience associated with the collection. It would be up to entrepreneurs to find ways to lower the hassle associated with tolls. Perhaps multiple operators will join and come up with an easy monthly subscription plan. Perhaps a universal transponder will be developed, recognised by all (or virtually all) operators. Who knows? The beauty of the private market is that endless number of entrepreneurs are motivated to search for consumer-benefiting innovations.

4. If there are alternative routes, people will avoid the toll road altogether even if it means travelling much further, which itself is an inanity but if the avoided route is a bridge it is possible that the larcenous fiend who owns it might not get enough from tolls to pay for its upkeep, so he puts up the tolls, which means even more people avoid it, so he earns even less. At some point the bridges maintenance will be neglected and it will become unsafe.

If that happens, the people investing in the bridge will have lost their investment. Knowing that, they are unlikely to invest before researching the issue carefully. Whether people choose to avoid the toll road or not is not something you can know in advance. Naturally, only those toll roads / bridges which, in the judgement of the very people risking their own money, are likely to fund themselves through tolls, will actually be built. Some mistakes ill be made, but the investors, not the public, pays the cost of those. And the industry will learn from those mistakes, and get better at both predicting demand and providing more and more attractive products.

5. It will never happen, no left-libertarian will support it and they outnumber market anarchists by a long way. No non-anarchist will support it, even practicing capitalists in the main would prefer public roads to toll roads.

But it is happening all the time. Toll bridges and roads are being privately financed, built and operated all over the world.

[SolarCross]

Given that I own very little land, and have no plans to own any roads, I don't see my views as being to my personal advantage.

I firmly believe that the common good would be served by a system that allows private property rights in, amongst other things, roads. You might disagree, without necessarily questioning my motives.

Ok I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as to motives.

That's not my position. My position is that people ought to be allowed to retain private property rights under certain circumstances (e.g. when the land they occupy hasn't previously been used, or has been transferred to them voluntarily from its previous private owners, in either case, in other words, when the land hasn't been previously open to the public).

As to why, it is because I firmly believe it is for the common good.

Ok I don't have any problem with your conditions for private property except that it may not be enough. There should perhaps be some condition to prevent injury to the common good. Not sure yet how it should be ideally phrased.

No - answering my arguments once would be enough. You haven't addressed the scenario in which (1) alternatives for travelling on toll roads/bridges already exist, and (2) the private owner is only using land that wasn't previously used by the public.

In such circumstances, building the bridge/road cannot be viewed as harming the public in any way. It merely adds an option to those already available to them.

You have not addressed my assertion that having providers of roadbuilding services (be it mending or making) compete to provide the service but the ownership remain with the public is the best for preserving the free market dynamic. Neither did you answer that it is best for user to own the used thing in proportion to the extent of use. Thus it is best for the travelling salesman to not own the hotel rooms he only briefly uses. In contrast it is best for anyone who lives in a particular house for an indefinitely long time to own it rather than rent it. Since everyone uses all the roads all the time it does not make sense for them to individually rent each road for only as long as they use it; it is best then for everyone to collectively own all the roads. I shall take it by your silence that you tacitly concede the truth of this understanding.

Your scenario where public alternatives exist is still injurious to the public because they are denied the opportunity to site a public road in its place. By presenting this scenario are you revealing that you accept that no alternative to toll roads represents harm to the public interest? If so it logically follows that toll roads with public alternatives only represents a diminishment of harm not its removal. Plainly the public will be better served by a public road they can use freely at maximum cost-efficiency and convenience than use a road that costs way more than it needs to and is inconvenienced by foisted stupidities like toll-booths, barriers, transponders and the like.

You will attract no one to the anarchist mission by conjuring up solutions to public needs that are extremely inferior to the solutions provided by even the most bungling of governments. We have to do better not worse than government. Back to the drawing board with you.

Given that in any state the majority of roads are in public ownership so that following the fall of the state they will go under the management of voluntary public interest associations then what makes you think that these associations will connect up the public roads to the your new private ones? I'd like to see your rent-seeking embezzlers collect tolls on roads that don't go anywhere.

[Eran]

You have not addressed my assertion that having providers of roadbuilding services (be it mending or making) compete to provide the service but the ownership remain with the public is the best for preserving the free market dynamic.

Neither did you answer that it is best for user to own the used thing in proportion to the extent of use.

I am a firm agnostic as to what is "best". I don't believe there is a single answer. There will be circumstances (geographic, economic, social) under which you will undoubtedly be proven right. But there may also be circumstances under which full private ownership is better.

My approach is not to try and predict or impose a particular end-state, but rather to discuss and reach agreement on the rules, and then allow society to evolve naturally, subject to those rules.

If you are right, private entrepreneurs will be deterred from even trying to establish private roads / bridges, because they will be out-competed by free alternatives. I would have no problem if that was the case. But I hope you will similarly have no problem with a situation in which, for whatever reason, a private entrepreneur is able to build an economically-viable private road, provided always that:
1. A free alternative exists, and
2. Only private land is used in the process.

On your second point, I agree that in most cases you'd be right. I will argue, however, that road-use is precisely analogous to renting a hotel room. Any single driver only uses any stretch of a road sporadically. Thus it makes sense for any single driver to "rent" the right to use the road (e.g. by paying toll).

If you argue that collectively, people use a road all the time, how is that different from a hotel? How is your logic of communal road ownership not equally applicable to argue for communal ownership of a hotel?

Your scenario where public alternatives exist is still injurious to the public because they are denied the opportunity to site a public road in its place.

I premised my scenario on a prior private ownership of the land in question. This is why a bridge is a handy example - it uses very little land. If the land being used (in either a road or a bridge/tunnel scenario) is private, it is already unavailable as a site for a public road. Thus the public cannot be said to be harmed by the conversion of an already-private land to an alternative private use.

By presenting this scenario are you revealing that you accept that no alternative to toll roads represents harm to the public interest? If so it logically follows that toll roads with public alternatives only represents a diminishment of harm not its removal. Plainly the public will be better served by a public road they can use freely at maximum cost-efficiency and convenience than use a road that costs way more than it needs to and is inconvenienced by foisted stupidities like toll-booths, barriers, transponders and the like.

My view is that it is wrong to involuntarily remove free alternatives currently open to the community. Any city currently served by free roads must therefore continue to be served by free roads indefinitely.

A new city, on the other hand, could legitimately be constructed so as only to be served by private roads. After all, nobody is going to be forced to move to that city. Those who choose to must do so because they have been persuaded they would be better off even given the private nature of the roads leading to the city.

I believe there are many circumstances under which the incentives and centralised control associated with private ownership more than compensate for any disadvantages. I see road-use as no different from other goods. Given a choice between a congested free road, and a clearer toll one, choosing the latter will often make perfect sense. If the tolls can be used to fund the cost associated with the expansion, why not?

Further, tolls have the additional advantage of allowing the public to reliably signal the value they associated with the road. Neither government planners nor community organisers have comparably-reliable means of establishing the value of a road (or the incremental value of an expansion or other improvement to an existing road).

Maybe people don't mind sitting in traffic for a few more minutes to save money. Or maybe people are willing to pay quite a bit to save commuting time. More likely, different people (or even the same people at different times) have different preferences.

When I buy goods online, I usually opt for the cheapest delivery method. But sometimes, when I need the goods urgently, I will pay up for an express delivery. The same holds for road-use. I might be content with a free (or low-cost) road under most circumstances, but be happy to pay up when I am in a harry. What's wrong with that?

You will attract no one to the anarchist mission by conjuring up solutions to public needs that are extremely inferior to the solutions provided by even the most bungling of governments. We have to do better not worse than government. Back to the drawing board with you.

Are you seriously claiming that current government handling of road infrastructure is better than a private alternative? With traffic backed up for hours? With traffic accidents killing tens of thousands of people each year? With bridges to nowhere on the one hand, and rotting infrastructure on the other?

Given that in any state the majority of roads are in public ownership so that following the fall of the state they will go under the management of voluntary public interest associations then what makes you think that these associations will connect up the public roads to the your new private ones?

Because it would be in the interests of the very public those associations are supposed to serve. If members of the public wish to pay a toll to get somewhere faster, and if such solutions only help the rest of the public (by making public roads less crowded), why deny them that ability?

Remember - the people choosing the pay tolls are members of the very same public you are concerned about. That their choice offends your sensibilities is your problem, not theirs.

[Rothbardian]

From the various debates I've seen and participated in I see that the concept of property frequently emerges as point of disagreement amongst anarchists and libertarians. So I thought I'd start this thread to thrash out some ideas on this particularly contentious issue to see if we anti-statists can come to some common understanding regarding property.

For myself I think it is really desirable that a good deal of material, ideas and projects are considered common property. For example freedom of movement can only exist if the roads or at least the main thorough-fares are common property. If all roads were the private property of individuals then no one could go anywhere without trespassing or being tolled into poverty.

The problem of the commons is....the commons.

Lighthouses, roads, etc, everything people seem to think absolutely require common ownership have been extensively run privately in the past, with no problem. Ever been to a mall? Lots of free loaders there. Yet, it works.

The bottom line is, people need roads, so they will pay for them. Not just consumers, but also business owners, real estate developers, etc. Price people out of using them, and you bankrupt yourself (unless you're a government). If you're as easily entertained as I am, I suggest reading into the actual history of these things before drawing a conclusion. But let me just say that you don't solve the problem of free riders by creating an entire class of free riders, and then subsidizing them with taxes.

[SolarCross]

Rothbardian - I not suggesting a new kind of government with taxes and classes of free riders very far from it. The funny thing about right-libertarians is that although the concept of the commons or commonwealth eludes you for manufactured things they do seem to accept and even insist on a commonwealth for ideas and information and by implication a commonwealth on natural resources (or else homesteading would be illegal). We could equally say from your argument that 'roads, lighthouses, etc' had been private property with no problem that also ideas information and natural resources had been private property with no problem.. You worry about free riders of manufactured goods but not free riders of information. And the rivalous / non-rivalous argument doesn't work really to distinguish between information and goods. A road is mostly non-rivalous, only when it hits capacity does it show signs of the quality of being rivalous. In contrast information can often be rivalous. For example: my company spends x amount of resources designing and testing a new and better widget which then sells for y amount which includes the information cost and then your company simply copies the design at virtually no cost and is able to put it on the market for less than y amount. Then that information is rivalous and you are a free rider.

[Nunt]

Some practical thoughts on how tolls might be levied:
-traffic cameras: you pass a checkpoint, a camera takes a picture of your licence plate and you are sent the bill either on a per use basis or on a subscription basis
-coin bins: you just purchase as standardized payment coin which you can easily throw in the a basket
-traditional coin booths: no explanation needed
-some kind of electronic transponder registering your passthrough
-some kind of electronic wallet using NFC, QR codes, or short distance radio signal

So even from my lazy chair I can easily come up with several possible ways to collect tolls. I am no expert in private roads at all. So a road company will definatly be able to come up with some alternatives. Each have pros and cons, but it is their job to find an economical way to collect tolls. Imo, there are plenty of solutions possible using current technology, so I believe collecting tolls on large scale can be done economically.

As to the remark that people we have to stop every mile to pay a new toll booth using a different type of payment mechanism... The problem you describe here is simply a problem of network economics and this problem has been solved already in many different industries. What you need to solve this is just industry standards. Industry standards allow different producers to sell the same goods to consumers. For example:
-If you purchase a DVD, blueray, CD, cassette, record from any producer they will play in your player. When buying a samsung cd you don't need to worry whether your sony cd player will be able to play this
-ATMs: even with my Belgian issued bank card, I can still make payments and draw money from ATMs in the US.
-light bulbs...

It is to the producer's advantage to cooperate and use standards. If they don't then the situation is as you described: there will be chaos, consumers will be unhappy and unable to pay and firms will be unable to make any profit. Take for example the BLURAY case. A few years back it was still unclear whether BLURAY or HDDVD would become the new industry standard. Thus, consumers were unwilling to invest into the new technology because they didn't want to get stuck with players that don't have any movies available on them.

So while firms may compete on price and quality, they will cooperate on using industry standards. If you want to sell a new DVD player that can only play your propriety DVDformat but not the industry standard, then you won't sell any DVD players. Defecting from the standard will mean reduced profits.

This does not mean that the whole world will use the same standard. This all depends on how much contact there is. For example if we look at the electrical socket standard we can see that there are standards for different regions (US, UK, EU), so this is slightly annoying for tourists because they have to buy an adapter. But its not overly annoying. However, if there was a different electrical socket for every street, then there would be a big problem. So the golden road of standards is a tradeoff between: 1) uniform for the whole world and 2) for every individual a different standard. Somewhere in between will be an economically efficient solution.

[Eran]

Both Highway 6 in Israel, and London's Congestion Charge work without any toll-booths.

Clearly, the technology is there.

Regardless, though, the problem of collection is part of the entrepreneurial challenge. It is up to the business to come up with the best means of collection.