In a libertarian world, there are no roads
Jim McCulloch
If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and, hence,
theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent Domain must
be ten times worse.
Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and Washington,
without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain') to
force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It can't be
done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building roads
using libertarian principles. You will discover that a country using
libertarian principles and a country without roads are one and the same.
--Jim McCulloch
Lazarus Long
mccu...@mail.utexas.edu pontificated in a message to All:
mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
mm> Subject: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
mm> Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
mm> If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and,
mm> hence, theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of
mm> Eminent Domain must be ten times worse.
mm> Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and
mm> Washington, without the government's power (generally called
mm> 'eminent domain') to force private landowners to sell whether they
mm> want to or not. It can't be done. Or at least, it has never BEEN
mm> done.
mm> Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building
mm> roads using libertarian principles. You will discover that a
mm> country using libertarian principles and a country without roads are
mm> one and the same.
What Mcculloch ignores or is unaware of ..is that most people,
and business owners in particular would see the value of having
roads. Mcculloch seems unaware that an essential of business is
getting your product to the consumer. Consumers, for some
reason, desire to have the products of the market available to
them. It would make sense and be in their best interests to
have roads leading to and from the markets and the producers.
If a property owner didn't wish to have a road across his
property, no one would force him to have one. However, getting
his groceries and other goods onto his property would be
difficult for him without having a road adjacent to his
property.
Visit the Rational Anarchist HomePage at:
http://vaxxine.com/rational/lazarus.html
Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com(fastest)
... I think! ...therefore I am not a socialist!
Steve Kangas
Jim McCulloch wrote:
>
> If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and, hence,
> theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent Domain must
> be ten times worse.
> Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and Washington,
> without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain') to
> force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It can't be
> done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
> Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building roads
> using libertarian principles. You will discover that a country using
> libertarian principles and a country without roads are one and the same.
>
> --Jim McCulloch
Absolutely spendid and quite unanswerable.
Steve Kangas
http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/
Shawn D Brown
This argument is unanswerable? What a joke. First of all, your argument
aserts that there will be a "holdout" problem resulting from some
individuals who do not wish to sell part or all of their land to the
company who is building the road. This may be true in some instances and
there is opportunism available for those holdouts (for example, the road
company values my parcel of land at $500,000, I value it at $150,000 and
the "market" value for an alternative use is $125,000. I may be able to
bargain with the company for a settlement approaching $500, 000. Thus I
may be "unjustly enriched" but it is still a Pareto Efficient move if the
company buys the land for $499, 000. Now if I value my land at a price
which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
property. Thus, you must prove that there would be too many holdouts for
the road to be built, which is a difficult premise to prove.) Second,
there are many other examples of private companies buying up lots of land
for a large development--Malls, shopping centers, and historically the
closest example to roads-railroads where railroads (in most instances)
were granted easements or purchased the land to build the tracks. Third,
there are many examples of private roads which were built in
subdivisions. The government didn't need to force the residents to build
a road- it was in the developer's or home owners' association interest to
do so. And in the interest of trade and commerce, why would individuals
in neighboring towns and counties not form a cooperative to build a road
to connect the two areas? Finally, I reccomend the book "For a New
Liberty" by Murray Rothbard who is much more persuasive in his argument
for private roads than I am. Another thoughtfull book is "Machinery of
Freedom" by David Freidman.
Shawn Brown
Jim McCulloch
Shawn D Brown <sbr...@osf1.gmu.edu> wrote:
>This argument is unanswerable? What a joke. First of all, your argument
>aserts that there will be a "holdout" problem resulting from some
>individuals who do not wish to sell part or all of their land to the
>company who is building the road. This may be true in some instances
Here Mr. Brown admits my point.
> and
>there is opportunism available for those holdouts (for example, the road
>company values my parcel of land at $500,000, I value it at $150,000 and
>the "market" value for an alternative use is $125,000. I may be able to
>bargain with the company for a settlement approaching $500, 000. Thus I
>may be "unjustly enriched" but it is still a Pareto Efficient move if the
>company buys the land for $499, 000. Now if I value my land at a price
>which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
>land and the efficient transaction has still occurred.
The point is not to achieve Pareto Efficiencies, the point is to build
the road.
> But that still
>does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
>road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
>property.
Mr. Brown likes his interstate highways with sudden right angles in
them.
Mr. Brown must be an economist, otherwise his residence in the
alternative universe of Pareto efficiencies cannot be accounted for..
Only an economist would assume the nonexistence of little old ladies
who have lived on their farms all their lives and are not going to
sell no matter HOW much you offer them. His only example of a holdout
is a person trying to get a better deal, not someone who just wants to
live where they have always lived. Get real, Mr. Brown, or better yet,
get a job with any state highway department, and explain to them that
all landowners are economically rational.
--Jim McCulloch
HENRY E. KILPATRICK JR.
rian,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.usa.congress,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.misc,alt.economics.austrian-school,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show,ca.politics,tx.politics,ny.politics,sa.republican
Followup-To: alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.impeach.clinton,alt.fan.g-gordon-liddy,alt.society.conservatism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.economics,alt.philosophy.objectivism,talk.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.usa.congress,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.misc,alt.economics.austrian-school,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show,ca.politics,tx.politics,ny.politics,sa.republican
References: <mcculloch-160...@newshost.cc.utexas.edu> <c80_960...@rational.vaxxine.com>
Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
Distribution:
Lazarus Long (2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com) wrote:
: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu pontificated in a message to All:
: mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
: mm> Subject: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
: mm> Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
: mm> If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and,
: mm> hence, theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of
: mm> Eminent Domain must be ten times worse.
: mm> Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and
: mm> Washington, without the government's power (generally called
: mm> 'eminent domain') to force private landowners to sell whether they
: mm> want to or not. It can't be done. Or at least, it has never BEEN
: mm> done.
: mm> Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building
: mm> roads using libertarian principles. You will discover that a
: mm> country using libertarian principles and a country without roads are
: mm> one and the same.
: What Mcculloch ignores or is unaware of ..is that most people,
: and business owners in particular would see the value of having
: roads. Mcculloch seems unaware that an essential of business is
: getting your product to the consumer. Consumers, for some
: reason, desire to have the products of the market available to
: them. It would make sense and be in their best interests to
: have roads leading to and from the markets and the producers.
: If a property owner didn't wish to have a road across his
: property, no one would force him to have one. However, getting
: his groceries and other goods onto his property would be
: difficult for him without having a road adjacent to his
: property.
This defies reality. Have you ever heard the acronym "NIMBY?" Everybody
wants the benefits, but nobody wants the costs. Furthermore, where roads
did get built the last property owner to sign the deal would have
incentive to extract every last dime of rent.
If this notion worked, this society probably would have gone down that
route. We wouldn't be more than a Third World nation without eminent
domain. Here in Northern Virginia, even with eminent domain. it took
forever for a private toll road to get off the ground & indications are
that it may not prove to be profitable.
Would you really want to stop every 5-10 minutes and pay a toll anyhow?
And what about monopolies that would own toll roads? Surely you don't
suggest that there would be lots of road competition do you? Where would
you put sufficient roads to guarantee competition even if people would
agree to allow them to cross their land?
"Anarchy" is just another utopian dream, not unlike Marxism.
--
Buddy K
VOTE FOR ART GOODTIMES
San Miguel County, CO
Commissioner
Lazarus Long
mccu...@mail.utexas.edu pontificated in a message to All:
mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
mm> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
mm> Organization: x
mm> Shawn D Brown <sbr...@osf1.gmu.edu> wrote:
>This argument is unanswerable? What a joke. First of all, your argument
>aserts that there will be a "holdout" problem resulting from some
>individuals who do not wish to sell part or all of their land to the
>company who is building the road. This may be true in some instances
mm> Here Mr. Brown admits my point.
And promptly shows how it can be resolved to the satisfaction of
all parties.
mm> The point is not to achieve Pareto Efficiencies, the point is to
mm> build the road.
Which he demonstrates.
> But that still
>does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
>road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
>property.
mm> Mr. Brown likes his interstate highways with sudden right angles in
mm> them.
Not necessarily right angles... I presume that Mcculloch is
unaware of the word "curve".
mm> for.. Only an economist would assume the nonexistence of little old
mm> ladies who have lived on their farms all their lives and are not
mm> going to sell no matter HOW much you offer them. His only example of
mm> a holdout is a person trying to get a better deal, not someone who
mm> just wants to live where they have always lived. Get real, Mr.
mm> Brown, or better yet, get a job with any state highway department,
mm> and explain to them that all landowners are economically rational.
He did cover that. You must have missed it in your haste to
demonstrate your stupidity.
Visit the Rational Anarchist HomePage at:
http://vaxxine.com/rational/lazarus.html
Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com(fastest)
... Your proctologist called...he found your head!
K MacLeod
Steve Kangas (kang...@scruznet.com) wrote:
: Jim McCulloch wrote:
: >
: > If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and, hence,
: > theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent Domain must
: > be ten times worse.
: > Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and Washington,
: > without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain') to
: > force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It can't be
: > done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
: > Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building roads
: > using libertarian principles. You will discover that a country using
: > libertarian principles and a country without roads are one and the same.
: >
: > --Jim McCulloch
: Absolutely spendid and quite unanswerable.
Yawn. Already answered by Rothbard in _Power and Market_, where he
agrees with McCulloch that eminent domain is incompatible with
libertarian principles. Would-be road-builders would just have to pay
off or buy out existing landowners, just as would-be house-builders do.
That doesn't mean there would be *no* roads in Libertaria.
Just long and winding roads :-)
And likewise railways and canals, with airships cruising quietly
overhead.
Scary, isn't it?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken MacLeod | '... in the beginning all the world was America ...'
ke...@festival.ed.ac.uk | John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brad Aisa
mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch) wrote:
>If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and, hence,
>theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent Domain must
>be ten times worse.
>Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and Washington,
>without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain') to
>force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It can't be
>done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
>Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building roads
>using libertarian principles. You will discover that a country using
>libertarian principles and a country without roads are one and the same.
What nonsense.
In fact, governments in many places are discovering the tremendous benefits
to be had by divesting themselves of their roads, and allowing the private
sector to operate them. When roads are operated privately, the owners have
a vested interest in keeping traffic moving. So, for example, private
freeway operators do everything in their power to keep traffic moving. In
contrast, with public roads, every additional measure is an *expense*,
since the road gets its funding not from the drivers nor in relation to the
service offered (i.e., no traffic jams).
As for the argument that property could not be obtained, that is just a
word salad. We can see in reality all the time that property is purchased
for new developments of every sort, including roads.
If people purchase property for some use, they have the right to it, and
the right to be protected from leacherous mobs. If some new use of property
can be made, it will typically command a higher price. Why should some
property owner sell for less than their market value? Conversely, if road
suppliers (or resort developers, or whatever the aggregate function) want
property for roads, they will have to pay a premium. Deals like this can be
negotiated several ways -- an obvious one is by contracting to buy all the
needed lots, only if all are sold. This prevents any single owner from
trying to charge more.
--
Brad Aisa <ba...@tor.hookup.net> http://www.hookup.net/~baisa/
"The highest responsibility of philosophers is to serve as the
guardians and integrators of human knowledge." -- Ayn Rand
Richard Foy
In article <c80_960...@rational.vaxxine.com>,
Lazarus Long <2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com> wrote:
>
> What Mcculloch ignores or is unaware of ..is that most people,
> and business owners in particular would see the value of having
> roads. Mcculloch seems unaware that an essential of business is
> getting your product to the consumer. Consumers, for some
> reason, desire to have the products of the market available to
> them. It would make sense and be in their best interests to
> have roads leading to and from the markets and the producers.
> If a property owner didn't wish to have a road across his
> property, no one would force him to have one. However, getting
> his groceries and other goods onto his property would be
> difficult for him without having a road adjacent to his
> property.
Al you arfe doing is pointing out the need and value of having roads.
Yow do not define a process of how they would come about with out the
power of eminent domain.
--
"Do you know why Moses wandered in the wilderness for fourty years."(pause)
He was a man and men don't ask directions." --Nun in the play Nunsense
URL http://www.he.tdl.com/~hfanoe/womquote.html Womens Quotations
Joel
In <31C52D...@scruznet.com> Steve Kangas <kang...@scruznet.com> writes:
>Jim McCulloch wrote:
>>
>> If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and,
hence,
>> theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent
Domain must
>> be ten times worse.
>> Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and
Washington,
>> without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain')
to
>> force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It
can't be
>> done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
Actually, there is a new private toll highway in northern Virginia.
>> Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building
roads
>> using libertarian principles. You will discover that a country
using
>> libertarian principles and a country without roads are one and the
same.
>>
>> --Jim McCulloch
>
>Absolutely spendid and quite unanswerable.
>
>Steve Kangas
>http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/
Jim McCulloch
So far all of the people who disagreed with my original post have said
everyone will sell if offered enough money, and if they don't, well,
the roads will be long and winding.
Generally people don't build interstate highways on the principle of
long and winding, they build them on the principles of cost and good
engineering, including considerations like safety..
Is there enough money in a libertarian world, to build roads on the
principle of long and winding?
Do YOU want to pay the tolls of a privately built toll road from, say
Austin to San Antonio, which is long and winding--who knows how long
and winding, it depends on the landowners, doesn't it?-- maybe 200
miles worth, maybe 300, where the present distance is 80 miles?
Lots of uncertainty, about these very hypothetical libertarian roads.
Um, wait, "hypothetical" is not actually the word I was searching for.
"Fictional"is the word.
--Jim McCulloch
Jim McCulloch
ba...@tor.hookup.net (Brad Aisa) wrote:
>In fact, governments in many places are discovering the tremendous benefits
>to be had by divesting themselves of their roads, and allowing the private
>sector to operate them. When roads are operated privately, the owners have
>a vested interest in keeping traffic moving. So, for example, private
>freeway operators do everything in their power to keep traffic moving. In
>contrast, with public roads, every additional measure is an *expense*,
>since the road gets its funding not from the drivers nor in relation to the
>service offered (i.e., no traffic jams).
Privatization may or may not be desirable. Unlike you, I have no
generic opinion on that. In any case, the privitazation of highways is
a different matter from building them, which is what we were talking
about.
>As for the argument that property could not be obtained, that is just a
>word salad. We can see in reality all the time that property is purchased
>for new developments of every sort, including roads.
Of course you can build a shopping center wherever you can get
together a block of land to build it on. So what? Building a ROAD
from point a to point b, without going through point x, requires the
power of eminent domain. Why do you think we have it? Do you think our
society worships socialism and tyranny? (If you are a libertarian, you
probably do, but everyone else realizes that the reason the government
has the power of eminent domain is because it is necessary to get
roads built).
>If people purchase property for some use, they have the right to it, and
>the right to be protected from leacherous mobs.
"Lecherous mobs"? You lost me here.
> If some new use of property
>can be made, it will typically command a higher price. Why should some
>property owner sell for less than their market value? Conversely, if road
>suppliers (or resort developers, or whatever the aggregate function) want
>property for roads, they will have to pay a premium. Deals like this can be
>negotiated several ways -- an obvious one is by contracting to buy all the
>needed lots, only if all are sold. This prevents any single owner from
>trying to charge more.
If this confused mishmash is supposed to illustrate how you can build
a road without using the power of eminent domain, it ignores the case
of the Farmer Who Refuses To Sell No Matter What You Offer Him. What
do you do about this guy, other than make your road from Chicago to
Detroit go through St. Louis?
--Jim McCulloch
Robert D. Clark
In all this discussion of Libertarianism I have yet to see the most
damning indictment against it. Its utter failure to address the free
rider problem.
Certain economic "goods" such as national defense are not in the slightest
"consumed" by their use. I am as protected, via MAD, from nuclear attack
by any given warhead as anyone else in the country. In a society where
there are no taxes, the warhead is never built. Why? Because there is no
way, short of compulsory payment, to receive revenue for the production
and maintainence in a useable state for that warhead.
A broad assertion, I know. After all, everyone, other than some pacifist
idealists, know that the things are needed. Why would no one pay?
Because it is in their economic self interest to let somebody else pay for
it. Where the good is utilized but not consumed, and is known to be
needed, the assumption, for all rational actors, is to say to themselves,
"Well, my neighbor knows we need this thing. He'll pay for it, and
therefore I can save the money I would otherwise spend on it and get a new
pair of Reeboks." Get a "free ride" in other words. But the *neighbor's*
thinking is identical. Oh sure, you'll get a few selfless people who pony
up (selfless sounds much more attractive than "sucker", doesn't it?).
Since they can't make their utilization of the warhead exclusive, however,
all receive the benefit, even those who have not paid. And there just
aren't that many selfless people in the world.
Roads are much the same. Sure, you can control access to toll roads. But
how many entry points have they got? The NY turnpike has something like
20 or so exits in the whole distance across NY state (been two years since
I last crossed NY to vist my folks). The Coralville Strip, in Iowa City
where I live, goes past that many businesses in *half a mile*. What are
you going to do, put a toll booth at every one of them?
Thus we can derive a rule: The more difficult to control exclusive access
to a good, which is unconsumed by use, or where the consumption per user
is infintesimal per each user, the greater the degree of difficulty with
the free rider problem. When the free rider problem reaches a certain
point, the good is never produced.
Stick *that* in your utopia and smoke it.
No time/space wasting sig with a cutesy political philosphy....
Now isn't THAT a thrill?
Alan Breck Stewart
Steve Kangas wrote:
>
> Jim McCulloch wrote:
> >
> > If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and, hence,
> > theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent Domain must
> > be ten times worse.
> > Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and Washington,
> > without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain') to
> > force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It can't be
> > done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
> > using libertarian principles. You will discover that a country using
> > libertarian principles and a country without roads are one and the same.
> >
> > --Jim McCulloch
>
> Absolutely spendid and quite unanswerable.
>
> Steve Kangas
> http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/
Other posters have already demolished the substance of this argument;
I'll take just a moment to object to the premise: that eminent domain is
ten times worse taxes, theft, slavery, etc.
I don't like eminent domain, but it certainly is not 'ten times worse'
and arguably is not as bad. At least you get compensated for your
property (at what is supposed to be a fair market level) whereas in
taxation et al you receive no compensation whatever.
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A DEFENSE OF EMINENT DOMAIN. Just pointing out that
the premise is flawed.
- ABS
P.S.: Pop quiz: do you know where Ike got the idea for the U.S.
Interstate Highway system? Be careful about the paternity of causes you
adopt.
Jim McCulloch
Alan Breck Stewart <jmue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>P.S.: Pop quiz: do you know where Ike got the idea for the U.S.
>Interstate Highway system? Be careful about the paternity of causes you
>adopt.
It was not Ike's idea. The interstate highway system was authorized by
the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1944, and many of the actual highway
routes designated by 1948.
Some Libertarian dreamers have told us, in this thread, that the
interstate highways would have been built without the power of eminent
domain--but the highways would have had a lot of curves, and been,
well, somewhat longer--how much longer, their dreams have not
specified exactly.
In any case, thanks in part to the power of eminent domain, most of
the routes had been laid out before Ike took office, and thanks to the
power of eminent domain, as well as Ike's political skills, the roads
got built without the extra curves and distances.
But your point, of course, is that Ike had seen the autobahn, and
thought it was cool. That couldn't have been the paternity of
something that had already been born, could it?
--Jim McCulloch
George Grapman
rian,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.usa.congress,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.misc,alt.economics.austrian-school,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show,ca.politics,tx.politics,ny.politics,sa.republican
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest):
If the Libertarians had theirv way Blacks would still be sitting in
the back of the bus.
Lazarus Long
mccu...@mail.utexas.edu onanized in a message to All:
mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
mm> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
mm> Organization: x
mm> So far all of the people who disagreed with my original post have
mm> said everyone will sell if offered enough money, and if they don't,
mm> well, the roads will be long and winding.
mm> Generally people don't build interstate highways on the principle of
mm> long and winding, they build them on the principles of cost and good
mm> engineering, including considerations like safety..
If the road was unfeasible due to costs, it would not be
built.
mm> Is there enough money in a libertarian world, to build roads on the
mm> principle of long and winding?
If the demand for the road is sufficient, yes.
mm> Do YOU want to pay the tolls of a privately built toll road from,
mm> say Austin to San Antonio, which is long and winding--who knows how
mm> long and winding, it depends on the landowners, doesn't it?-- maybe
mm> 200 miles worth, maybe 300, where the present distance is 80 miles?
Mcculloch ignores, hence his lack of direct response, the
posts that pointed out that most people have an interest in
having transportation adjacent to their property. The cattle
rancher, while enjoying the raising of cattle, may also enjoy
the proceeds from sending them to market. It is in his
interest to have a road with which to ship the cattle to
market.
mm> Lots of uncertainty, about these very hypothetical libertarian
mm> roads. Um, wait, "hypothetical" is not actually the word I was
mm> searching for. "Fictional"is the word.
Not too much uncertainty....to anyone who understands the
complexities of supply and demand and market economics.
Visit the Rational Anarchist HomePage at:
http://vaxxine.com/rational/lazarus.html
Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com(fastest)
... Jesus loves you... everyone else thinks you're an asshole
Lazarus Long
mccu...@mail.utexas.edu pontificated in a message to All:
mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
mm> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
mm> Organization: x
mm> Of course you can build a shopping center wherever you can get
mm> together a block of land to build it on. So what? Building a ROAD
mm> from point a to point b, without going through point x, requires the
mm> power of eminent domain. Why do you think we have it? Do you think
Nope, it requires nothing more than voluntarily entered
agreements.
mm> our society worships socialism and tyranny? (If you are a
mm> libertarian, you probably do, but everyone else realizes that the
mm> reason the government has the power of eminent domain is because it
mm> is necessary to get roads built).
It just makes it easier...not because it's necessary.
> If some new use of property
>can be made, it will typically command a higher price. Why should some
>property owner sell for less than their market value? Conversely, if road
>suppliers (or resort developers, or whatever the aggregate function) want
>property for roads, they will have to pay a premium. Deals like this can be
>negotiated several ways -- an obvious one is by contracting to buy all the
>needed lots, only if all are sold. This prevents any single owner from
>trying to charge more.
mm> If this confused mishmash is supposed to illustrate how you can
mm> build a road without using the power of eminent domain, it ignores
Not confused...just points out how property is bought and sold
in a market.
mm> the case of the Farmer Who Refuses To Sell No Matter What You Offer
mm> Him. What do you do about this guy, other than make your road from
mm> Chicago to Detroit go through St. Louis?
Then route through "the farmer next store". Unless the farmer
owns a fair expanse of land..he would have a hard time
forcing a road from Chicago to Detroit to be routed through St.
Louis. He also must be a fairly strange farmer...if he is
raising all these crops and doesn't care about getting them to
a market.
Check with your local community college...they must offer a
course like Economics 101.
a...@aepix.com
>mccu...@mail.utexas.edu pontificated in a message to All:
>
>mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
>mm> Subject: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
>mm> Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
>
>mm> If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and,
>mm> hence, theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of
>mm> Eminent Domain must be ten times worse.
Actually, no. Eminent Domain isn't worse. Here, read your own definition
it ...
>mm> Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and
>mm> Washington, without the government's power (generally called
>mm> 'eminent domain') to force private landowners to sell whether they
>mm> want to or not. It can't be done. Or at least, it has never BEEN
>mm> done.
You see in eminent domain you are simply force to sell *not* forced to
give. And the price must be "reasonable".
It is as if a thief said "I'll give you 50 dollars for your Nike's or I'm
going to break your arm." Instead of the normal, "Just give me the shoes
or I'll break your arm."
I'd prefer former over the later. So Eminate domain is *better* not worse.
>mm> Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building
>mm> roads using libertarian principles. You will discover that a
>mm> country using libertarian principles and a country without roads are
>mm> one and the same.
You haven't disporoven the thesis, that taxation is a form of theft.
In fact you seem to have agreed with it and moved on to say that it may
be immoral but we couldn't function without it.
I accept your surrender :-)
That is really all I want out of the big government types. Now I just want
everyone to *think* about the moral implications of every government action.
You don't have to give up a desire for big government. You just have to
admit that taking money from one person and giving it to another is not
a very friendly thing to do. And if you want to do it you better have a
DARN good reason.
-rex-
David Friedman
In article <mcculloch-160...@newshost.cc.utexas.edu>,
mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch) wrote:
> If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and, hence,
> theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent Domain must
> be ten times worse.
> Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and Washington,
> without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain') to
> force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It can't be
> done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
This is historically false--unless you insist on the particular end points
of your example. The original (pre-automobile) Pennsylvania Turnpike was
built privately and was a good deal longer than either of your examples.
You can find a fairly detailed discussion of the relevant history in
William Wooldridge's (sp?) book _Uncle Sam the Monopoly Man_.
In the discussion following from this thread, either McCulloch or one of
his supporters argues that holdouts would lead to right angle turns, and
talks about an 80 mile road being 200 or 300 miles long as a result. I
think the argument badly misreads the relevant scale. Few individual land
holdings are more than a mile or so across (although more in Texas than in
California), so if your end points are 80 miles apart, avoiding individual
holdouts costs you very little in added distance (think about building
from (0,0) to (1,40) to (0,80) instead of from (0,0) to (0,80), in order
to avoid a holdout whose territory goes from (-1,40) to (1,40)). An
entrepreneur constructing a private road would do it by assembling
options, then piecing them together to get a continuous route.
Two more points relevant to the real world problem:
1. Being a holdout is a lot less attractive when the entrepreneur can go
around you at low cost. So there aren't many strategic holdouts, so you
end up with a pretty straight road. There are still non-strategic holdouts
(little old ladies who won't sell their family home), but since you locate
them before you decide on the route, you should be able to avoid them at
low cost unless there are an awful lot of them or they have enormous
estates.
2. Someone mentioned the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") problem. The
experience of building the original Pennsylvania Turnpike suggests that
the sign of the effect is the other way around. People in local
communities bought turnpike bonds at unattractive rates in order to
persuade the turnpike to choose a route near their community--because they
wanted access to a good road. I expect the same thing would be true here.
People may not want the turnpike running next to their house, but they
will very much want it within a mile instead of within ten miles.
Finally, note that the holdout problem does not disappear with government
roads and eminent domain--it merely changes its form. In practice, there
are lots of possible blocking coalitions to prevent a road building
project. As you may have noticed, the Los Angeles area has built almost no
highways in recent decades, although it is pretty clear that they would be
worth building.
David Friedman
Jim McCulloch
dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote:
>In article <mcculloch-160...@newshost.cc.utexas.edu>,
>mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch) wrote:
>This is historically false--unless you insist on the particular end points
>of your example. The original (pre-automobile) Pennsylvania Turnpike was
>built privately and was a good deal longer than either of your examples.
>You can find a fairly detailed discussion of the relevant history in
>William Wooldridge's (sp?) book _Uncle Sam the Monopoly Man_.
The roads (and railroads) historically built without resorting to
eminent domain, were built through relatively unsettled areas.
The present Pennsylvania Turnpike was started in 1938 (not
pre-automobile) and I doubt if it was built without resorting to
eminent domain, unless it follow an existing right of way acquired
before people lived there.
The PA Turnpike goes through mountainous terrain, which is a situation
that throws a monkey wrench into the theory, below, that you just
route your highway AROUND holdouts. In mountains, for engineering
reasons, you are going to be faced with a situation where a holdout
has absolute power over your road, unless eminent domain is used.
>In the discussion following from this thread, either McCulloch or one of
>his supporters argues that holdouts would lead to right angle turns, and
>talks about an 80 mile road being 200 or 300 miles long as a result. I
>think the argument badly misreads the relevant scale. Few individual land
>holdings are more than a mile or so across (although more in Texas than in
>California), so if your end points are 80 miles apart, avoiding individual
>holdouts costs you very little in added distance (think about building
>from (0,0) to (1,40) to (0,80) instead of from (0,0) to (0,80), in order
>to avoid a holdout whose territory goes from (-1,40) to (1,40)). An
>entrepreneur constructing a private road would do it by assembling
>options, then piecing them together to get a continuous route.
This is a falsely precise way of saying that Mr. Friedman doesn't
think the curves or the length of routing around holdouts would be
excessive. Maybe so. Maybe not. Are we going to throw our present
system out the window to find out? I doubt it.
>Two more points relevant to the real world problem:
>1. Being a holdout is a lot less attractive when the entrepreneur can go
>around you at low cost. So there aren't many strategic holdouts, so you
>end up with a pretty straight road. There are still non-strategic holdouts
>(little old ladies who won't sell their family home), but since you locate
>them before you decide on the route, you should be able to avoid them at
>low cost unless there are an awful lot of them or they have enormous
>estates.
There ARE some enormous estates, especially in Texas. The King Ranch
was able to fend off highways going through the ranch for years
because they had the political clout to prevent the state from USING
its power of eminent domain. They didn't want more money. They
wanted to keep outsiders out of their medieval kingdom (pun
unintended).
And the mountainous terrain problem is somewhat functionally analogous
to the enormous estate problem, isn't it?
--Jim McCulloch
Tom Scheeler
In article <Dt7Eu...@iquest.net>, a...@aepix.com wrote:
>
>>mccu...@mail.utexas.edu pontificated in a message to All:
>>
>>mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
>>mm> Subject: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
>>mm> Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
>>
>>mm> If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and,
>>mm> hence, theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of
>>mm> Eminent Domain must be ten times worse.
>
>Actually, no. Eminent Domain isn't worse. Here, read your own definition
>it ...
>
>>mm> Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and
>>mm> Washington, without the government's power (generally called
>>mm> 'eminent domain') to force private landowners to sell whether they
>>mm> want to or not. It can't be done. Or at least, it has never BEEN
>>mm> done.
>
>You see in eminent domain you are simply force to sell *not* forced to
>give. And the price must be "reasonable".
Must be, but in about 99% of the time it isn't. Further, here in Phoenix,
they used eminent domain to build the baseball stadium, giving. not market
value, but about 1/5th of FMV.
>
>It is as if a thief said "I'll give you 50 dollars for your Nike's or I'm
>going to break your arm." Instead of the normal, "Just give me the shoes
>or I'll break your arm."
So, how about when he says five dollars?
>
>I'd prefer former over the later. So Eminate domain is *better* not worse.
>
>
>>mm> Try to imagine a country without roads. Then try to imagine building
>>mm> roads using libertarian principles. You will discover that a
>>mm> country using libertarian principles and a country without roads are
>>mm> one and the same.
>
>
>You haven't disporoven the thesis, that taxation is a form of theft.
>In fact you seem to have agreed with it and moved on to say that it may
>be immoral but we couldn't function without it.
>
>
>I accept your surrender :-)
I see that you understand the principle of ED, but not its application
today. YOUR surrender is appreciated.
David Friedman
In article <4q8vol$s...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, mccu...@mail.utexas.edu
(Jim McCulloch) wrote:
> The roads (and railroads) historically built without resorting to
> eminent domain, were built through relatively unsettled areas.
> The present Pennsylvania Turnpike was started in 1938 (not
> pre-automobile) and I doubt if it was built without resorting to
> eminent domain, unless it follow an existing right of way acquired
> before people lived there.
I suggest you check the history of the original (19th century)
Pennsylvania Turnpike; I gave a cite in my previous post. If what you mean
by "relatively unsettled areas" is "areas where most land does not have
permanent structures on it," then most of the U.S., including almost all
of Texas, is still relatively unsettled, as one can easily see looking
down from an airplane. If what you mean is "areas where most of the land
is not privately owned," then Pennsylvania in the 19th century does not
qualify.
> The PA Turnpike goes through mountainous terrain, which is a situation
> that throws a monkey wrench into the theory, below, that you just
> route your highway AROUND holdouts. In mountains, for engineering
> reasons, you are going to be faced with a situation where a holdout
> has absolute power over your road, unless eminent domain is used.
That is correct. On the other hand, the individuals owning the choke
points (passes) have a lot to gain by getting together to build the road,
so if there are not too many of them there is still a good chance of
building the road.
> >In the discussion following from this thread, either McCulloch or one of
> >his supporters argues that holdouts would lead to right angle turns, and
> >talks about an 80 mile road being 200 or 300 miles long as a result. I
> >think the argument badly misreads the relevant scale. Few individual land
> >holdings are more than a mile or so across (although more in Texas than in
> >California), so if your end points are 80 miles apart, avoiding individual
> >holdouts costs you very little in added distance (think about building
> >from (0,0) to (1,40) to (0,80) instead of from (0,0) to (0,80), in order
> >to avoid a holdout whose territory goes from (-1,40) to (1,40)). An
> >entrepreneur constructing a private road would do it by assembling
> >options, then piecing them together to get a continuous route.
>
> This is a falsely precise way of saying that Mr. Friedman doesn't
> think the curves or the length of routing around holdouts would be
> excessive. Maybe so. Maybe not. Are we going to throw our present
> system out the window to find out? I doubt it.
It is a precise, although elliptical, way of demonstrating that in a
reasonably flat terrain with land holdings on the order of a mile across,
no single holdout can impose significant costs. Your argument about 80
miles turning into 200-300 was made with reference to terrain which (I
think) meets those requirements.
> There ARE some enormous estates, especially in Texas.
But your argument requires enough enormous estates in blocking positions
so that the bargaining breaks down. If there is only one, its owner builds
the road.
I am not arguing that holdout problems do not exist--merely that they are
less serious than you think, and that your original historical assertion
was false. I note, by the way, that what you presented as a fact (that
long roads had never been built without eminent domain) supporting your
theory was actually a conclusion deduced from your theory. At least, I
assume you are not going to claim that you have actually studied the
history of road construction at sufficient extent to have a good basis for
believing that no such example existed anywhere in the world at any time
in history.
David Friedman
Alan Breck Stewart
Jim McCulloch wrote:
>
> dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote:
>
>
> There ARE some enormous estates, especially in Texas. The King Ranch
> was able to fend off highways going through the ranch for years
> wanted to keep outsiders out of their medieval kingdom (pun
> unintended).
>
> And the mountainous terrain problem is somewhat functionally analogous
> to the enormous estate problem, isn't it?
>
> --Jim McCulloch
You just validated David's point.
- ABS
Alan Breck Stewart
David Friedman wrote:
>
> In article <mcculloch-160...@newshost.cc.utexas.edu>,
> mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch) wrote:
>
> > If libertarians consider taxes to be "the initiation of force" and, hence,
> > theft, robbery, and slavery, the State's Evil Power of Eminent Domain must
> > be ten times worse.
> > Try to build a road between Austin and Dallas, or New York and Washington,
> > without the government's power (generally called 'eminent domain') to
> > force private landowners to sell whether they want to or not. It can't be
> > done. Or at least, it has never BEEN done.
>
> This is historically false--unless you insist on the particular end points
> of your example. The original (pre-automobile) Pennsylvania Turnpike was
> built privately and was a good deal longer than either of your examples.
> You can find a fairly detailed discussion of the relevant history in
> William Wooldridge's (sp?) book _Uncle Sam the Monopoly Man_.
>
> his supporters argues that holdouts would lead to right angle turns, and
> talks about an 80 mile road being 200 or 300 miles long as a result. I
> think the argument badly misreads the relevant scale. Few individual land
> holdings are more than a mile or so across (although more in Texas than in
> California), so if your end points are 80 miles apart, avoiding individual
> holdouts costs you very little in added distance (think about building
> from (0,0) to (1,40) to (0,80) instead of from (0,0) to (0,80), in order
> to avoid a holdout whose territory goes from (-1,40) to (1,40)). An
> entrepreneur constructing a private road would do it by assembling
> options, then piecing them together to get a continuous route.
>
>
> 1. Being a holdout is a lot less attractive when the entrepreneur can go
> around you at low cost. So there aren't many strategic holdouts, so you
> end up with a pretty straight road. There are still non-strategic holdouts
> (little old ladies who won't sell their family home), but since you locate
> them before you decide on the route, you should be able to avoid them at
> low cost unless there are an awful lot of them or they have enormous
> estates.
>
> experience of building the original Pennsylvania Turnpike suggests that
> the sign of the effect is the other way around. People in local
> communities bought turnpike bonds at unattractive rates in order to
> persuade the turnpike to choose a route near their community--because they
> wanted access to a good road. I expect the same thing would be true here.
> People may not want the turnpike running next to their house, but they
> will very much want it within a mile instead of within ten miles.
>
> Finally, note that the holdout problem does not disappear with government
> roads and eminent domain--it merely changes its form. In practice, there
> are lots of possible blocking coalitions to prevent a road building
> project. As you may have noticed, the Los Angeles area has built almost no
> highways in recent decades, although it is pretty clear that they would be
> worth building.
>
> David Friedman
>
> --
> dd...@best.com
Excellent post, as usual, David.
- ABS
Alan Breck Stewart
Jim McCulloch wrote:
>
>
> But your point, of course, is that Ike had seen the autobahn, and
> thought it was cool. That couldn't have been the paternity of
> something that had already been born, could it?
>
> --Jim McCulloch
Fine. Change 'paternity' to 'stimulus.'
My point was that highway construction is not inherently noble as statist
'infrastructure' advocates seem to assume. Hitler built good roads so
he could wage war.
Now, I like roads; they're useful. On the other hand, I like railroads,
too, and the massive contruction of highways subsidized by government
contributed to the undoing of some and crippled others.
Anyway, even if we concede that building roads is a legitimate function
of government (I'm not expressing an opinion one way or the other) the
mechanism of eminent domain can still be challenged. Moreover, none of
this relates to my original point, which was to dispute the notion that
eminent domain is 'ten times worse' to libertarians than taxation. I
don't think it is. After all, you are supposed to get fair market value
for your seized property. For your taxes, you get . . . well, you get
ethanol subsidies. Windmill farms. Liberace museums. Yeah, sounds
fair.
- ABS
haskell jack
Alan Breck Stewart <jmue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>Now, I like roads; they're useful. On the other hand, I like railroads,
>too, and the massive contruction of highways subsidized by government
>contributed to the undoing of some and crippled others.
"The Wreck of the Penn Central"
I disremember who the author was.
/jack
David Michael Wright
In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.960617...@osf1.gmu.edu>,
Shawn D Brown <sbr...@osf1.gmu.edu> wrote:
|This argument is unanswerable? What a joke. First of all, your argument
|aserts that there will be a "holdout" problem resulting from some
|individuals who do not wish to sell part or all of their land to the
|company who is building the road. This may be true in some instances and
|there is opportunism available for those holdouts (for example, the road
|company values my parcel of land at $500,000, I value it at $150,000 and
|the "market" value for an alternative use is $125,000. I may be able to
|bargain with the company for a settlement approaching $500, 000. Thus I
|may be "unjustly enriched" but it is still a Pareto Efficient move if the
|company buys the land for $499, 000. Now if I value my land at a price
|which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
|land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
|does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
|road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
|property.
Since when does anyone want a road near or through his property?
Instead of roads costly millions, they will end up costing billions,
or mirandering through the city like a snake, or both. And, I suppose,
each twist will have another toll.
David Michael Wright
In article <ddfr-18069...@ddfr.vip.best.com>,
David Friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
|In the discussion following from this thread, either McCulloch or one of
|his supporters argues that holdouts would lead to right angle turns, and
|talks about an 80 mile road being 200 or 300 miles long as a result. I
|think the argument badly misreads the relevant scale. Few individual land
|holdings are more than a mile or so across (although more in Texas than in
|California), so if your end points are 80 miles apart, avoiding individual
|holdouts costs you very little in added distance (think about building
|from (0,0) to (1,40) to (0,80) instead of from (0,0) to (0,80), in order
|to avoid a holdout whose territory goes from (-1,40) to (1,40)). An
|entrepreneur constructing a private road would do it by assembling
|options, then piecing them together to get a continuous route.
There is no doubt, however, that the costs of building a road will
rise, and that roads will be less straight or both.
The question is, is how much?
Just looking at how well organized neighborhood groups are when there
is an initiative to build a road, I imagine that you will be dealing
with more than one neighbor at a time, which can hold out for a quite
a lot. Instead of transportation routes making social sense, they will
be built where one road at a time will maximize bennefits over costs.
Thus, there would be, in general, chaos.
|1. Being a holdout is a lot less attractive when the entrepreneur can go
|around you at low cost. So there aren't many strategic holdouts, so you
|end up with a pretty straight road. There are still non-strategic holdouts
|(little old ladies who won't sell their family home), but since you locate
|them before you decide on the route, you should be able to avoid them at
|low cost unless there are an awful lot of them or they have enormous
|estates.
|
|2. Someone mentioned the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") problem. The
|experience of building the original Pennsylvania Turnpike suggests that
|the sign of the effect is the other way around.
I think that things are just a little different than in the 19th
centrury. There was no smog, comparatively little noise, and not as
near the death rate. People fight much more against roads than they
did in 19th century.
David Michael Wright
In article <ddfr-19069...@ddfr.vip.best.com>,
David Friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
|In article <4q8vol$s...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, mccu...@mail.utexas.edu
|(Jim McCulloch) wrote:
|
|> The PA Turnpike goes through mountainous terrain, which is a situation
|> that throws a monkey wrench into the theory, below, that you just
|> route your highway AROUND holdouts. In mountains, for engineering
|> reasons, you are going to be faced with a situation where a holdout
|> has absolute power over your road, unless eminent domain is used.
|
|That is correct. On the other hand, the individuals owning the choke
|points (passes) have a lot to gain by getting together to build the road,
|so if there are not too many of them there is still a good chance of
|building the road.
I think they have individualy the most to gain if the freeway or
highway is built somewhere else, and they can get a small road to the
freeway or highway. Thus, NIMBY still raises it's head.
David Michael Wright
In article <cdd_960...@rational.vaxxine.com>,
Lazarus Long <2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com> wrote:
|mccu...@mail.utexas.edu onanized in a message to All:
|
|mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
|mm> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
|mm> Organization: x
|
|mm> So far all of the people who disagreed with my original post have
|mm> said everyone will sell if offered enough money, and if they don't,
|mm> well, the roads will be long and winding.
|
|mm> Generally people don't build interstate highways on the principle of
|mm> long and winding, they build them on the principles of cost and good
|mm> engineering, including considerations like safety..
|
| If the road was unfeasible due to costs, it would not be
| built.
So there would be a lot fewer roads, a lot more expensive to drive,
and many would be a lot longer to drive. Not to mention the traffic
gridlock caused by tolls.
Definitely a case where social interest conflicts with individual
interest.
|mm> Is there enough money in a libertarian world, to build roads on the
|mm> principle of long and winding?
|
| If the demand for the road is sufficient, yes.
Great: the rich an wealthy make out again, while the middle class gets
screwed. Those that can afford the Tolls or those that happen to own
property near a road.
|mm> Do YOU want to pay the tolls of a privately built toll road from,
|mm> say Austin to San Antonio, which is long and winding--who knows how
|mm> long and winding, it depends on the landowners, doesn't it?-- maybe
|mm> 200 miles worth, maybe 300, where the present distance is 80 miles?
|
| Mcculloch ignores, hence his lack of direct response, the
| posts that pointed out that most people have an interest in
| having transportation adjacent to their property.
And you ignore the problem with Tolls.
I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built anywhere
near their property, especially in a city. In an area with few roads,
you may have a point, but that is simply because they are scarce and
the problems with them have not arose.
The cattle
| rancher, while enjoying the raising of cattle, may also enjoy
| the proceeds from sending them to market. It is in his
| interest to have a road with which to ship the cattle to
| market.
|
|mm> Lots of uncertainty, about these very hypothetical libertarian
|mm> roads. Um, wait, "hypothetical" is not actually the word I was
|mm> searching for. "Fictional"is the word.
|
| Not too much uncertainty....to anyone who understands the
| complexities of supply and demand and market economics.
Tell me what our roads would look like, are traffic patterns, the
amount of extra time spent in gridlock from toll booths.
tomb...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
In article <cdd_960...@rational.vaxxine.com> 2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com (Lazarus Long) writes:
>
> Not too much uncertainty....to anyone who understands the
> complexities of supply and demand and market economics.
Not much uncertainty in a complex social system? Have you
got special analytical powers no one else does?
--
Pretentious? Moi?
D. Citron
Tom Scheeler (Tom...@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
: Must be, but in about 99% of the time it isn't. Further, here in Phoenix,
: value, but about 1/5th of FMV.
IMHO, using eminent domain to build a stadium (which is not a necessity,
not something for which a specific tract of land is required, like a road)
is an abuse of government power.
And using public funds to build a facility for the private enrichment of
millionaires (such as the owners of professional sports franchises) is a
further abuse. This is happening in Broward County, Florida right now --
and is the subject of an upcoming referendum in Hillsborough County.
See http://www.univox.com/writer/panther.html for more details.
======================================================================
* David H. Citron * Tech Writer/Journalist/Copywriter/Web Author *
* e-mail: dci...@univox.com *
======================================================================
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if
the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it
to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits
one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen
himself cannot do without committing a crime.
....THE LAW, by Frederick Bastiat
Chapter: How to Identify Legal Plunder
http://www.psyaf.org/Archive/TheLaw.html
======================================================================
D. Citron
David Michael Wright (da...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote:
: Since when does anyone want a road near or through his property?
Is this a troll?
1. Anyone who knows that commercial property near a major highway
increases in value.
2. Anyone who has a transportation-related business, or a business that
requires shipping goods. (trucking companies, manufacturers)
3. Anyone who depends on walk-in (or drive-in) customers. (McDonalds, gas
stations)
Lazarus Long
da...@cats.ucsc.edu pontificated in a message to All:
dc> From: da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright)
dc> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
dc> Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
|mm> Generally people don't build interstate highways on the principle of
|mm> long and winding, they build them on the principles of cost and good
|mm> engineering, including considerations like safety..
dc> |
dc> | If the road was unfeasible due to costs, it would not be |
dc> built.
dc> So there would be a lot fewer roads, a lot more expensive to drive,
dc> and many would be a lot longer to drive. Not to mention the traffic
dc> gridlock caused by tolls.
dc> Definitely a case where social interest conflicts with individual
dc> interest.
You make the assumption that toll booths would be necessary.
In many cases...it may be cheaper to use rail.
And the collective should overrule the individual's right to
their property?
|mm> Is there enough money in a libertarian world, to build roads on the
|mm> principle of long and winding?
dc> |
dc> | If the demand for the road is sufficient, yes.
dc> Great: the rich an wealthy make out again, while the middle class
dc> gets screwed. Those that can afford the Tolls or those that happen
dc> to own property near a road.
Sorry...but that doesn't make a lot of economic sense. Having
roads that only the wealthy can afford, would mean that the
cost recovery for the owners of the roads would be longer.
By keeping the user cost lower, the owner encourages a larger
portion of the driving population to use the roads..resulting
in a faster recovery of his investment.
And you neglect that it is in the interest of property owners
to have roads. Therefore they would be unlikely to refuse to
allow roads to abut their properties.
|mm> Do YOU want to pay the tolls of a privately built toll road from,
|mm> say Austin to San Antonio, which is long and winding--who knows how
|mm> long and winding, it depends on the landowners, doesn't it?-- maybe
|mm> 200 miles worth, maybe 300, where the present distance is 80 miles?
dc> |
dc> | Mcculloch ignores, hence his lack of direct response, the |
dc> posts that pointed out that most people have an interest in |
dc> having transportation adjacent to their property.
dc> And you ignore the problem with Tolls.
WHy do you assume that there necessarily has to be tolls?
dc> I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built
dc> anywhere near their property, especially in a city. In an area with
dc> few roads, you may have a point, but that is simply because they are
dc> scarce and the problems with them have not arose.
Most people prefer to have access to their property. Ever try
and carry your living room furniture ten miles? Wouldn't you
find it easier if you could pull up to your house with your
load?
dc> The cattle
dc> | rancher, while enjoying the raising of cattle, may also enjoy |
dc> the proceeds from sending them to market. It is in his
dc> | interest to have a road with which to ship the cattle to |
dc> market.
dc> |
|mm> Lots of uncertainty, about these very hypothetical libertarian
|mm> roads. Um, wait, "hypothetical" is not actually the word I was
|mm> searching for. "Fictional"is the word.
dc> |
dc> | Not too much uncertainty....to anyone who understands the |
dc> complexities of supply and demand and market economics.
dc> Tell me what our roads would look like, are traffic patterns, the
I would assume that the roads would be longer than they are
wide..probably with a line down the middle and much thinner
than the width...in short, much like they look like today.
Traffic patterns would depend on where they are situated..and
the demand for them. Much like today.
dc> amount of extra time spent in gridlock from toll booths.
Why have toll booths? You might find the cost of the road built
into the cost of gasoline purchased on that highway. If the
road owner leases portions of the road allowance to a petroleum
company, the petroleum company may pay the costs of the road
usage and add it to the cost of their gasoline. No need for
tolls..and the cost is recovered through the sales of
gasoline...something that unavoidable on any highway.
or
The road owner could be a consortium of auto manufacturers..it
is in their best interests to have roads for the purchasers of
automobiles to drive on. The cost of the roads would be made up
in the price of cars.
or
a combination of the two above methods..with auto manufacturers
building roads, and then selling territorial rights to
petroleum companies. The consumer(road user) pays part of the
cost when he buys a car, and pays the other portion when he
fills his tank.
The toll booth is a poor idea from a consumer friendly point of
view. It requires additional expenditures to build the booths,
pay employees to collect the toll, and decreases customer
satisfaction by creating bottlenecks.
Visit the Rational Anarchist HomePage at:
http://vaxxine.com/rational/lazarus.html
Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com(fastest)
... Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
David Friedman
In article <4qaqdt$3...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David
Michael Wright) wrote:
> There is no doubt, however, that the costs of building a road will
> rise, and that roads will be less straight or both.
I disagree. Your conclusion would be correct if the alternative to private
roads without eminent domain was public roads, with eminent domain, built
by a wise and benevolent government. But that is not the alternative.
Consider, for example, someone who is in charge of building a government
road, has a fixed budget, and believes (correctly) that he can get away
with using eminent domain to take land at much below its real value. He is
considering two routes. Route A costs a million dollars more for
construction but goes through land of little value Route B goes through
much more valuable land, imposing a cost of two million dollars on the
owners--only a quarter of which will be compensated. The road builder
chooses route B, with the result that the real cost of the road is higher
than in a world without eminent domain.
Further, consider that a government built road may well be constructed at
an unnecessarily high cost, because the politicians in favor are paying
back contractors for past political support--or are being bribed. There is
a reason why the U.S. Post Office is only able to stay in business by
making competition illegal.
We are considering alternatives all of which are imperfect. Considering
the imperfections in the private alternative while ignoring those in the
public alternative is not very informative.
I wrote:
> |2. Someone mentioned the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") problem. The
> |experience of building the original Pennsylvania Turnpike suggests that
> |the sign of the effect is the other way around.
David Wright replied:
> I think that things are just a little different than in the 19th
> centrury. There was no smog, comparatively little noise, and not as
> near the death rate. People fight much more against roads than they
> did in 19th century.
I think you are mistaken. What people fight against is having their houses
torn down to make way for roads. That is a real cost, and ought to be
compensated by whomever is building the road. So far as major highways are
concerned, the death rate is irrelevant, since it is happening to drivers,
not local residents. So far as local highways are concerned, wagons were
dangerous too.
In general, urban road construction involves serious problems because
there are things already there. But the discussion so far as dealt with
long distance roads, which, whether in the 19th century or today, run
mostly through land without structures on it.
David Friedman
David Friedman
I wrote:
> |That is correct. On the other hand, the individuals owning the choke
> |points (passes) have a lot to gain by getting together to build the road,
> |so if there are not too many of them there is still a good chance of
> |building the road.
David Michael Wright replied:
> I think they have individualy the most to gain if the freeway or
> highway is built somewhere else, and they can get a small road to the
> freeway or highway. Thus, NIMBY still raises it's head.
My point was that the road itself is valuable, and the people controlling
the choke points can divide the profit produced by building it among
themselves--if and only if they can reach an agreement. Sorry if I was
unclear.
David Wright also raises the issue of toll booths. That is an example of
the technological backwardness of current (government run) roads. The
low-tech solution is a sticker on the car, paid for on a monthly or annual
basis, allowing the car to use the road without paying tolls--only
occasional users would have to go through the toll booth. The high-tech
solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
systems.
David Friedman
Nicholas Rich
In article <ddfr-20069...@129.210.77.17>, dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote:
>I wrote:
>David Wright also raises the issue of toll booths. That is an example of
>the technological backwardness of current (government run) roads. The
>low-tech solution is a sticker on the car, paid for on a monthly or annual
>basis, allowing the car to use the road without paying tolls--only
>occasional users would have to go through the toll booth. The high-tech
>solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
>query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
>billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
>systems.
Also, in France, where I used to live, in addition to the coin basket and the
attendant to make change, next to all the coin baskets is a machine which
accepts all forms of credit cards. There is no waiting for authorization
either. Just pop it in, and the gate raises immediately. There is hardly any
delay at all.
What's more, the billing is consolidated, so rather than having a gazillion
charges on your VISA, one for each usage, they are consolidated into one
monthly charge.
--
Nicholas Rich Sachs, Savage & Noble
nr...@ss-n.com a...@ss-n.com
Take the legal system away from the lawyers - http://www.ss-n.com
(and make money doing it - http://www.ss-n.com/affiliat.htm)
"We have no demands to present to you, no bargains to strike, no
compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you."
-- Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED
D. Citron
David Friedman (dd...@best.com) wrote:
: David Wright also raises the issue of toll booths. That is an example of
: the technological backwardness of current (government run) roads. The
: low-tech solution is a sticker on the car, paid for on a monthly or annual
: basis, allowing the car to use the road without paying tolls--only
: occasional users would have to go through the toll booth. The high-tech
: solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
: query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
: billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
: systems.
One (or more) of the toll causeways in Miami use a different solution. A
barcode on the rear driver's side window is scanned as it goes through the
sticker lane without stopping. And usage is deducted from a prepaid
account.
Jack
Alan Breck Stewart <jmue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>Moreover, none of this relates to my original point, which was
>to dispute the notion that eminent domain is 'ten times worse'
>to libertarians than taxation.
They are both wrong, no more and no less. Each denies the
property rights of the individual for the benefit of the state.
Jack
Bill Bixby
Shawn D Brown <sbr...@osf1.gmu.edu> writes:
| This argument is unanswerable? What a joke. First of all, your argument
| aserts that there will be a "holdout" problem resulting from some
| individuals who do not wish to sell part or all of their land to the
| company who is building the road. This may be true in some instances and
| there is opportunism available for those holdouts (for example, the road
| company values my parcel of land at $500,000, I value it at $150,000 and
| the "market" value for an alternative use is $125,000. I may be able to
| bargain with the company for a settlement approaching $500, 000. Thus I
| may be "unjustly enriched" but it is still a Pareto Efficient move if the
| company buys the land for $499, 000. Now if I value my land at a price
| which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
| land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
| does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
| road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
| property.
This would be a mighty crooked libertarian road!
Randy Melton
In <ddfr-20069...@129.210.77.17>, dd...@best.com (David Friedman) writes:
>David Wright also raises the issue of toll booths. That is an example of
>the technological backwardness of current (government run) roads. The
>low-tech solution is a sticker on the car, paid for on a monthly or annual
>basis, allowing the car to use the road without paying tolls--only
>occasional users would have to go through the toll booth. The high-tech
>solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
>query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
>billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
>systems.
>
Out of curiosity, do current toll roads raise enough money to actually pay for
construction and maintenance, or do the toll revenues just defray the cost of
the road to some extent? That's a pretty key question. Two-hundred-dollar
monthly toll bills might not be that much of an improvement.
One other key point that hasn't come up is the construction of roads in areas of
low traffic. I don't doubt that some way could be found to build roads that
would have a heavy traffic volume, but what about the spiderweb of two-lane
blacktop that covers the country? A lot of those roads don't have much traffic,
and quite likely would be very problematic to build profitably.
Randy Melton
P. Marks
I doubt it.
The British canal system did not have all that much "compulsory purchase"
behind it and re-routes were not common.
In reality most "hold outs" are simply playing games to see how much
money they can get. When told "O.K. we will build around you" the price
tends to drop.
Paul Marks.
David Michael Wright
In article <4qavai$h...@navajo.gate.net>, D. Citron <dci...@gate.net> wrote:
|David Michael Wright (da...@cats.ucsc.edu) wrote:
|: Since when does anyone want a road near or through his property?
|
|Is this a troll?
|
|1. Anyone who knows that commercial property near a major highway
|increases in value.
Duh. I was talking about redisdential property, it is these people who
object so strongly to roads going near their property.
David Friedman
> Out of curiosity, do current toll roads raise enough money to actually
pay for
> construction and maintenance, or do the toll revenues just defray the cost of
> the road to some extent? That's a pretty key question. Two-hundred-dollar
> monthly toll bills might not be that much of an improvement.
1. I think the answer is that many toll roads have paid back their
construction cost; indeed, some (I believe) became free roads after doing
so.
2. Suppose the roads did not pay for themselves, and it required a two
hundred dollar monthly toll bill to cover the cost. That would mean that,
under our present system, you would be paying the same two hundred dollars
a month in taxes to pay for the road--after all, the costs have to be
covered somehow. Replacing a user fee with a government subsidy doesn't
eliminate the cost, it just shifts it.
David Friedman
David Friedman
For purposes of clarifying the argument ... .
We are really talking about two different kinds of holdouts. One is the
person who refuses to sell because he honestly prefers ownership of his
land to the price being offered. The other is the person who refuses to
sell for strategic reasons--he is hoping to use his blocking position to
get a higher price.
So far as the first is concerned, the cost of depriving the owner of the
use of his land is just as real a cost as the cost of constructing the
highway. If the entrepreneur cannot cover his costs if he has to
compensate the landowners fully, that is evidence that the road costs more
than it is worth and so should not be built.
The real problem is the second case--strategic holdouts. That becomes less
of a problem if, as I suggested before, the entrepreneur can avoid any
individual holdout at a reasonably low cost--not merely because you can
build a slightly snaky road, but because you won't have to. The strategic
holdout, after all, wants to sell his land--and he won't hold out for an
astronomical price if he knows that you will respond by building around
him.
David Friedman
D. Citron
Lazarus Long (2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com) wrote:
: da...@cats.ucsc.edu pontificated in a message to All:
: dc> I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built
: dc> anywhere near their property, especially in a city. In an area with
: dc> few roads, you may have a point, but that is simply because they are
: dc> scarce and the problems with them have not arose.
: Most people prefer to have access to their property. Ever try
: and carry your living room furniture ten miles? Wouldn't you
: find it easier if you could pull up to your house with your load?
And you must remember that you'd still have to get permission to CARRY
your furniture across private property, too!
(Please note that the ": dc>" above is not me!)
posted as a public service by ..............................D. Citron
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Can you trust a government that subsidizes tobacco and tries to |
| ban vitamins to make intelligent choices about YOUR health care? |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" ... Benjamin Franklin
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Live long and prosper -- without government interference!"
...Mr. Spock, before the NBC censors got to him, stardate 1966
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Slick Willie: Yeah, I feel your pain! Sure!!! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
D. Citron
e5cl$k...@rtpnews.raleigh.ibm.com>
Distribution:
Randy Melton (mel...@ibm.net) wrote:
: Out of curiosity, do current toll roads raise enough money to actually pay for
: construction and maintenance, or do the toll revenues just defray the cost of
: the road to some extent? That's a pretty key question. Two-hundred-dollar
: monthly toll bills might not be that much of an improvement.
FYI... The Florida Turnpike was built in the 1950s. (Originally called the
Sunshine State Parkway -- name changed about 1970.) It was paid off years
ago -- decades ago. You're now paying a toll to pay the salary of the
people who collect tolls.
Greg Swann
In article <ddfr-21069...@129.210.77.17>, dd...@best.com (David
Friedman) wrote:
>In article <4qe5cl$k...@rtpnews.raleigh.ibm.com>, mel...@ibm.net wrote:
>
>> Out of curiosity, do current toll roads raise enough money to actually
>pay for
>> construction and maintenance, or do the toll revenues just defray the
cost of
>> the road to some extent? That's a pretty key question. Two-hundred-dollar
>> monthly toll bills might not be that much of an improvement.
>
>1. I think the answer is that many toll roads have paid back their
>construction cost; indeed, some (I believe) became free roads after doing
>so.
The toll roads and bridges operated by Robert Moses under various forms of
the Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority amortized themselves many times
over. That's the literal truth; Moses wrote refinancing into the enabling
legislation to permit him to borrow against the toll-collecting assets to
build non-toll-collecting "improvements". Robert Caro's bogoraphy of Moses
is good (if frightening) reading.
Greg Swann
_____________________________________________________________________________
gsw...@primenet.com
http://www.primenet.com/~gswann (last updated 5/24/96)
70640...@compuserve.com
Redemption Is Egoism _In Action,_ in the real deeds of your
real life. By your self-loving actions, you redeem the errors
of your past and make of them the _achievements_ of your
present and future. It is not impossible to _avoid_ doing
this. Most people waste their whole _lives_ trying to pretend
that past errors need not be corrected. But neither is it
possible to avoid the consequences of failing at redemption.
- Janio Valenta
_____________________________________________________________________________
Steve Kangas
Alan Breck Stewart wrote:
>
>
> P.S.: Pop quiz: do you know where Ike got the idea for the U.S.
> Interstate Highway system? Be careful about the paternity of causes you adopt.
What a monumentally, colossally stupid statement. Ike got the idea of an interstate
highway system from Hitler's Autobahn, so we're supposed to assume that economic and
commercial infrastructure is a terrible thing? Are we then supposed to assume that
Hitler's Autobahn was a good thing, because he got the idea from the ancient Romans
and the Appian Way?
This is an easy argument to parody:
Communication satellites are evil, because the technology stems from Hitler's
V-2 rocket program.
Jet air travel is evil, because the technology stems from Hitler's Me-262 program.
Computers are evil, because they spawned from Hitler's ULTRA encryption system.
Can you hear how irrational your mindless hostility to government sounds?
Steve Kangas
http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/
Steve Kangas
Shawn D Brown wrote (concerning the topic that roads would not
be built in a libertarian nation):
> This argument is unanswerable? What a joke. First of all, your argument
> aserts that there will be a "holdout" problem resulting from some
> individuals who do not wish to sell part or all of their land to the
> company who is building the road. This may be true in some instances and
> there is opportunism available for those holdouts (for example, the road
> company values my parcel of land at $500,000, I value it at $150,000 and
> the "market" value for an alternative use is $125,000. I may be able to
> bargain with the company for a settlement approaching $500, 000. Thus I
> may be "unjustly enriched" but it is still a Pareto Efficient move if the
> company buys the land for $499, 000.
You know, I'm an economist, but I really get pissed at some of my peers who
who have absolutely no idea how the real world works, and assume that
all consumers are perfectly rational and omniscient and only motivated by
dollars. It's airy-fairy economists like you who give the profession a bad name,
and you deserve to come in for the sharpest criticism possible. (Or are you
*even* an economist? Looking at the quality of your arguments below, I have
my doubts.)
In the real world, people hate living next to major highways. We have a
major highway that just went through the San Jose area, and the noise
level is so incredible that it is bothersome even two miles away. NO ONE
wants to live next to this, and the people who do are already furious.
But your argument doesn't even make economic sense. If you value your land
below half the price you would sell it to a road construction company,
you have just doubled the cost of social utility. A great many roads won't
get built if their price-tags are doubled, and commerce in those regions
will shrivel up and die. Yours is a recipe for concentrating roads only
in heavy population centers.
> Now if I value my land at a price
> which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
> land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
> does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
> road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
> property.
So whatever social utility is not doubled in cost is cut in half by efficiency.
Furthermore, these individuals, who are only temporarily on this earth,
will *permanently* hinder social utility, in accordance with the economics
of path dependency. (No pun intended. This is also known by the popular name
"Economics of QWERTY.") You are making some truly awful arguments.
> Thus, you must prove that there would be too many holdouts for
> the road to be built, which is a difficult premise to prove.)
If this libertarian society existed, it would be child's play to prove. The
company makes a decision that the road is too expensive to build.
> Second, there are many other examples of private companies buying up lots of land
> for a large development--Malls, shopping centers, and historically the
> closest example to roads-railroads where railroads (in most instances)
> were granted easements or purchased the land to build the tracks.
The few acres required to make a shopping mall does not compare with the
millions of acres needed to build a major highway.
> Third,
> there are many examples of private roads which were built in
> subdivisions. The government didn't need to force the residents to build
> a road- it was in the developer's or home owners' association interest to
> do so.
The workability of this method rapidly deteriorates with an increasing number
of property-owners. A private drive in a condominium complex is one thing; a
major interstate highway is another.
> And in the interest of trade and commerce, why would individuals
> in neighboring towns and counties not form a cooperative to build a road
> to connect the two areas?
There are countless reasons why they would be opposed:
1. Sentimental attachment to family land
2. Opposition to traffic noise
3. Desire to keep private and secluded
4. Desire to keep down industrial and residential development (my home town
of Santa Cruz is currently pursuing such a policy)
5. Desire to conserve the natural environment
6. Inconvenience of moving or radically changing one's lifestyle
7. Land contains some other resource more valuable than a potential road
And this list could go on and on.
> Finally, I reccomend the book "For a New
> Liberty" by Murray Rothbard who is much more persuasive in his argument
> for private roads than I am. Another thoughtfull book is "Machinery of
> Freedom" by David Freidman.
> Shawn Brown
I have yet to see a libertarian argument on eminent domain that does not reek
of strained rationalization.
Steve Kangas
Koro
On 20 Jun 1996 06:17:33 GMT, da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright) wrote:
> In article <ddfr-18069...@ddfr.vip.best.com>,
> David Friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
> |2. Someone mentioned the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") problem. The
> |experience of building the original Pennsylvania Turnpike suggests that
> |the sign of the effect is the other way around.
> I think that things are just a little different than in the 19th
> centrury. There was no smog, comparatively little noise, and not as
> near the death rate.
Hey, before they invented carborators, cars would spontaniously explode while
running.
KORO
Koro
On 20 Jun 1996 06:04:42 GMT, da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright) wrote:
> In article <cdd_960...@rational.vaxxine.com>,
> Lazarus Long <2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com> wrote:
> |mccu...@mail.utexas.edu onanized in a message to All:
> |
> |mm> From: mccu...@mail.utexas.edu (Jim McCulloch)
> |mm> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
> |mm> Organization: x
> |
> |mm> So far all of the people who disagreed with my original post have
> |mm> said everyone will sell if offered enough money, and if they don't,
> |mm> well, the roads will be long and winding.
> |
> |mm> Generally people don't build interstate highways on the principle of
> |mm> long and winding, they build them on the principles of cost and good
> |mm> engineering, including considerations like safety..
> |
> | If the road was unfeasible due to costs, it would not be
> | built.
> So there would be a lot fewer roads, a lot more expensive to drive,
> and many would be a lot longer to drive. Not to mention the traffic
> gridlock caused by tolls.
Not necesarilly. All of the roads in my area were made when there were only
orchards and nothing else there, so every one was happy. The loss of land
wasn't that bad, considering that the town got three highways one ending in our
city. In the early 90's they want to extend the one that ended in our city in
the name of "reducing rush hour trafic". Well they built the roads with little
loss of land, and 4 years after the proposed completion date, we had another
highway. Of course, this highway did nothing to reduce trafic on other roads,
but just congested them more, for everyone wanted to get on and off of the
highway!
Basically, what I'm trying to say is more roads doesn't necesarily mean better
life. The existing roads were good enough for our small town. And look at LA,
the more major roads they build, the denser the trafic gets because people keep
on trying to move between highway to highway.
> Definitely a case where social interest conflicts with individual
> interest.
Sure thing, but what isn't?
> |mm> Do YOU want to pay the tolls of a privately built toll road from,
> |mm> say Austin to San Antonio, which is long and winding--who knows how
> |mm> long and winding, it depends on the landowners, doesn't it?-- maybe
> |mm> 200 miles worth, maybe 300, where the present distance is 80 miles?
> |
> | Mcculloch ignores, hence his lack of direct response, the
> | posts that pointed out that most people have an interest in
> | having transportation adjacent to their property.
> And you ignore the problem with Tolls.
Anyone have a solution for this? I'm at a loss.
> I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built anywhere
> near their property, especially in a city. In an area with few roads,
> you may have a point, but that is simply because they are scarce and
> the problems with them have not arose.
Roads cause more problems than they solve. The existing infrastructure is good,
and the more we screw with it, the worse it gets.
If you've got roads, and people don't want any more, DON'T BUILD THEM! Very
simple.
> The cattle
> | rancher, while enjoying the raising of cattle, may also enjoy
> | the proceeds from sending them to market. It is in his
> | interest to have a road with which to ship the cattle to
> | market.
> |
> |mm> Lots of uncertainty, about these very hypothetical libertarian
> |mm> roads. Um, wait, "hypothetical" is not actually the word I was
> |mm> searching for. "Fictional"is the word.
> |
> | Not too much uncertainty....to anyone who understands the
> | complexities of supply and demand and market economics.
> Tell me what our roads would look like, are traffic patterns, the
> amount of extra time spent in gridlock from toll booths.
The technology for aoutomatic toll booths exists.
KORO
David Michael Wright
In article <ddfr-21069...@129.210.77.17>,
David Friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
|For purposes of clarifying the argument ... .
|
|We are really talking about two different kinds of holdouts. One is the
|person who refuses to sell because he honestly prefers ownership of his
|land to the price being offered. The other is the person who refuses to
|sell for strategic reasons--he is hoping to use his blocking position to
|get a higher price.
|
|So far as the first is concerned, the cost of depriving the owner of the
|use of his land is just as real a cost as the cost of constructing the
|highway.
I strongly disagree here. What are you measuring cost in, "utils"? Of
course you don't want to make comparisons, preferring that unaminity
over democracy, but I think that strains the limits of common sense.
|... If the entrepreneur cannot cover his costs if he has to
|compensate the landowners fully, that is evidence that the road costs more
|than it is worth and so should not be built.
Only if you assume unaminity.
|The real problem is the second case--strategic holdouts. That becomes less
|of a problem if, as I suggested before, the entrepreneur can avoid any
|individual holdout at a reasonably low cost--not merely because you can
|build a slightly snaky road, but because you won't have to. The strategic
|holdout, after all, wants to sell his land--and he won't hold out for an
|astronomical price if he knows that you will respond by building around
|him.
Why is it that the entreprenur is given vast skills and knowledge to
get what he wants done, but the consumer is left brainless and stupid?
Where is our rational and well informed consumer, who, on another
thread, can analyze safety engineering on Airlines or the bacterial
count in Safeway german sausage? Is he unable to form his own blocking
coalition to extract the surplus?
I believe the *James* Friedman should be consulted on this!
David Michael Wright
In article <d17_960...@rational.vaxxine.com>,
Lazarus Long <2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com> wrote:
|da...@cats.ucsc.edu pontificated in a message to All:
|
|dc> From: da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright)
|dc> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
|dc> Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
|
|
||mm> Generally people don't build interstate highways on the principle of
||mm> long and winding, they build them on the principles of cost and good
||mm> engineering, including considerations like safety..
|dc> |
|dc> | If the road was unfeasible due to costs, it would not be |
|dc> built.
|
|dc> So there would be a lot fewer roads, a lot more expensive to drive,
|dc> and many would be a lot longer to drive. Not to mention the traffic
|dc> gridlock caused by tolls.
|
|dc> Definitely a case where social interest conflicts with individual
|dc> interest.
|
| You make the assumption that toll booths would be necessary.
| In many cases...it may be cheaper to use rail.
?
| And the collective should overrule the individual's right to
| their property?
Yes.
||mm> Is there enough money in a libertarian world, to build roads on the
||mm> principle of long and winding?
|dc> |
|dc> | If the demand for the road is sufficient, yes.
|
|dc> Great: the rich an wealthy make out again, while the middle class
|dc> gets screwed. Those that can afford the Tolls or those that happen
|dc> to own property near a road.
|
| Sorry...but that doesn't make a lot of economic sense. Having
| roads that only the wealthy can afford, would mean that the
| cost recovery for the owners of the roads would be longer.
| By keeping the user cost lower, the owner encourages a larger
| portion of the driving population to use the roads..resulting
| in a faster recovery of his investment.
I was wondering why everything was so cheap these days.
| And you neglect that it is in the interest of property owners
| to have roads. Therefore they would be unlikely to refuse to
| allow roads to abut their properties.
Nothing is neglected, merely the more probable recognized.
||mm> Do YOU want to pay the tolls of a privately built toll road from,
||mm> say Austin to San Antonio, which is long and winding--who knows how
||mm> long and winding, it depends on the landowners, doesn't it?-- maybe
||mm> 200 miles worth, maybe 300, where the present distance is 80 miles?
|dc> |
|dc> | Mcculloch ignores, hence his lack of direct response, the |
|dc> posts that pointed out that most people have an interest in |
|dc> having transportation adjacent to their property.
|
|dc> And you ignore the problem with Tolls.
|
| WHy do you assume that there necessarily has to be tolls?
What else is there?
|dc> I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built
|dc> anywhere near their property, especially in a city. In an area with
|dc> few roads, you may have a point, but that is simply because they are
|dc> scarce and the problems with them have not arose.
|
| Most people prefer to have access to their property.
People do have access to their property. They don't want access to
Freeways in their backyard.
Ever try
| and carry your living room furniture ten miles? Wouldn't you
| find it easier if you could pull up to your house with your
| load?
You are naieve or silly, I can't tell which.
|dc> The cattle
|dc> | rancher, while enjoying the raising of cattle, may also enjoy |
|dc> the proceeds from sending them to market. It is in his
|dc> | interest to have a road with which to ship the cattle to |
|dc> market.
|dc> |
||mm> Lots of uncertainty, about these very hypothetical libertarian
||mm> roads. Um, wait, "hypothetical" is not actually the word I was
||mm> searching for. "Fictional"is the word.
|dc> |
|dc> | Not too much uncertainty....to anyone who understands the |
|dc> complexities of supply and demand and market economics.
|
|dc> Tell me what our roads would look like, are traffic patterns, the
|
| I would assume that the roads would be longer than they are
| wide..probably with a line down the middle and much thinner
| than the width...in short, much like they look like today.
Good, then scrap your libertarian notions that seem hazardess at best.
David Michael Wright
In article <ddfr-20069...@129.210.77.17>,
David Friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
|In article <4qaqdt$3...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David
|Michael Wright) wrote:
|
|> There is no doubt, however, that the costs of building a road will
|> rise, and that roads will be less straight or both.
|
|I disagree. Your conclusion would be correct if the alternative to private
|roads without eminent domain was public roads, with eminent domain, built
|by a wise and benevolent government. But that is not the alternative.
Why not? You want to bring in unfetterd and benevolent libertarianism,
with no strings attached. Is that what we are really measuring
against? Then why not the alternative of a benevolent and rational
government?
|Consider, for example, someone who is in charge of building a government
|road, has a fixed budget, and believes (correctly) that he can get away
|with using eminent domain to take land at much below its real value. He is
|considering two routes. Route A costs a million dollars more for
|construction but goes through land of little value Route B goes through
|much more valuable land, imposing a cost of two million dollars on the
|owners--only a quarter of which will be compensated. The road builder
|chooses route B, with the result that the real cost of the road is higher
|than in a world without eminent domain.
I don't think that is the case at all. There are two cases here: in
the city and in the country. In the city, city planners usually don't
go through factories or plants when they build roads, they go through
neigborhoods or backyards. Hardly property of social "value" that is
more prized than other property. Who is to say that someone who owns a
huge acerage out in the country incurs a per square mile cost that gives
him the slightest disutility in relation to cost. The two simply are
not comparable on the same yardstick.
|Further, consider that a government built road may well be constructed at
|an unnecessarily high cost, because the politicians in favor are paying
|back contractors for past political support--or are being bribed.
I don't think there is much to be gained by getting into this.
|... There is
|a reason why the U.S. Post Office is only able to stay in business by
|making competition illegal.
But roads can be built with competitive bidding.
|I wrote:
|
|> |2. Someone mentioned the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") problem. The
|> |experience of building the original Pennsylvania Turnpike suggests that
|> |the sign of the effect is the other way around.
|
|David Wright replied:
|
|> I think that things are just a little different than in the 19th
|> centrury. There was no smog, comparatively little noise, and not as
|> near the death rate. People fight much more against roads than they
|> did in 19th century.
|
|I think you are mistaken. What people fight against is having their houses
|torn down to make way for roads.
That is not true. There are very few of those compared to the masses
that come forward to stop roads. That is the major reason that gives
city councilmen such headaches. We had some plan before the board to
make million dollar "imporvements" that would turn our neighborhood
into a massive freeway exit turn off. Many of us came out against it
and we were just one in a series of efforts to stop such things.
|... That is a real cost, and ought to be
|compensated by whomever is building the road. So far as major highways are
|concerned, the death rate is irrelevant, since it is happening to drivers,
|not local residents.
You never tried to cross the road, ride you bike near these things?
They are death traps and invite more death and accidents. Not to
mention air pollution. It's hell if your an asthma sufferer.
|... So far as local highways are concerned, wagons were
|dangerous too.
I hope you are not going to maintain that wagons were as dangerous as
2 ton steel boxes traveling at 70 mph!
|In general, urban road construction involves serious problems because
|there are things already there. But the discussion so far as dealt with
|long distance roads, which, whether in the 19th century or today, run
|mostly through land without structures on it.
I disagree. One of the many problems in large cities is building
connecting freeways and roads that connect freeways to the city.
If we are limiting are discussion to long distance roads, it is a
different issue, but similiar ones are obtained. Certainly there are
less negative externalities to build roads in which no one is around!
David Michael Wright
In article <ddfr-20069...@129.210.77.17>,
David Friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
|I wrote:
|
|> |That is correct. On the other hand, the individuals owning the choke
|> |points (passes) have a lot to gain by getting together to build the road,
|> |so if there are not too many of them there is still a good chance of
|> |building the road.
|
|David Michael Wright replied:
|
|> I think they have individualy the most to gain if the freeway or
|> highway is built somewhere else, and they can get a small road to the
|> freeway or highway. Thus, NIMBY still raises it's head.
|
|My point was that the road itself is valuable, and the people controlling
|the choke points can divide the profit produced by building it among
|themselves--if and only if they can reach an agreement. Sorry if I was
|unclear.
So you think NIBMY is still a problem?
As to building a road in which is not situated near a population, a
rural road over a mountain, then you still drive the cost of roads up.
|David Wright also raises the issue of toll booths. That is an example of
|the technological backwardness of current (government run) roads. The
|low-tech solution is a sticker on the car, paid for on a monthly or annual
|basis, allowing the car to use the road without paying tolls--only
|occasional users would have to go through the toll booth.
If you have compettion in road building, you are going to have lots of
companies, and lots of stickers!
And unless you are willing to make the cost of illegally going through
a booth low, you are going to have to check the stickers. As Jim has
said, there are *lots* of places which have *lots* of exits.
|... The high-tech
|solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
|query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
|billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
|systems.
I really doubt this is practical.
Lazarus Long
da...@cats.ucsc.edu pontificated in a message to All:
dc> From: da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright)
dc> Subject: Re: In a libertarian world, there are no roads
dc> Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz
|dc> | If the road was unfeasible due to costs, it would not be |
|dc> built.
dc> |
|dc> So there would be a lot fewer roads, a lot more expensive to drive,
|dc> and many would be a lot longer to drive. Not to mention the traffic
|dc> gridlock caused by tolls.
dc> |
|dc> Definitely a case where social interest conflicts with individual
|dc> interest.
dc> |
dc> | You make the assumption that toll booths would be necessary. |
dc> In many cases...it may be cheaper to use rail.
dc> ?
yep... in cases where roads would be too expensive to pay
for themselves..rail transportation may be cheaper.
dc> | And the collective should overrule the individual's right to |
dc> their property?
dc> Yes.
Why? On what basis...and when should the collective have the
right to overrule the individuals' right? Whenever it sees fit?
Whenever a bureaucrat says so? how many people are needed to
form a decision making collective? 10 ? 100? 1000?
||mm> Is there enough money in a libertarian world, to build roads on the
||mm> principle of long and winding?
|dc> |
|dc> | If the demand for the road is sufficient, yes.
dc> |
|dc> Great: the rich an wealthy make out again, while the middle class
|dc> gets screwed. Those that can afford the Tolls or those that happen
|dc> to own property near a road.
dc> |
dc> | Sorry...but that doesn't make a lot of economic sense. Having |
dc> roads that only the wealthy can afford, would mean that the |
dc> cost recovery for the owners of the roads would be longer. | By
dc> keeping the user cost lower, the owner encourages a larger |
dc> portion of the driving population to use the roads..resulting |
dc> in a faster recovery of his investment.
dc> I was wondering why everything was so cheap these days.
meaning?
dc> | And you neglect that it is in the interest of property owners |
dc> to have roads. Therefore they would be unlikely to refuse to |
dc> allow roads to abut their properties.
dc> Nothing is neglected, merely the more probable recognized.
Ahh.. you say that it is probable that most people don't want
access to their properties? That they would prefer leaving
their cars miles from home and walking the rest of the way?
||mm> Do YOU want to pay the tolls of a privately built toll road from,
||mm> say Austin to San Antonio, which is long and winding--who knows how
||mm> long and winding, it depends on the landowners, doesn't it?-- maybe
||mm> 200 miles worth, maybe 300, where the present distance is 80 miles?
|dc> |
|dc> | Mcculloch ignores, hence his lack of direct response, the |
|dc> posts that pointed out that most people have an interest in |
|dc> having transportation adjacent to their property.
dc> |
|dc> And you ignore the problem with Tolls.
dc> |
dc> | WHy do you assume that there necessarily has to be tolls?
dc> What else is there?
I have pointed out several methods.
|dc> I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built
|dc> anywhere near their property, especially in a city. In an area with
|dc> few roads, you may have a point, but that is simply because they are
|dc> scarce and the problems with them have not arose.
dc> |
dc> | Most people prefer to have access to their property.
dc> People do have access to their property. They don't want access to
dc> Freeways in their backyard.
So...they don't have to sell. Welcome to the right of
property that you disdained earlier.
dc> Ever try
dc> | and carry your living room furniture ten miles? Wouldn't you |
dc> find it easier if you could pull up to your house with your |
dc> load?
dc> You are naieve or silly, I can't tell which.
I'm not the one who says that people probably would not want
access to their property. Have fun carrying the baby grand
across the fields.
|dc> The cattle
|dc> | rancher, while enjoying the raising of cattle, may also enjoy |
|dc> the proceeds from sending them to market. It is in his
|dc> | interest to have a road with which to ship the cattle to |
|dc> market.
|dc> |
||mm> Lots of uncertainty, about these very hypothetical libertarian
||mm> roads. Um, wait, "hypothetical" is not actually the word I was
||mm> searching for. "Fictional"is the word.
|dc> |
|dc> | Not too much uncertainty....to anyone who understands the |
|dc> complexities of supply and demand and market economics.
dc> |
|dc> Tell me what our roads would look like, are traffic patterns, the
dc> |
dc> | I would assume that the roads would be longer than they are |
dc> wide..probably with a line down the middle and much thinner |
dc> than the width...in short, much like they look like today.
dc> Good, then scrap your libertarian notions that seem hazardess at
dc> best.
How so? What makes them hazardous. Far less hazardous than your
suggestion that people would like to carry their goods from the
city to their home in backpacks.
Visit the Rational Anarchist HomePage at:
http://vaxxine.com/rational/lazarus.html
Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com
... Libertarians are strange..they want to support themselves!
David Friedman
In article <31CB76...@scruznet.com>, Steve Kangas
<kang...@scruznet.com> wrote:
> But your argument doesn't even make economic sense. If you value your land
> below half the price you would sell it to a road construction company,
> you have just doubled the cost of social utility.
I am coming in in the middle of this, so may be misunderstanding the
argument you are answering, but ... .
I. If the road is built anyway, the payment to the landowner (above his
true reservation price) is a transfer, not a social cost.
2. If trying to get more than his true reservation price means that the
road does not get built, then the landowner has made a mistake, since he
doesn't make any profit on the road at all.
So the social cost increases only in the case where the road does not get
built, due to a mistake by the landowner (asking more than he can get).
> > Now if I value my land at a price
> > which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
> > land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
> > does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
> > road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
> > property.
>
> So whatever social utility is not doubled in cost is cut in half by
efficiency.
Huh? The use of the owner's land is a real cost. If a different route
costs $100,000 more to construct and maintain (present value) but runs
over land whose alternative use is worth $200,000 less, then rerouting is
more efficient than the original plan, not less.
> Furthermore, these individuals, who are only temporarily on this earth,
> will *permanently* hinder social utility, in accordance with the economics
> of path dependency. (No pun intended. This is also known by the popular name
> "Economics of QWERTY.") You are making some truly awful arguments.
Earlier you wrote:
> You know, I'm an economist, but I really get pissed at some of my peers who
> who have absolutely no idea how the real world works,
If you are concerned with how the real world works, you might want to look
at the article "The Fable of the Keys" by Liebowitz and Margolis, Journal
of Law and Economics a few years back. If they are correct (and I have
seen no published response), the paradigmatic case for the analysis you
refer to (QWERTY/Dvorak) is mythical. Almost all of the "facts" in the
standard story about how we ended up with the QWERTY layout turn out to be
false, and all of the studies showing the vast superiority of Dvorak
appear to have been done by or under the direct influence of Mr. Dvorak.
Studies by neutral parties show only small differences.
In any case, the possibility of path dependency does not imply that
builders should count construction costs but ignore opportunity costs due
to the alternative uses of the land--which is what your argument seems to
imply. The "permanent" hindrance of social utility is simply a flow of
costs over time, whose present value gets compared to the present value of
the corresponding flow of costs due to using land for a highway instead of
something else. I am making the argument briefly because you say you are
an economist; I can fill in the details if necessary.
> The few acres required to make a shopping mall does not compare with the
> millions of acres needed to build a major highway.
The particular highway that has been the center of this argument (in
Texas) was said to be eighty miles long. Assume it requires a hundred foot
wide strip.
80x5280x100= aprox 42 million square feet=aprox 1000 acres.
You can get a larger number by assuming a wider strip and a longer
highway, but I think you will have a hard time fitting a straight highway
of reasonable width covering "millions of acres" into the U.S.
I mention that because one way of keeping track of "how the real world
works" is to actually calculate such numbers, instead of throwing around
vague assertions about millions of acres.
> There are countless reasons why they would be opposed:
>
> 1. Sentimental attachment to family land
> 2. Opposition to traffic noise
> 3. Desire to keep private and secluded
> 4. Desire to keep down industrial and residential development (my home town
> of Santa Cruz is currently pursuing such a policy)
> 5. Desire to conserve the natural environment
> 6. Inconvenience of moving or radically changing one's lifestyle
> 7. Land contains some other resource more valuable than a potential road
All of these except, perhaps, 4, are costs of building the road, hence
legitimate reasons for not building that road there. If the result of
eminent domain is that such considerations are ignored, the result is less
efficient, not more. It is only if the benefit of the road outweighs all
such costs that it is worth building--in which case the developer can
compensate those injured by the road and so make them willing to sell. Of
the problems that have been discussed (with roadbuilding in a world
without eminent domain) only the "bargaining breakdown due to holdouts"
argument represents a real economic cost.
And note that 4 is much more easily implemented politically, as in your
real world example, than privately.
One further point. In this post, you describe yourself as "an economist."
On your home page (isn't the web wonderful) you write that:
" This year I received a degree in Russian Studies, with an emphasis in
political science and macroeconomics. I had originally intended to use my
Russian skills to build bridges to a people against whom I had formerly
waged "cold" war. But then the Berlin Wall fell, and communism with it
shortly thereafter. In my last year of college I began feeling more
interested in American political science and economics, and this is the
field where I shall pursue my Ph.D. "
I would have thought that describing someone as "an economist" on that
basis was at least mildly misleading. A "student of economics" perhaps.
David Friedman
Brad Aisa
Steve Kangas <kang...@scruznet.com> wrote:
>Can you hear how irrational your mindless hostility to government sounds?
This is an example of a new kind of anti-concept being pedalled by
liberals: "anti-government". You will see this term being used with
increasing frequency.
It is a package deal, that attempts to put two incommensurable things
together: opposition to *all* government, and opposition to *illegitimate
activities* of governments.
The purpose of this term is to elliminate opposition to unlimited
government, by making *any* opposition to government some kind of heinous
evil. Of course, this is just a "primacy of consciousness" tactic -- the
persons employing this device believe that they can use language to change
reality.
Also, I think the liberals are becoming uglier by the day. Their snarling
is really getting obvious, which I think will simply help to accelerate the
shift to the right which seems to be taking place in the west. Liberals
like to paint themselves "nice" -- but as more people see what snarling
creeps they actually are (when they aren't getting their whims satisified),
then they will lose even more "benefit of the doubt" support of decent
people, who took them at their word that they were "kind".
--
Brad Aisa <ba...@tor.hookup.net> http://www.hookup.net/~baisa/
"The highest responsibility of philosophers is to serve as the
guardians and integrators of human knowledge." -- Ayn Rand
David Friedman
In article <4qfup1$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, da...@cats.ucsc.edu () wrote:
I wrote:
> |... The high-tech
> |solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
> |query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
> |billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
> |systems.
David Michael Wright replied:
> I really doubt this is practical.
Why? A version was being used for automated toll collection for buses
quite a while back. My source is an article by Ward Elliott
(Claremont--I'm not sure which school); I'm afraid I am relying on memory
so cannot give you a cite.
David Friedman
David Friedman
I wrote:
> |I disagree. Your conclusion would be correct if the alternative to private
> |roads without eminent domain was public roads, with eminent domain, built
> |by a wise and benevolent government. But that is not the alternative.
David Michael Wright replied:
> Why not? You want to bring in unfetterd and benevolent libertarianism,
> with no strings attached. Is that what we are really measuring
> against? Then why not the alternative of a benevolent and rational
> government?
But that is not what I am measuring it against. On the contrary--the whole
argument assumes that individual property owners are out for their own
interest, will therefore sometimes hold out for unreasonable sums, and
will sometimes make a mistake in doing so, with the result that they don't
sell and the road is either not built or build somewhere more expensive. I
am willing to make realistic assumptions about the libertarian case--if I
wasn't, I would have simply assumed your problem away by assuming
benevolent property owners. So we should make similarly realistic
assumptions about the alternative.
> |... So far as local highways are concerned, wagons were
> |dangerous too.
>
> I hope you are not going to maintain that wagons were as dangerous as
> 2 ton steel boxes traveling at 70 mph!
I don't know if they were or not--and neither, I suspect, do you. A horse
is proably less predictable than a machine--and it took a lot less to kill
or cripple in a world with the medical technology of a century or two ago.
In any case, the 2 ton boxes travelling at 70 mph tend to be on limited
access expressway (280 runs about 1/2 mile north of my house--and is not
noticeable, incidentally), where pedestrians are rare.
David Friedman
David Friedman
In article <4qfva6$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David
Michael Wright) wrote:
> In article <ddfr-21069...@129.210.77.17>,
> David Friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
> |For purposes of clarifying the argument ... .
> |
> |We are really talking about two different kinds of holdouts. One is the
> |person who refuses to sell because he honestly prefers ownership of his
> |land to the price being offered. The other is the person who refuses to
> |sell for strategic reasons--he is hoping to use his blocking position to
> |get a higher price.
> |
> |So far as the first is concerned, the cost of depriving the owner of the
> |use of his land is just as real a cost as the cost of constructing the
> |highway.
>
> I strongly disagree here. What are you measuring cost in, "utils"?
Dollars--of value, not cash flows. The way economists usually define and
compare costs. For a full explanation, see the chapter on economic
efficiency in my _Price Theory: An Intermediate Text_. Or the
corresponding chapter in my new book, _Hidden Order: The Economics of
Everyday Life_, due out from HarperCollins at the end of this month.
> Of
> course you don't want to make comparisons, preferring that unaminity
> over democracy, but I think that strains the limits of common sense.
Where did you get that from? Where have I said anything about unanimity?
> |... If the entrepreneur cannot cover his costs if he has to
> |compensate the landowners fully, that is evidence that the road costs more
> |than it is worth and so should not be built.
> Only if you assume unaminity.
I am assuming the ordinary economic definition of efficiency, economic
gains, etc., ultimately due to Marshall--summing utility, with
interpersonal comparisions done as if a dollar was worth the same amount
of utility to everyone. It sounds as though you have been misled by the
unfortunate attempt of textbook authors to use Pareto to pretend to answer
such questions without making interpersonal comparisons.
> |The real problem is the second case--strategic holdouts. That becomes less
> |of a problem if, as I suggested before, the entrepreneur can avoid any
> |individual holdout at a reasonably low cost--not merely because you can
> |build a slightly snaky road, but because you won't have to. The strategic
> |holdout, after all, wants to sell his land--and he won't hold out for an
> |astronomical price if he knows that you will respond by building around
> |him.
>
> Why is it that the entreprenur is given vast skills and knowledge to
> get what he wants done, but the consumer is left brainless and stupid?
> Where is our rational and well informed consumer, who, on another
> thread, can analyze safety engineering on Airlines or the bacterial
> count in Safeway german sausage? Is he unable to form his own blocking
> coalition to extract the surplus?
That's fine--if he can form a blocking coaition and extract the surplus,
the road still gets built--and via the most efficient route. It is only if
the consumer is clever enough to form the coalition but not clever enough
to charge a price that the entrepreneur will pay that there is a problem.
Or in other words, I am not assuming that the landowner (a seller of
inputs, incidentally, not a consumer in this context) is any stupider than
the entrepreneur.
> I believe the *James* Friedman should be consulted on this!
Sorry--I don't know him.
David Friedman
Steve Kangas
David Friedman wrote:
>
> In article <31CB76...@scruznet.com>, Steve Kangas
> <kang...@scruznet.com> wrote:
>
> > But your argument doesn't even make economic sense. If you value your land
> > below half the price you would sell it to a road construction company,
> > you have just doubled the cost of social utility.
>
> I am coming in in the middle of this, so may be misunderstanding the
> argument you are answering, but ... .
>
> I. If the road is built anyway, the payment to the landowner (above his
> true reservation price) is a transfer, not a social cost.
But that transfer is ultimately paid by society, is it not? If the landowner
doubles his price, I have to pay for it (if I want to buy it), do I not?
> 2. If trying to get more than his true reservation price means that the
> road does not get built, then the landowner has made a mistake, since he
> doesn't make any profit on the road at all.
But the example set forth by the previous poster was about enriching himself
unjustly by taking advantage of the road construction company's dilemma.
> So the social cost increases only in the case where the road does not get
> built, due to a mistake by the landowner (asking more than he can get).
Well, you missed the point, missed it by a clean mile. If eminent domain
would buy the land at $200,000, but the individual could sell it for $500,000
(in a libertarian world exploiting the road company's dilemma), it is not a
mistake -- it's exploitation.
> > > Now if I value my land at a price
> > > which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
> > > land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
> > > does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
> > > road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
> > > property.
> >
> > So whatever social utility is not doubled in cost is cut in half by
> efficiency.
>
> Huh? The use of the owner's land is a real cost. If a different route
> costs $100,000 more to construct and maintain (present value) but runs
> over land whose alternative use is worth $200,000 less, then rerouting is
> more efficient than the original plan, not less.
In the short term. Not the long term. A very typical failing of laissez-faire
economies.
> > Furthermore, these individuals, who are only temporarily on this earth,
> > will *permanently* hinder social utility, in accordance with the economics
> > of path dependency. (No pun intended. This is also known by the popular name
> > "Economics of QWERTY.") You are making some truly awful arguments.
>
> Earlier you wrote:
>
> > You know, I'm an economist, but I really get pissed at some of my peers who
> > who have absolutely no idea how the real world works,
>
> If you are concerned with how the real world works, you might want to look
> at the article "The Fable of the Keys" by Liebowitz and Margolis, Journal
> of Law and Economics a few years back. If they are correct (and I have
> seen no published response), the paradigmatic case for the analysis you
> refer to (QWERTY/Dvorak) is mythical. Almost all of the "facts" in the
> standard story about how we ended up with the QWERTY layout turn out to be
> false, and all of the studies showing the vast superiority of Dvorak
> appear to have been done by or under the direct influence of Mr. Dvorak.
> Studies by neutral parties show only small differences.
The fact that Dvorak falsified his studies is irrelevant to the fact that
path dependency exists. Unfortunately economists first used QWERTY as an example
for their point. It is popularly known as the "Economics of QWERTY," which is why
I used the term. But there are countless of other undeniable examples. Shall we
use water-cooled nuclear reactors instead?
Why are you even bringing up this irrelevent point?
> In any case, the possibility of path dependency does not imply that
> builders should count construction costs but ignore opportunity costs due
> to the alternative uses of the land--which is what your argument seems to
> imply. The "permanent" hindrance of social utility is simply a flow of
> costs over time, whose present value gets compared to the present value of
> the corresponding flow of costs due to using land for a highway instead of
> something else. I am making the argument briefly because you say you are
> an economist; I can fill in the details if necessary.
And you see nothing wrong with saddling society with this "flow of costs over
time." Again, the libertarian's economy is tactical, not strategic.
> > The few acres required to make a shopping mall does not compare with the
> > millions of acres needed to build a major highway.
>
> The particular highway that has been the center of this argument (in
> Texas) was said to be eighty miles long. Assume it requires a hundred foot
> wide strip.
>
> 80x5280x100= aprox 42 million square feet=aprox 1000 acres.
>
> You can get a larger number by assuming a wider strip and a longer
> highway, but I think you will have a hard time fitting a straight highway
> of reasonable width covering "millions of acres" into the U.S.
I was thinking of America's many transcontinental highways, and I admit I overestimated
the acreage because I didn't bother to crunch the numbers on my calculator. But
this objection is a distraction; you have completely ignored the main point
I was raising, and I'm not going to let you off the hook this easily. My main point
was that a libertarian economy might be functional for small roads in condominium
complexes; it becomes rapidly more unworkable when you are dealing with highways
crossing entire states. Stop evading the issue and answer my point.
>
> I mention that because one way of keeping track of "how the real world
> works" is to actually calculate such numbers, instead of throwing around
> vague assertions about millions of acres.
And in the real world, a smart person isn't simply content to rearrange the
deck chairs on the Titanic, which is what you did by defending your sinking
argument with an irrelevant quibble over measurements. Please respond to my
main point.
>
> > There are countless reasons why they would be opposed:
> >
> > 1. Sentimental attachment to family land
> > 2. Opposition to traffic noise
> > 3. Desire to keep private and secluded
> > 4. Desire to keep down industrial and residential development (my home town
> > of Santa Cruz is currently pursuing such a policy)
> > 5. Desire to conserve the natural environment
> > 6. Inconvenience of moving or radically changing one's lifestyle
> > 7. Land contains some other resource more valuable than a potential road
>
> All of these except, perhaps, 4, are costs of building the road, hence
> legitimate reasons for not building that road there. If the result of
> eminent domain is that such considerations are ignored, the result is less
> efficient, not more. It is only if the benefit of the road outweighs all
> such costs that it is worth building--in which case the developer can
> compensate those injured by the road and so make them willing to sell.
"Make them willing to sell." Again, this is what I complained about to the
original poster. Not all economists, but certainly too many, believe that
consumers are perfectly rational and omniscient and only assess things according
to their dollar value. You are assuming that many of these things have a
dollar equivalent. You are also assuming that some people attach logical, rational
prices to their wares. You are also assuming that there is nothing a person won't
sell. You are also assuming that the owner's idea of social utility is the same
as the democratic majority that would vote the road there. You are also assuming
that there is sufficient economic resources and, perhaps even more importantly, the
economic will to pay the unnecessarily high demands of the landowners. In short,
you are assuming a bloody lot of behavior which doesn't occur in the real world.
But most egregiously, you are assuming that the threshhold of people's initial
resistance to accepting unwelcome changes in their immediate lives is lower than it
really is, and that it can be overcome without great cost to society or the market. I
maintain that that threshhold is sometimes high enough to prevent social utility from
occurring at all, and the only way to overcome it is eminent domain.
Don't think it can happen? Let's talk about whether or not people would pay taxes if
they didn't have to...
> Of the problems that have been discussed (with roadbuilding in a world
> without eminent domain) only the "bargaining breakdown due to holdouts"
> argument represents a real economic cost.
Okay, I want you to spell out your objections very clearly. Assume two cities,
A and B, which are separated by some 50 miles. City A provides exclusive goods which
could greatly benefit City B, and vice versa. A connecting road would greatly enrich
both of them. But in their proposals of such a road, the construction company periodically
runs into land-owners who refuse to sell for any of the reasons outlined above.
Instead of creating a highway that runs in a straight line, they create one that
zig zags all over the map, a completely arbitrary result depending on whatever
owners were in the mood to sell. (And that's assuming that they are not unlucky
enough to run into a complete cul-de-sac, so to speak.) Now, unless I am very much
mistaken, the cost of fuel, vehicle maintenance, etc., is going to climb for everyone
who makes that trip. And the benefits of connecting the two cities will be reduced
accordingly, for the very long term. Are you saying this is not a "real economic cost?"
> And note that 4 is much more easily implemented politically, as in your
> real world example, than privately.
Well, this stirs up another bee's nest. Santa Cruz is acting according to the
democratic will of the people in freezing development of its lands. If Santa
Cruz were to become libertarian (an amusing thought), then the majority of its
landowners would refuse to develop their land with roads, factories, etc. But
the minority would, thus spoiling the county's placid lifestyle with pollution,
noise, traffic jams, spoiled scenery, overused facilities and infrastructure,
interrupted migratory routes and habitats of indigenous wildlife (which the majority
in Santa Cruz is adamantly committed to protecting), etc. This is a libertarian
dilemma: the minority would seem to have the individual right to develop their land,
but the majority would seem to have the individual right not to be adversely affected
by all that development.
The bottom line is that we live in a society, and you can't get around compromising
your individual self-interest with that of others -- as much as your adolescent
egoism would like to.
> One further point. In this post, you describe yourself as "an economist."
> On your home page (isn't the web wonderful) you write that:
>
> " This year I received a degree in Russian Studies, with an emphasis in
> political science and macroeconomics. I had originally intended to use my
> Russian skills to build bridges to a people against whom I had formerly
> waged "cold" war. But then the Berlin Wall fell, and communism with it
> shortly thereafter. In my last year of college I began feeling more
> interested in American political science and economics, and this is the
> field where I shall pursue my Ph.D. "
>
> I would have thought that describing someone as "an economist" on that
> basis was at least mildly misleading. A "student of economics" perhaps.
And the fact that I emphasized economics in my B.A. degree and am going on to
study it in post-graduate school disturbs you somehow? I get the impression
that you would reject Darwin as a "biologist" because his degree was actually in
theology.
These sort of distractionary quibbles are amusing, and indicative of your
apparent willingness to sidetrack the main points of the debate.
>
> David Friedman
>
> --
> dd...@best.com
Glen Raphael
da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright) wrote:
> Since when does anyone want a road near or through his property?
> Instead of roads costly millions, they will end up costing billions,
> or mirandering through the city like a snake, or both.
Have you ever looked at a map of pipelines in the US? These are built
mostly without use of eminent domain, and somehow manage not to be all
wiggly.
As for the idea of private operation of roads CAUSING gridlock, I think
somebody has missed the whole point. The main reason we have gridlock
during peak periods is that the current owner of the roads -- the
government -- has no incentive to manage them well. Notice that the
_telephone company_ has no trouble keeping their lines open during normal
peak periods, and this is due to a combination of pricing innovations and
the application of modern technology. Similar ideas could improve traffic
flow if there were a financial incentive to implement changes.
But in order to make the highway system work better, it is vital that some
freeways NOT be built so that resources can be concentrated where there is
the most need. In a private market, prices are able to demonstrate where
the demand is and influence that the bottlenecks are found and fixed. But
in the political market roads are built based on political clout rather
than market demand. And so we get...gridlock.
Glen Raphael
--
Glen Raphael
rap...@pobox.com http://www.pobox.com/~raphael
"Without Mint Milanos, life would have no meaning." - Nietzsche
Tony Donadio
David Friedman (dd...@best.com) wrote:
: 2. Suppose the roads did not pay for themselves, and it required a two
: hundred dollar monthly toll bill to cover the cost. That would mean that,
: under our present system, you would be paying the same two hundred dollars
: a month in taxes to pay for the road--after all, the costs have to be
: covered somehow. Replacing a user fee with a government subsidy doesn't
: eliminate the cost, it just shifts it.
This bears repeating. This is simple common sense, that many people
somehow seem to lose when the "magic wand" of "government" gets invoked.
--
Tony * Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish
Donadio * to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for
* value. - Francisco D'Anconia, in ATLAS SHRUGGED, by Ayn Rand
James A. Donald
dd...@best.com (David Friedman) wrote
> > > Your conclusion would be correct if the alternative to private
> > > |roads without eminent domain was public roads, with eminent domain, built
> > > |by a wise and benevolent government. But that is not the alternative.
David Michael Wright replied:
>> Why not? You want to bring in unfetterd and benevolent libertarianism,
>> with no strings attached. Is that what we are really measuring
>> against? Then why not the alternative of a benevolent and rational
>> government?
David Friedman
> But that is not what I am measuring it against. On the contrary--the whole
> argument assumes that individual property owners are out for their own
> interest, will therefore sometimes hold out for unreasonable sums, and
> will sometimes make a mistake in doing so, with the result that they don't
> sell and the road is either not built or build somewhere more expensive. I
> am willing to make realistic assumptions about the libertarian case--if I
> wasn't, I would have simply assumed your problem away by assuming
> benevolent property owners. So we should make similarly realistic
> assumptions about the alternative.
Actually David is not making realistic assumptions about the
alternative: He is making absurdly generous assumptions about the
alternative. If he made the sort of assumptions about government
officials that he makes about private landowners he would predict the
kind of use of eminent domain that we recently saw in Oakland where
government officials used eminent domain primarily for the purpose of
pointless destruction, probably motivated in large part by the highly
realistic assumption that by causing vast harm to well off
individuals, they would receive bribes to leave them alone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald jam...@echeque.com
James A. Donald
Steve Kangas <kang...@scruznet.com> wrote:
>But that transfer is ultimately paid by society, is it not? If the landowner
>doubles his price, I have to pay for it (if I want to buy it), do I not?
Landowners are not part of society?
> But the example set forth by the previous poster was about enriching himself
> unjustly by taking advantage of the road construction company's dilemma.
What is unjust about possessing something that other people want?
You are simply assuming that socialism, the use of violence to take
what you want, is morally superior to capitalism, but when we see it
in practice, Cambodia, Soviet Union, Catalonia, Cuba, we clearly see
that this assumption is not merely false, but outrageous, monstrous,
and brutal.
>> Huh? The use of the owner's land is a real cost. If a different route
>> costs $100,000 more to construct and maintain (present value) but runs
>> over land whose alternative use is worth $200,000 less, then rerouting is
>> more efficient than the original plan, not less.
> In the short term. Not the long term. A very typical failing of laissez-faire
> economies.
This of course makes no sense at all: Capitalists, by definition, are
concerned for the long term because they want to increase their
capital. Politicians seldom care about long term costs, as has been
amply demonstrated.
> "Make them willing to sell." Again, this is what I complained about to the
> original poster. Not all economists, but certainly too many, believe that
> consumers are perfectly rational and omniscient and only assess things according
> to their dollar value.
So you propose that your vast wisdom should be substituted at gunpoint
for the will of that irrational foolish consumer.
David Friedman
In article <31CBC2...@scruznet.com>, Steve Kangas
<kang...@scruznet.com> wrote:
> But that transfer is ultimately paid by society, is it not? If the landowner
> doubles his price, I have to pay for it (if I want to buy it), do I not?
Paid by members of society and received by a member of society--the
landowner. Hence not a net cost. I thought you were claiming to be an
economist.
> > 2. If trying to get more than his true reservation price means that the
> > road does not get built, then the landowner has made a mistake, since he
> > doesn't make any profit on the road at all.
> But the example set forth by the previous poster was about enriching himself
> unjustly by taking advantage of the road construction company's dilemma.
> > So the social cost increases only in the case where the road does not get
> > built, due to a mistake by the landowner (asking more than he can get).
> Well, you missed the point, missed it by a clean mile. If eminent domain
> would buy the land at $200,000, but the individual could sell it for $500,000
> (in a libertarian world exploiting the road company's dilemma), it is not a
> mistake -- it's exploitation.
Suppose someone offers you a job, doing the sort of thing you want, at
$40,000/year. Further suppose you would have accepted the job at
$30,000/year. By accepting the higher salary, are you exploiting your
employer? His customers?
Every time I buy a book by one of my favorite authors, I am getting it at
a lower price than I would be willing to pay. Am I exploiting the author
and his publisher?
We are considering a situation where there are gains from trade--the land
is worth more to the entrepreneur building the road than to its current
owner. What grounds, of ethics or economics, are there for claiming that
all of the gain should go to the entrepreneur, and none to the owner?
The original argument was about inefficiencies arising from the lack of
eminent domain. Transfers are not net costs. Injustice, supposing you
could present a coherent theory of justice in which the buyer is entitled
to all of the gain from the transfer, is not inefficiency.
> > > > Now if I value my land at a price
> > > > which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
> > > > land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
> > > > does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
> > > > road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
> > > > property.
> > >
> > > So whatever social utility is not doubled in cost is cut in half by
> > efficiency.
> >
> > Huh? The use of the owner's land is a real cost. If a different route
> > costs $100,000 more to construct and maintain (present value) but runs
> > over land whose alternative use is worth $200,000 less, then rerouting is
> > more efficient than the original plan, not less.
> In the short term. Not the long term. A very typical failing of laissez-faire
> economies.
All of my numbers were, as I thought I made clear in the comment above,
present values of streams of costs and benefits. When the land is taken
from the landowner and used for a road, the result is a stream of costs to
him--he doesn't get to use it this year, or next year, or ..., to be
balanced against the stream of benefits from building, maintaining, and
using a shorter road (and the costs of alternative routes).
> The fact that Dvorak falsified his studies is irrelevant to the fact that
> path dependency exists. Unfortunately economists first used QWERTY as an
example
> for their point. It is popularly known as the "Economics of QWERTY,"
which is why
> I used the term. But there are countless of other undeniable examples.
Shall we
> use water-cooled nuclear reactors instead?
> Why are you even bringing up this irrelevent point?
Because your previous post contrasted economists who were and were not
concerned with the real world. I am offering evidence that the theorists
whose work you were citing, and by extension you, were in the second
category.
As you will eventually discover as you pursue your studies in economics,
if you have not already done so, it is possible to make a logically
consistent argument for almost any economic conclusion, although not
always a plausible one--the most common way is by rigging assumptions
about utility functions, but there are lots of others, including arbitrary
assumptions about patterns of irrationality. So it is worth keeping one
eye on the real world--in particular, the testable implications of the
alternatives. The QWERTY/Dvorak case was touted as a strong piece of real
world evidence for the importance of path dependency--a clearly
inefficient result, due to accidents early on. If, as seems to be the
case, it is bogus, that weakens the argument for the importance of path
dependency.
Did you know it was bogus, by the way? Your answer makes it sound as
though you did, while your original reference makes it sound as though you
didn't. Judging by a book by a prominent economist that I read recently,
at least some of the supporters of the importance of path dependence
remain blissfully unaware of the problems with their favorite example.
> > In any case, the possibility of path dependency does not imply that
> > builders should count construction costs but ignore opportunity costs due
> > to the alternative uses of the land--which is what your argument seems to
> > imply. The "permanent" hindrance of social utility is simply a flow of
> > costs over time, whose present value gets compared to the present value of
> > the corresponding flow of costs due to using land for a highway instead of
> > something else. I am making the argument briefly because you say you are
> > an economist; I can fill in the details if necessary.
>
> And you see nothing wrong with saddling society with this "flow of costs over
> time." Again, the libertarian's economy is tactical, not strategic.
We are trading off one flow of costs against another. You see nothing
wrong with saddling society with the flow of costs over time resulting
from diverting the land from its current use. I want to compare the
present value of the two flows.
>
> > > The few acres required to make a shopping mall does not compare with the
> > > millions of acres needed to build a major highway.
> >
> > The particular highway that has been the center of this argument (in
> > Texas) was said to be eighty miles long. Assume it requires a hundred foot
> > wide strip.
> >
> > 80x5280x100= aprox 42 million square feet=aprox 1000 acres.
> >
> > You can get a larger number by assuming a wider strip and a longer
> > highway, but I think you will have a hard time fitting a straight highway
> > of reasonable width covering "millions of acres" into the U.S.
>
> I was thinking of America's many transcontinental highways, and I admit
I overestimated
> the acreage because I didn't bother to crunch the numbers on my
calculator. But
> this objection is a distraction; you have completely ignored the main point
> I was raising, and I'm not going to let you off the hook this easily. My
main point
> was that a libertarian economy might be functional for small roads in
condominium
> complexes; it becomes rapidly more unworkable when you are dealing with
highways
> crossing entire states. Stop evading the issue and answer my point.
But the question of whether you are assembling a few thousand acres or a
few million is relevant to the comparison between the problem of
assembling the land for a highway and similar problems that are routinely
solved privately. If the cost of the land is a very small part of the cost
of the highway, as it probably is outside of urban areas, the problems
that eminent domain is supposed to solve become much less serious.
For examples of projects similar to an interstate highway, done without
eminent domain:
The original (19th century)Pennsylvania turnpike. The great Northern
transcontinental route (assuming I am right in remembering that that was
the one done without land grants). Various private turnpikes in Britain in
the 18th and 19th centuries. Oil pipelines. ...
> "Make them willing to sell." Again, this is what I complained about to the
> original poster. Not all economists, but certainly too many, believe that
> consumers are perfectly rational and omniscient and only assess things
according
> to their dollar value.
If consumers are irrational and have imperfect information, why does that
consistently lead to overvaluing their land? Wouldn't some of them
mistakenly demand too high a price and some too low?
In any case, while consumers are not perfectly rational and perfectly well
informed, they can be expected to be better informed and act more
rationally as consumers than as voters. A consumer who makes a mistake
pays for it himself; a voter who makes a mistake probably has no effect
(i.e. his vote was not decisive) and if he does have an effect, everyone
pays for it. So the incentive to avoid mistakes is much higher when
functioning as a consumer (or seller, or ...) than as a voter.
> You are also assuming that the owner's idea of social utility is the same
> as the democratic majority that would vote the road there.
Certainly not. We have much better theoretical reasons to expect efficient
outcomes from the market (subject to all the usual caveats) than from
democratic voting. To get efficiency out of the latter, you pretty much
need Coasian assumptions--which are sufficient, but not necessary, for the
former.
> You are also assuming
> that there is sufficient economic resources
I don't know what that means, and doubt you do.
> and, perhaps even more importantly, the
> economic will to pay the unnecessarily high demands of the landowners.
If the road builder is not willing to pay the high demand of the
landowners, then it is not in the interest of the landowners to make those
demands. As I pointed out earlier, it is only in the case of strategic
demands plus a mistake in bargaining that the argument gives inefficiency
(actually there is another case, but nobody has raised it in the thread,
so I will leave it as an exercise for the reader).
> Don't think it can happen? Let's talk about whether or not people would
pay taxes if
> they didn't have to...
You are confusing the public good problem with the holdout problem. Each
individual is correct in believing that he is better off not paying
taxes--taking the behavior of others as given. So the refusal to
voluntarily pay taxes follows from the same standard economic assumptions
I have been using in this discussion.
Maybe you had better switch to sociology.
Of course not. I am saying that if the road zig-zags all over the map,
that is for one of two reasons:
A. The value of the land to the landowner is greater than the savings from
building the road through it, in which case the economic cost due to that
partigular zig is lower than the economic cost of the alternative (losing
the present use of the land).
B. The value of the land to the landowner is less than the savings, but
the landowner mistakenly thought he could get more for his land than the
builder was willing to pay, so bargaining broke down.
All of this depends, of course, on the conventional economic assumptions
about human behavior, which you want to reject. Having rejected them for
private actors, what is your basis for expecting government to behave in
the way you want? Indeed, what is your basis for deciding how you would
like it to behave?
> > I would have thought that describing someone as "an economist" on that
> > basis was at least mildly misleading. A "student of economics" perhaps.
>
> And the fact that I emphasized economics in my B.A. degree and am going on to
> study it in post-graduate school disturbs you somehow? I get the impression
> that you would reject Darwin as a "biologist" because his degree was
actually in
> theology.
Not at all. I am an economist, and my degrees are in physics and
chemistry. I am not disturbed by your academic history or career plans. I
am disturbed by what seems to me a dishonest claim of professional
expertise. A bachelor's degree in Russian studies with an emphasis in
macroeconomics plus plans some day to go to graduate school in economics
does not make you "an economist" as the term is commonly used, any more
than minoring in physics, or pre-med, or pre-law makes you a physicist,
physician, or lawyer.
Then too, there is the fact that your posts so far give no evidence that
you understand conventional economic theory well enough to have an
adequate basis for rejecting it.
David Friedman
Steve Kangas
Tony Donadio wrote:
>
> David Friedman (dd...@best.com) wrote:
>
> : 2. Suppose the roads did not pay for themselves, and it required a two
> : hundred dollar monthly toll bill to cover the cost. That would mean that,
> : under our present system, you would be paying the same two hundred dollars
> : a month in taxes to pay for the road--after all, the costs have to be
> : covered somehow. Replacing a user fee with a government subsidy doesn't
> : eliminate the cost, it just shifts it.
>
> This bears repeating. This is simple common sense, that many people
> somehow seem to lose when the "magic wand" of "government" gets invoked.
Yes, the cost gets shifted, but there is a reason to do so. A completely
similar thing happened under Rurual Electrification. When Roosevelt first
started this program, the free market saw no profit motive to wire the
countryside with electricity. In 1935, only 13 percent of all farms had
electricity. Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Administration began
correcting this market failure; by 1970, more than 95 percent of all farms
would have electricity, almost all of them thanks to the REA.
Prior to the REA, American agriculture had been suffering depressed times
for decades. But today our agricutural sector feeds not only America,
but the world.
These sort of cost shifts do a couple things: 1) They reverse the trend
of economic activity being increasingly concentrated in heavy population centers.
2) They invest in the long-term health of the economy. 3) They maximize the
infrastructure upon which the free market operates, and allow the free
market to start developing in places where it might not have otherwise.
I don't know, maybe you prefer farms without electricity, and rural areas
without roads. This is not a national economy that I would want to live
in, but I've learned never to underestimate the strangeness of libertarian
desires.
Steve Kangas
http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/
m...@surf-ici.com
David Michael Wright wrote:
>
> In article <d17_960...@rational.vaxxine.com>,
> Lazarus Long <2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com> wrote:
> |da...@cats.ucsc.edu pontificated in a message to All:
> |
> |dc> From: da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright)
> | And the collective should overrule the individual's right to
> | their property?
>
> Yes.
So "the collective" some how has a right to tell my whether or not
I can eat my own candy bar?
Ouch. I'd like to tie this in to your latter response.
> |dc> I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built
> |dc> anywhere near their property, especially in a city. In an area with
> |dc> few roads, you may have a point, but that is simply because they are
> |dc> scarce and the problems with them have not arose.
> |
> | Most people prefer to have access to their property.
>
> People do have access to their property. They don't want access to
> Freeways in their backyard.
I want access to a freeway in my back yard. I just don't want the freeway
*in* my backyard.
Now a free market solution to this is to pay me money for the privilage of putting
the road in my yard (similar to eminant domain except that I have a choice in the
matter)
Your "collective" approach (see above) is to just put it in my back yard or put it
in the back yard of the folks who lost the last political battle.
Your method will certainly work. It just doesn't seem
friendly.
Mahie,Mahie
I'm a moderate. I see nothing moderate about 2 major parties that spend 43 percent
of the GNP each and every year, and have made promises that will require spending
80% of the GNP 30 years from now. That makes, Harry Browne, the only moderate
candidate out there.
Steve Kangas
David Friedman wrote:
>
> In article <31CBC2...@scruznet.com>, Steve Kangas
> <kang...@scruznet.com> wrote:
>
> > But that transfer is ultimately paid by society, is it not? If the landowner
> > doubles his price, I have to pay for it (if I want to buy it), do I not?
>
> Paid by members of society and received by a member of society--the
> landowner. Hence not a net cost. I thought you were claiming to be an
> economist.
And I thought you were claiming to be. Of course it's a net cost. Any inefficient
allocation of resources is a net cost. But then, your calculating from a ledger
and not the real world, aren't you?
> > > 2. If trying to get more than his true reservation price means that the
> > > road does not get built, then the landowner has made a mistake, since he
> > > doesn't make any profit on the road at all.
>
> > But the example set forth by the previous poster was about enriching himself
> > unjustly by taking advantage of the road construction company's dilemma.
>
> > > So the social cost increases only in the case where the road does not get
> > > built, due to a mistake by the landowner (asking more than he can get).
>
> > Well, you missed the point, missed it by a clean mile. If eminent domain
> > would buy the land at $200,000, but the individual could sell it for $500,000
> > (in a libertarian world exploiting the road company's dilemma), it is not a
> > mistake -- it's exploitation.
>
> Suppose someone offers you a job, doing the sort of thing you want, at
> $40,000/year. Further suppose you would have accepted the job at
> $30,000/year. By accepting the higher salary, are you exploiting your
> employer? His customers?
Exploiting their market ignorance, incompetence or inefficiency, yes. If I
sell a little old lady a lemon (as in car, not the fruit) for $1 million,
and she gladly pays, am I not exploiting her ignorance? Our outrage over this
exploitation depends on the degree; your employer example doesn't trouble as
much as the little old lady example does. Granted, people have a personal
responsibility for understanding their transactions, but they also have
a responsibility not to blatantly rip someone off. Again, it's a matter of degree.
But, more relevantly to the discussion, the exploitation by the land-owner
holdout is not based on the road company's ignorance, but on conscious
knowledge. Does that make exploitation any more defensible?
> Every time I buy a book by one of my favorite authors, I am getting it at
> a lower price than I would be willing to pay. Am I exploiting the author
> and his publisher?
Technically, yes. Does society seem to accept it? Yes. Should it? In small
cases, arguably; in large cases, no.
> We are considering a situation where there are gains from trade--the land
> is worth more to the entrepreneur building the road than to its current
> owner. What grounds, of ethics or economics, are there for claiming that
> all of the gain should go to the entrepreneur, and none to the owner?
Ethics: since the owner's excess gain is from exploitation, it should be
eliminated.
Economics: the land should go for whatever fair market value existed before
the road company's proposal.
> The original argument was about inefficiencies arising from the lack of
> eminent domain. Transfers are not net costs. Injustice, supposing you
> could present a coherent theory of justice in which the buyer is entitled
> to all of the gain from the transfer, is not inefficiency.
You're making a subjective argument. The exploiter's gains are ill-gotten,
and eliminating these gains cannot then be described as "unjust gains to
the buyer." It's sort of like claiming that the elimination of slavery and
the awarding of fairer (and higher) wages to blacks is "reverse discrimination."
And I would take a very long look at whatever moral/economic theory prompted you to
say "Injustice is not inefficiency." One of the first things they teach you in
economics is that slave economies are inefficient economies... individual worker
productivity falls far below average. Furthermore, if I unfairly underpay you for
services rendered, then this is an economic imbalance, and a misallocation of
resources. It is inefficient.
Actually, I am sorry that I had to read a statement like "Injustice is not
inefficiency."
> > > > > Now if I value my land at a price
> > > > > which is higher than $500,000, then the company will not purchase the
> > > > > land and the efficient transaction has still occurred. But that still
> > > > > does not stop the road from being built--the company can re-route the
> > > > > road to build through my neighbor's and every neighbor of a holdout's
> > > > > property.
> > > >
> > > > So whatever social utility is not doubled in cost is cut in half by
> > > efficiency.
> > >
> > > Huh? The use of the owner's land is a real cost. If a different route
> > > costs $100,000 more to construct and maintain (present value) but runs
> > > over land whose alternative use is worth $200,000 less, then rerouting is
> > > more efficient than the original plan, not less.
>
> > In the short term. Not the long term. A very typical failing of laissez-faire
> > economies.
>
> All of my numbers were, as I thought I made clear in the comment above,
> present values of streams of costs and benefits. When the land is taken
> from the landowner and used for a road, the result is a stream of costs to
> him--he doesn't get to use it this year, or next year, or ..., to be
> balanced against the stream of benefits from building, maintaining, and
> using a shorter road (and the costs of alternative routes).
And I thought I made it clear that individuals are temporary, societies are
permanent. Whose stream of costs do you think matters most in the long run?
Would you prefer to have been born in a society whose ancestors neglected the
social stream?
> > The fact that Dvorak falsified his studies is irrelevant to the fact that
> > path dependency exists. Unfortunately economists first used QWERTY as an
> example
> > for their point. It is popularly known as the "Economics of QWERTY,"
> which is why
> > I used the term. But there are countless of other undeniable examples.
> Shall we
> > use water-cooled nuclear reactors instead?
>
> > Why are you even bringing up this irrelevent point?
>
> Because your previous post contrasted economists who were and were not
> concerned with the real world. I am offering evidence that the theorists
> whose work you were citing, and by extension you, were in the second
> category.
I am sure this incoherent argument makes internal sense to you. You are
claiming that the honest mistake of those who cited Dvorak shows that
they were not trying to learn how the real world works. Even more
improbably, you seem to be claiming that the countless other examples
of path dependency which indisputably exist prove that these economists
are not working in the real world, because its first example turned out
to be mistaken.
Sir, you are engaging in both fallacy and sophism. Please feel free to
join a legitimate debate about path dependency.
> As you will eventually discover as you pursue your studies in economics,
> if you have not already done so, it is possible to make a logically
> consistent argument for almost any economic conclusion, although not
> always a plausible one--the most common way is by rigging assumptions
> about utility functions, but there are lots of others, including arbitrary
> assumptions about patterns of irrationality. So it is worth keeping one
> eye on the real world--in particular, the testable implications of the
> alternatives. The QWERTY/Dvorak case was touted as a strong piece of real
> world evidence for the importance of path dependency--a clearly
> inefficient result, due to accidents early on. If, as seems to be the
> case, it is bogus, that weakens the argument for the importance of path
> dependency.
Okay, which other examples of path dependency would you not find objectionable?
Gasoline engines over steam? Water-cooled nuclear reactors over gas? VHS
video cassettes over lasar discs? National industries tied to a single city
of birth? Accidents of invention and history?
I think you're grasping at straws with the Dvorak example because you
know path dependency is a strong refutation to purist forms of the
invisible hand.
> Did you know it was bogus, by the way? Your answer makes it sound as
> though you did, while your original reference makes it sound as though you
> didn't. Judging by a book by a prominent economist that I read recently,
> at least some of the supporters of the importance of path dependence
> remain blissfully unaware of the problems with their favorite example.
Yes, I knew of the recent research. That is why I described path dependency in
the way I did. But I am coming to the conclusion that you do not read my posts
carefully. You will notice I originally introduced this concept with the term
"path dependency." Then, in parentheses, I added that this was known by
the popular name "Economics of QWERTY." I mentioned it only to help people
recognize it, because, after all, that is its popular name. (You could even
say that this identification process is itself a form of path dependency. :-) )
At no time did I endorse the Dvorak example, and it's disengenuous for you to
suggest that I did.
> > > In any case, the possibility of path dependency does not imply that
> > > builders should count construction costs but ignore opportunity costs due
> > > to the alternative uses of the land--which is what your argument seems to
> > > imply. The "permanent" hindrance of social utility is simply a flow of
> > > costs over time, whose present value gets compared to the present value of
> > > the corresponding flow of costs due to using land for a highway instead of
> > > something else. I am making the argument briefly because you say you are
> > > an economist; I can fill in the details if necessary.
> >
> > And you see nothing wrong with saddling society with this "flow of costs over
> > time." Again, the libertarian's economy is tactical, not strategic.
>
> We are trading off one flow of costs against another. You see nothing
> wrong with saddling society with the flow of costs over time resulting
> from diverting the land from its current use. I want to compare the
> present value of the two flows.
I am not optimistic that such a comparison will favor zig-zagging or even
aborted highways, but that's another matter.
(snip)
> >
> > I was thinking of America's many transcontinental highways, and I admit
> I overestimated
> > the acreage because I didn't bother to crunch the numbers on my
> calculator. But
> > this objection is a distraction; you have completely ignored the main point
> > I was raising, and I'm not going to let you off the hook this easily. My
> main point
> > was that a libertarian economy might be functional for small roads in
> condominium
> > complexes; it becomes rapidly more unworkable when you are dealing with
> highways
> > crossing entire states. Stop evading the issue and answer my point.
>
> But the question of whether you are assembling a few thousand acres or a
> few million is relevant to the comparison between the problem of
> assembling the land for a highway and similar problems that are routinely
> solved privately. If the cost of the land is a very small part of the cost
> of the highway, as it probably is outside of urban areas, the problems
> that eminent domain is supposed to solve become much less serious.
Today we have 42,795 miles of interstate highway, all of it so interconnected
that it doesn't feature a single stop light. Some of these highways stretch
from New York to California in a relatively straight line. The amount of
land we are talking about is enormous. If there were many land-owners in these
long stretches, then you have to worry about zig zags; if there are only
a few, then you have to worry about a single landowner stopping the highway
completely.
Besides, the lower cost of rural land is compensated by it's tremendously
greater length.
> For examples of projects similar to an interstate highway, done without
> eminent domain:
>
> The original (19th century)Pennsylvania turnpike. The great Northern
> transcontinental route (assuming I am right in remembering that that was
> the one done without land grants). Various private turnpikes in Britain in
> the 18th and 19th centuries. Oil pipelines. ...
These examples of road building are early, anecdotal and few. One assumes that
the reason why eminent domain came into existence in the first place -- and the
reason why it is practiced so widely -- is because there was a need for it.
Obviously, if private transactions had worked out well, we would be doing them
today.
> > "Make them willing to sell." Again, this is what I complained about to the
> > original poster. Not all economists, but certainly too many, believe that
> > consumers are perfectly rational and omniscient and only assess things
> according
> > to their dollar value.
>
> If consumers are irrational and have imperfect information, why does that
> consistently lead to overvaluing their land? Wouldn't some of them
> mistakenly demand too high a price and some too low?
The mistakes tend to be all in the same direction (overvaluing) because
people are self-interested. I would have thought this obvious, but, apparently,
no...
> In any case, while consumers are not perfectly rational and perfectly well
> informed, they can be expected to be better informed and act more
> rationally as consumers than as voters.
On a microeconomic level, yes. On a macroeconomic level, no. And infrastructure
is a macroeconomic issue.
> A consumer who makes a mistake
> pays for it himself; a voter who makes a mistake probably has no effect
> (i.e. his vote was not decisive) and if he does have an effect, everyone
> pays for it. So the incentive to avoid mistakes is much higher when
> functioning as a consumer (or seller, or ...) than as a voter.
This is counter-balanced by the fact that the voter has far better information
than the consumer. For example, Dow Corning knew that its breast implants leaked
silicon even as it was marketing them to millions of women. The lack of competition
in this market (as well as a with a lack of reporting in the media) provided no
critical information on silicon breast implants to inform consumers of the
risks. I think it's safe to say that the multi-million dollar ad campaigns
of corporations are designed to downplay, if not ignore, the shortcomings of their
products.
Compare that to our political process, where competition between candidates and
parties produces a mountain of critical information, all heavily reported
in the media. In fact, all you have to do is peruse any newspaper, magazine or
news show to know that politics gets infinitely more reporting than business.
So I would posit that the lesser incentive to make a mistake in voting (which is
a strange argument, especially considering the passions that politics arouse) is
counterbalanced by the availability of better information.
> > You are also assuming that the owner's idea of social utility is the same
> > as the democratic majority that would vote the road there.
>
> Certainly not. We have much better theoretical reasons to expect efficient
> outcomes from the market (subject to all the usual caveats) than from
> democratic voting. To get efficiency out of the latter, you pretty much
> need Coasian assumptions--which are sufficient, but not necessary, for the
> former.
Without a doubt, the market is more efficient at the microeconomic level, and even
perhaps in that blurring category between micro and macroeconomics. But I hold that
democratic government is far superior at truly macroeconomic issues. Laissez-faire
economies frequently sufferred depressions, for example. Under Keynesian government,
we have not had a depression in six decades. The free market refused to wire the
countryside for electricity. Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Administration did.
> > You are also assuming
> > that there is sufficient economic resources
>
> I don't know what that means, and doubt you do.
Let me specify: it means a pool of money to build all the highways necessary.
Either government collects it through taxes, or private companies through bank loans,
or whatever. But it takes an ungodly amount of money in the first place, and if
the sum is capriciously doubled through land holdouts, there is a question
of economic feasability.
> > and, perhaps even more importantly, the
> > economic will to pay the unnecessarily high demands of the landowners.
>
> If the road builder is not willing to pay the high demand of the
> landowners, then it is not in the interest of the landowners to make those
> demands. As I pointed out earlier, it is only in the case of strategic
> demands plus a mistake in bargaining that the argument gives inefficiency
> (actually there is another case, but nobody has raised it in the thread,
> so I will leave it as an exercise for the reader).
But it *is* in the interest of the landowner to make those "unreasonable" demands
if making a profit is not his ultimate goal, but attaching a price which he feels
matches his value of the land -- for example, wildlife conservation value,
or sentimental family value. This is not a mistake in this case. However,
the electorate might make these value judgments differently. Perhaps the
landowner is a crackpot who wants to hold his land because Elvis has promised
to visit him there.
> > Don't think it can happen? Let's talk about whether or not people would
> pay taxes if
> > they didn't have to...
>
> You are confusing the public good problem with the holdout problem. Each
> individual is correct in believing that he is better off not paying
> taxes--taking the behavior of others as given. So the refusal to
> voluntarily pay taxes follows from the same standard economic assumptions
> I have been using in this discussion.
Sigh. I knew I shouldn't have used a tax example with a libertarian. Look, I was trying
to use a different problem to highlight the same principle. The threshhold of
personal sacrifice for altruistic purposes is very high in many people, and
sometimes paradoxically results in the common good not getting done.
This is the point I feel you are not comprehending.
> Maybe you had better switch to sociology.
Maybe you had better study it. It's what your accountant's view of the world
singularly lacks.
Yes. It's more important to protect the land-owner's belief that Elvis will
visit him on his land than create a socially useful highway.
> B. The value of the land to the landowner is less than the savings, but
> the landowner mistakenly thought he could get more for his land than the
> builder was willing to pay, so bargaining broke down.
A market failure which eminent domain would correct.
> All of this depends, of course, on the conventional economic assumptions
> about human behavior, which you want to reject.
I don't know what *you* mean by "conventional economic assumptions about human
behavior," but I do know that economists make the worst kind of psychologists,
anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists. For example, economics
was the field that came up with that beautiful fallacy that "individual actors always
seek to maximize their earnings and savings," a fallacy whose psychological
equivalent would be "People always do what they think is best for themselves."
Yes, in the economist's world, people are not knowingly alcoholics, or self-destructive,
or procrastinating, or unable to finish projects, or irrational for whatever
reason. Economists have a mathematical model for human behavior, and if the real
world does not conform to it, then it must be those damned sociologists and their
flawed reports of how the world really works.
But hey, who am I to question an *economist's* understanding of the human
animal? What was I thinking? Where could my brain have been?
> Having rejected them for
> private actors, what is your basis for expecting government to behave in
> the way you want? Indeed, what is your basis for deciding how you would
> like it to behave?
Well, first of all, I prefer a much more accurate description of the behavior
of private actors. Although people are indeed primarily self-interested, altruism
does exist in people, both of the self-interested and genuine variety. Individuals are
indeed concerned with the common interest (to varying degrees; studies of identical
twins raised apart suggest it is genetic).
Switching to a more political argument, it is true that democratic government
struggles with all the same issues that the private sector does: information,
education, rationality, self-interest, common interest, etc. But democracy works
better than the market at the common interest because it is a more direct method
of influencing it. Market mechanisms are indirect at best, non-existent at worst.
The invisible hand suffers from countless externalities which really makes it a
blunt tool for acheiving maximum social utility. (Externalities like crime and
pollution.)
> > > I would have thought that describing someone as "an economist" on that
> > > basis was at least mildly misleading. A "student of economics" perhaps.
> >
> > And the fact that I emphasized economics in my B.A. degree and am going on to
> > study it in post-graduate school disturbs you somehow? I get the impression
> > that you would reject Darwin as a "biologist" because his degree was
> > actually in theology.
>
> Not at all. I am an economist, and my degrees are in physics and
> chemistry.
I see you are eminently qualified to comment on the social sciences and
the real world.
> I am not disturbed by your academic history or career plans. I
> am disturbed by what seems to me a dishonest claim of professional
> expertise.
I have never claimed to be a professional economist; I called myself that because
that is where my formal training is. But I have no problem changing my description
to "student of economics," if the issue seems to offend you so much. However,
I'm curious: what business hired you as an economist without any formal training
in the subject? If I'm not very much mistaken, only think tanks have such
lax standards.
>
> David Friedman
Steve Kangas
http://www.scruz.net/`kangaroo/
Lewis Cosper
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
>You are simply assuming that socialism, the use of violence to take
>what you want, is morally superior to capitalism, but when we see it
>in practice, Cambodia, Soviet Union, Catalonia, Cuba, we clearly see
>that this assumption is not merely false, but outrageous, monstrous,
>and brutal.
I think better than captalism........ Use private property
ownership.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
rap...@liberty.batnet.com (Glen Raphael) wrote:
>But in order to make the highway system work better, it is vital that some
>freeways NOT be built so that resources can be concentrated where there is
>the most need. In a private market, prices are able to demonstrate where
>the demand is and influence that the bottlenecks are found and fixed. But
>in the political market roads are built based on political clout rather
>than market demand. And so we get...gridlock.
Extremely well put.
s111...@aix1.uottawa.ca
David Friedman (dd...@best.com) wrote:
: I wrote:
: > |... The high-tech
: > |solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
: > |query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
: > |billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
: > |systems.
:
: David Michael Wright replied:
: > I really doubt this is practical.
: Why? A version was being used for automated toll collection for buses
: quite a while back. My source is an article by Ward Elliott
: (Claremont--I'm not sure which school); I'm afraid I am relying on memory
: so cannot give you a cite.
I think Digicash also implemented such a system in either Holland or Denmark,
with the added twist that the tokens are anonymous. It might be listed
somewhere in <http://www.digicash.com>.
David Friedman
In article <31CD9B...@scruznet.com>, Steve Kangas
<kang...@scruznet.com> wrote:
> Of course it's a net cost. Any inefficient
> allocation of resources is a net cost.
But you have not described an inefficient allocation of resources--merely
a transfer from one person to another. If you are going to use technical
terms such as "inefficient," you should first learn what they mean.
> But then, your calculating from a ledger
> and not the real world, aren't you?
No. Neither of us is "calculating from the real world;" we are arguing
about hypotheticals. I am using a well worked out theoretical structure,
which I think does a better job of describing the real world than any
available alternative, to do so. You are using the terminology of that
structure without, apparently, understanding it, while occasionally making
arguments about why the structure (conventional microeconomic theory) is
wrong--without offering any alternative structure that there is reason to
prefer.
> > Suppose someone offers you a job, doing the sort of thing you want, at
> > $40,000/year. Further suppose you would have accepted the job at
> > $30,000/year. By accepting the higher salary, are you exploiting your
> > employer? His customers?
>
> Exploiting their market ignorance, incompetence or inefficiency, yes.
But the landowner in our example is exploiting none of those things--why
are you changing the subject? He is attempting to get as much as possible
of the gain produced by converting his land into a freeway. Nothing in the
argument implies that the private firm assembling the strip of land
necessary to build a road is ignorant or incompetent ("their market
inefficiency" makes no sense, and suggests that you don't know what
economic efficiency means).
> If I
> sell a little old lady a lemon (as in car, not the fruit) for $1 million,
> and she gladly pays, am I not exploiting her ignorance?
Which has nonthing to do with the example we are considering--unlike my
examples which involve dividing the gains from trade.
> Ethics: since the owner's excess gain is from exploitation, it should be
> eliminated.
You have just assumed your conclusion. Why is it exploitation for the
landowner to get the gain from the transaction and not exploitation for
the road builder to get it?
> Economics: the land should go for whatever fair market value existed before
> the road company's proposal.
You are asserting your conclusion--you have offered no reason to think
that "the land should .... ." Much of the rest of what you say is along
the same lines. You assume that "The exploiter's gains are ill-gotten,"
which was one of the things I was asking you to show."
> And I would take a very long look at whatever moral/economic theory
prompted you to
> say "Injustice is not inefficiency." One of the first things they teach you in
> economics is that slave economies are inefficient economies...
individual worker
> productivity falls far below average. Furthermore, if I unfairly
underpay you for
> services rendered, then this is an economic imbalance, and a misallocation of
> resources. It is inefficient.
The question is not whether unjust acts sometimes lead to inefficient
results, but whether injustice and inefficiency are the same thing. They
aren't.
> Actually, I am sorry that I had to read a statement like "Injustice is not
> inefficiency."
It might make you try to think clearly about the words you are using, but
probably not.
> And I thought I made it clear that individuals are temporary, societies are
> permanent.
The "social stream" is simply the sum of individual streams. And the
stream of benefits that determines the landholder's reservation price
extends beyond his lifetime, as you should know if you have studied price
theory.
> I am sure this incoherent argument makes internal sense to you. You are
> claiming that the honest mistake of those who cited Dvorak shows that
> they were not trying to learn how the real world works. Even more
> improbably, you seem to be claiming that the countless other examples
> of path dependency which indisputably exist prove that these economists
> are not working in the real world, because its first example turned out
> to be mistaken.
1. I am claiming that the fact that the people who originally cited the
example accepted an urban legend without making any serious attempt to
verify any of their claims (see the Margolis and Liebowitz article) is
evidence that they were not very concerned with checking their theory
against real world evidence.
2. I don't know of "countless examples of path dependency which
indisputably exist." Indeed, I doubt there are any that *indisputably*
exist, although there are probably some plausible cases. The problem is
that most such arguments depend on someone's claim that a particular
technology would have worked well if only it had been tried, adequately
developed, etc. --when in fact it hasn't been. Such a claim is very
difficult to test.
Consider one example I am familiar with--the Wankel engine. For a long
time, it was argued that the design was inherently superior to a
reciprocating engine and would prove it if only someone was willing to
invest the large sums necessary to produce a practical mass production
version. NSU, and then on a much larger scale Mazda, produced wankel cars,
put lots of money into the technology--and ran into problems that caused
them to give up (I think they may still make one wankel sports car).
What was nice about the QWERTY/Dvorak example (or would be if it were
true) was that both technologies existed, and you could supposedly check
for yourself that the dominant one was much inferior to the other.
The important question is not whether path dependency exists but whether
it is important. If historical accident determines whether city A or city
B develops industry X, but only in circumstances where the cost of
production is almost identical in the two cities, then path dependency
exists but is unimportant. If historical accident determines whether
avocadoes are grown in central America or in Alaska (at vastly different
costs), on the other hand, then it provides a serious critique of the
standard neoclassical models.
> These examples of road building are early, anecdotal and few. One assumes that
> the reason why eminent domain came into existence in the first place --
and the
> reason why it is practiced so widely -- is because there was a need for it.
> Obviously, if private transactions had worked out well, we would be doing them
> today.
Do you have some theorem demonstrating that political institutions produce
efficient outcomes? If not, why do you take the fact that the law did
change in a certain way as evidence that it should have changed in that
way?
> > If consumers are irrational and have imperfect information, why does that
> > consistently lead to overvaluing their land? Wouldn't some of them
> > mistakenly demand too high a price and some too low?
>
> The mistakes tend to be all in the same direction (overvaluing) because
> people are self-interested. I would have thought this obvious, but,
apparently,
> no...
No. Overvaluing my land (i.e. overestimating how much I can get someone to
pay for it) is no more in my interest than undervaluing it.
> Without a doubt, the market is more efficient at the microeconomic
level, and even
> perhaps in that blurring category between micro and macroeconomics. But
I hold that
> democratic government is far superior at truly macroeconomic issues.
Laissez-faire
> economies frequently sufferred depressions, for example. Under Keynesian
government,
> we have not had a depression in six decades.
The U.S. has had a total of three depressions (i.e. contractions much more
serious than the sort of recessions we have had in the past fifty
years)--four if you count 1936 separately from 1932. The first one was the
result of the failure of the second Bank of the United States, an
institution created by the U.S. government. The third was the result of
the failure of the Federal Reserve system to do the things that it had
been set up to do, and that private actors had relied on its doing. That
leaves the 1890's as your sole (U.S.) example of a laissez-faire
depression.
> > > You are also assuming
> > > that there is sufficient economic resources
> > I don't know what that means, and doubt you do.
> Let me specify: it means a pool of money to build all the highways necessary.
The word "necessary" suggests that my doubt was justified. There isn't a
"necessary" amount of highways.
> Either government collects it through taxes, or private companies
through bank loans,
> or whatever. But it takes an ungodly amount of money in the first place,
and if
> the sum is capriciously doubled through land holdouts, there is a question
> of economic feasability.
But total expenditure on road building is a very small fraction of GNP, so
what does it mean to say that there are not sufficient economic resources?
> > If the road builder is not willing to pay the high demand of the
> > landowners, then it is not in the interest of the landowners to make those
> > demands. ...
> But it *is* in the interest of the landowner to make those
"unreasonable" demands
> if making a profit is not his ultimate goal, but attaching a price which
he feels
> matches his value of the land -- for example, wildlife conservation value,
> or sentimental family value. This is not a mistake in this case.
Nor does it lead to an inefficient outcome. You are confusing
"inefficient" with "different than the outcome the government would
produce."
> > A. The value of the land to the landowner is greater than the savings from
> > building the road through it, in which case the economic cost due to that
> > partigular zig is lower than the economic cost of the alternative (losing
> > the present use of the land).
>
> Yes. It's more important to protect the land-owner's belief that Elvis will
> visit him on his land than create a socially useful highway.
Why do you believe that individual's opinions about the value to them of
their property are a worse measure of its true value than the decisions of
a government about what it is worth to them? That is the assumption
running through your argument--and you have offered no justification for
it. Of course individuals can be wrong--but not very many of them value
their land as a place for Elvis to return to. Governments can be wrong--or
deliberately ignore values to people with inadequate political
influence--too. Here again, you are assuming your conclusion.
> > All of this depends, of course, on the conventional economic assumptions
> > about human behavior, which you want to reject.
>
> I don't know what *you* mean by "conventional economic assumptions about human
> behavior," but I do know that economists make the worst kind of psychologists,
> anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists. For example,
economics
> was the field that came up with that beautiful fallacy that "individual
actors always
> seek to maximize their earnings and savings,"
Nonsense. No economist believes that, or ever has. You are arguing against
a parody of economic theory.
In fact, it is an incoherent parody--you can't simultaneously maximize
both earnings and savings (since some expenditures, which reduce savings,
increase future earnings).
I can't tell if the fault is yours or your professors, but I get the
impresssion that you have been taught the critique of conventional
economic theory without every having been taught the theory. There are
serious problems with basing your views of a complicated set of ideas
entirely on accounts of them given by people who think they are wrong--as
you may have observed (in other directions) reading this news group.
> Well, first of all, I prefer a much more accurate description of the behavior
> of private actors. Although people are indeed primarily self-interested,
altruism
> does exist in people, both of the self-interested and genuine variety.
Individuals are
> indeed concerned with the common interest (to varying degrees; studies
of identical
> twins raised apart suggest it is genetic).
Indeed--and both Gary Becker and Howard Margolis have written theories,
within the conventional economic framework, that take account of altruism.
But you seem to be assuming that adding a little altruism to the equation
automatically solves the standard public choice problems--which I do not
believe is correct, or even close to correct.
> I have never claimed to be a professional economist; I called myself
that because
> that is where my formal training is. But I have no problem changing my
description
> to "student of economics," if the issue seems to offend you so much. However,
> I'm curious: what business hired you as an economist without any formal
training
> in the subject? If I'm not very much mistaken, only think tanks have such
> lax standards.
So far, the list of my employers includes the economics departments of
VPI, UCLA and University of Santa Clara, the business schools of Tulane
and University of Chicago, and the law schools of Chicago, Cornell, and
University of Santa Clara. You will find my CV, and some of my published
articles, at http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Academic.html.
In the interests of consistency, you should make up your mind which side
of the credentialist argument you are on. You were the one who wrote: "I
get the impression that you would reject Darwin as a "biologist" because
his degree was actually in theology." Now you are taking precisely the
position you attributed to me--objecting that I must be unqualified in the
field because I don't have the standard credentials.
David Friedman
Tym Parsons
>Yes, the cost gets shifted, but there is a reason to do so. A completely
>similar thing happened under Rurual Electrification. When Roosevelt first
>started this program, the free market saw no profit motive to wire the
>countryside with electricity. In 1935, only 13 percent of all farms had
>electricity. Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Administration began
>correcting this market failure; by 1970, more than 95 percent of all farms
>would have electricity, almost all of them thanks to the REA.
"Market failure" = a refusal of the market to grant the unearned or
undeserved.
>Prior to the REA, American agriculture had been suffering depressed times
>for decades. But today our agricutural sector feeds not only America,
>but the world.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Tym Parsons
David Michael Wright
In article <31CD04...@surf-ici.com>, <m...@surf-ici.com> wrote:
|David Michael Wright wrote:
|>
|> In article <d17_960...@rational.vaxxine.com>,
|> Lazarus Long <2-100-1!Lazaru...@rational.vaxxine.com> wrote:
|> |da...@cats.ucsc.edu pontificated in a message to All:
|> |
|> |dc> From: da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright)
|
|> | And the collective should overrule the individual's right to
|> | their property?
|>
|> Yes.
|
|So "the collective" some how has a right to tell my whether or not
|I can eat my own candy bar?
No.
|Ouch. I'd like to tie this in to your latter response.
?
|> |dc> I think the fact is that most people do not want roads built
|> |dc> anywhere near their property, especially in a city. In an area with
|> |dc> few roads, you may have a point, but that is simply because they are
|> |dc> scarce and the problems with them have not arose.
|> |
|> | Most people prefer to have access to their property.
|>
|> People do have access to their property. They don't want access to
|> Freeways in their backyard.
|
|I want access to a freeway in my back yard. I just don't want the freeway
|*in* my backyard.
|Now a free market solution to this is to pay me money for the privilage of putting
|the road in my yard (similar to eminant domain except that I have a choice in the
|matter)
|
|Your "collective" approach (see above) is to just put it in my back yard or put it
|in the back yard of the folks who lost the last political battle.
|
|
|Your method will certainly work. It just doesn't seem
|friendly.
And you prefer the market approach than the political approach? Now
that seems a might unfriendly to me, and irrational, if one is
planning a road network that is rational, and designed to lessen
gridlock, and move people efficiently.
David Michael Wright
In article <4qkv2o$f...@mercury.cc.uottawa.ca>,
<s111...@aix1.uottawa.ca> wrote:
|David Friedman (dd...@best.com) wrote:
|: In article <4qfup1$l...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, da...@cats.ucsc.edu () wrote:
|
|: I wrote:
|
|: > |... The high-tech
|: > |solution is a transponder in the car, which answers the short range radio
|: > |query "which car is that" with "car number XXXXXX..;" the owner is then
|: > |billed for his highway use. And yes, there are real world examples of both
|: > |systems.
|:
|: David Michael Wright replied:
|
|: > I really doubt this is practical.
|
|: Why? A version was being used for automated toll collection for buses
|: quite a while back. My source is an article by Ward Elliott
|: (Claremont--I'm not sure which school); I'm afraid I am relying on memory
|: so cannot give you a cite.
The reason it is not practical is because it is not being done. There
is no reason why toll boths could not be converted to such a system if
it was cost effective.
Michael Kolb
Transponders for toll collection are very much in use. For the
latest information on "Electronic Toll Collection" refer to:
http://village.ios.com/~mkolb/etc.html
Mike :-)
David Michael Wright
In article <4qsmt8$k...@news.aimnet.com>, Koro <ksa...@easyaccess.com> wrote:
|On 22 Jun 1996 04:58:47 GMT, da...@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael
You are truly nuts.
David Michael Wright
In article <4qsn7p$k...@news.aimnet.com>, Koro <ksa...@easyaccess.com> wrote:
|It's been 3 days (and it'll be four when I send this tomorow) since
|the previous post from David Friedman. Run out of ideas Steve? Or
|are you doing research? Why is it that Steve Kangas and David Michael
|Wright start all of the arguments in this thread (and elsewhere) and
|we *end* all of the arguments in this thread. David Friedman is
|usually the last poster in the sub-threads and it seems that his
|opposition either gets sick and tired of him (which is unlikely, for
|they keep on comming back) or they just "lost" (if it's possible to
|loose a debate) the argument. Interesting patern they hold up.
|
|No offense intended to Kangas and Wright, it's just an observation.
| KORO
You are making ridiculous claims, such as not minding living near
freeways, or that the Pensalvania Turnpike in the 19th century is
more dangerous than it is today.
Steve Reed
>Stavros N. Karageorgis <kara...@ucla.edu> wrote:
>>This is really confused. How exactly does the U.S.P.S. make competition
>>illegal? Explain please? What is it that you are not allowed to do with DHL
>>or FED-EX etc because U.S.P.S. prohibits it?
In the simplest terms, only the USPS can legally carry "letters." As Paul
partly elaborates:
>The last time I checked (a few years ago), the USPS had a legally imposed
>monopoly on delivery of first-class mail. Various private delivery
>services (such as UPS, FedEx, etc) were allowed to compete with delivery
>of packages, express mail, etc., but not with the delivery of "routine"
>letters.
Under the strict technical rules, any legally defined "letter," that is not
"of an urgent nature" to qualify under special rules, cannot be carried by
non-USPS companies. This calls for, strictly construed, a regime of opening
and examining FedEx, etc. packages to examine the nature of their contents.
In rightful fear of its P.R. image, and to avoid a challenge on First and
Fourth Amendment grounds to its monopoly, the USPS hasn't pursued this with
much vigor. It's had spasms of random checks of FedEx, etc. packages, and
occasional fines to mailers and FedEx, etc., but none have been undertaken in
the last five years. The USPS has figured that it would do better using the
First-Class Mail monopoly profits to underwrite advertising for its Express
Mail "alternative" to FedEx, etc.
Of course, if the USPS monopoly were repealed in law, instead of merely in
fact, prices at FedEx, etc. would fall sharply. Part of their price difference
above USPS First-Class Mail is maintained as a pseudo-legal shield from
prosecution, following past case law over what is "urgent" letter mail.
"Parcels," as defined in the law, never were placed under the USPS monopoly.
Thus UPS and others have been operating freely and wholly *de jure* for many
decades now. UPS used to be oh-so-law-abiding and demand that you declare if
you included a note with a Christmas gift, so as to pay USPS letter postage
for it separately on the outside of the parcel. They dropped that insistence
over 15 years ago.
>(I don't remember the exact boundaries of the USPS legal monopoly. But
>there definitely are certain categories of mail that the private
>commercial services are forbidden to carry. Of course, if the laws have
>changed since I last checked, then my information may be out of date.)
The Private Express Statutes will have been in effect for 150 years, next
Spring, so I doubt you missed much of a budge from inertia, Paul. :) They
granted the monopoly on First-Class "letters" to the USPOD after Lysander
Spooner, a profound libertarian theorist, took away nearly half the USPOD's
business in many East Coast cities with his faster, more courteous, and 80%
cheaper American Letter Mail Company.
Of course, since we are blessed with not having the telephone system under the
heel of the post office, unlike most people in Europe (except Britain and
Germany, now privatized), the USPS doesn't have one silly thing to do with
faxes or e-mail. Which is why the Private Express Statutes won't survive the
century. The dwindling business, especially when on-line bill payment gets
going, will be too small for any government to handle. I'd give it five years,
more or less.
§ § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § § §
Steve Reed ... jsr...@interaccess.com
Piece of Sky Consulting, Chicago
Windows assistance and fine type crafting
Nicholas Rich
>The Private Express Statutes will have been in effect for 150 years, next
>Spring, so I doubt you missed much of a budge from inertia, Paul. :) They
>granted the monopoly on First-Class "letters" to the USPOD after Lysander
>Spooner, a profound libertarian theorist, took away nearly half the USPOD's
>business in many East Coast cities with his faster, more courteous, and 80%
>cheaper American Letter Mail Company.
What's remarkable is that in all the talk over the years concerning
privatation of the postal system, I never heard mention of Spooner or what he
did--until a few days ago when reading "The Machinery of Freedom," by "our
own" David Friedman.
Did some checking on the net, and found Spooner's book, "No Treason" at the
following link:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/NoTreason/NoTreason.html
>Of course, since we are blessed with not having the telephone system under the
>heel of the post office, unlike most people in Europe (except Britain and
>Germany, now privatized), the USPS doesn't have one silly thing to do with
>faxes or e-mail. Which is why the Private Express Statutes won't survive the
>century. The dwindling business, especially when on-line bill payment gets
>going, will be too small for any government to handle. I'd give it five years,
>more or less.
Yes! I've been waiting for years for companies to catch on to how much it
would reduce their costs by offering customers the option of receiving their
bills/invoices by email.
I've used Check Free for about 4 years now. Takes me under 5 minutes every
month to pay all of my bills using the Quicken/Check Free combination.
--
Nicholas Rich Sachs, Savage & Noble
nr...@ss-n.com a...@ss-n.com
Take the legal system away from the lawyers - http://www.ss-n.com
(and make money doing it - http://www.ss-n.com/affiliat.htm)
"We have no demands to present to you, no bargains to strike, no
compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you."
-- Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED
David Friedman
>Prior to the REA, American agriculture had been suffering depressed times
>for decades. But today our agricutural sector feeds not only America,
>but the world.
I think if you check in _Historical Statistics of the U.S._ you will find
that the U.S. was a major agricultural exporter from at least the mid-19th
century on.
David Friedman
Mike Huben
Once again, in Glen's topsy-turvy world of libertarian theory, we see the
assumptions of perfect market operation and totally corrupt government
operation. Since we all know that this is the way the world works, why
of course Glen HAS to be right. ( )-: for the sarcasm-impaired.)
Roads have a well-known set of market failures associated with them, not
least of which are their strong public-good component, high startup costs,
high transaction costs (though technology is reducing this), externalities,
tendency towards natural monopoly, etc.
Now, if all government-built roads were built based only on political clout,
why then we might see a really pathological system of roads, as Glen suggests.
But let's let the REAL WORLD intrude on Glen's fantasies: what proportion of
road building is controlled by political clout, and what proportion is
more rationally selected by highway planning departments?
Of course, Glen is trying to presume a fantasy comparison: there is no state
or nation with fully privatized road systems. Here and there, there are a
few experimental private toll roads, and some residential neighborhood,
rural, and private property roads are privately financed. But we do not see
market demand operate in the residential neighborhoods: there's no
competition. The privatized toll roads rely heavily on government-created
rights of way (created with emminent domain). So the libertarian fantasy
Glen proposes doesn't even match the real-world private roads.
In the millennia-long history of road building, private road ownership and
market-based production has never adequately addressed the demand for roads.
The ONLY notable road-building successes in recorded history have been by
governments. It's remotely possible that modern billing technology applied
to controlled access roads might change this, by allowing privatization, but
it's not clear why that would be desirable. One might as well poison the
air and charge for gas masks in order to privatize it.
Mike Huben mhu...@world.std.com http://world.std.com/~mhuben/
(Check out the improved Critiques Of Libertarianism web page. The URL is
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html)
I think it must be conceded that it is possible to create a society in which
the response to market failure is not a swing to socialism, but an
exacerbation of individual efforts to stay ahead by making and spending yet
more money. Does the public health service have long waiting lists and
inadequate facilities? Buy private insurance. Has public transport broken
down? Buy a car for each member of the family above driving age. Has the
countryside been built over or the footpaths eradicated? Buy some elaborate
exercise machinery and work out at home. Is air pollution intolerable? Buy
an air-filtering unit and stay indoors. Is what comes out of the tap foul to
the taste and chock-full of carcinogens? Buy bottled water. And so on. We
know it can all happen because it has: I have been doing little more than
describing Southern California.
Now it is worth noticing two things about the private substitutes that I
have described. The first is that in the aggregate they are probably much
more expensive than would be the implementation of the appropriate public
policy. The second is that they are extremely poor replacements for the
missing outcomes of good public policy. Nevertheless, it is plain that the
members of a society can become so alienated from one another, so
mistrustful of any form of collective action, that they prefer to go it
alone.
Brian Barry, The Continuing Relevance of Socialism
Tomm Carr
>
> In article <31CD04...@surf-ici.com>, <m...@surf-ici.com> wrote:
> |Now a free market solution to this is to pay me money for the privilage of putting
> |the road in my yard (similar to eminant domain except that I have a choice in the
> |matter)
> |
> |Your "collective" approach (see above) is to just put it in my back yard or put it
> |in the back yard of the folks who lost the last political battle.
> |
> |Your method will certainly work. It just doesn't seem
> |friendly.
>
> And you prefer the market approach than the political approach? Now
> that seems a might unfriendly to me, and irrational, if one is
> planning a road network that is rational, and designed to lessen
> gridlock, and move people efficiently.
All the statists' argument boils down to is this: because someone *may* refuse
to sell their property so the road can be built and there are *never* viable
alternatives in such a case, we must take away the freedom of *everyone* so we
don't even have to face the problem.
Ah, Freedom. We claim to hold it so dear yet we sell it so cheaply.
In this case, we sold it to avoid a *possible* inconvenience.
--
Tomm Carr ----- This originated from alt.philosophy.objectivism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Existence is independent of perception; )
Ignorance does not subtract from reality. (
Nonexistence is independent of desire; )
Wishing does not add to reality. (
Kyle Haight
>
>The last time I checked (a few years ago), the USPS had a legally imposed
>monopoly on delivery of first-class mail. Various private delivery
>services (such as UPS, FedEx, etc) were allowed to compete with delivery
>of packages, express mail, etc., but not with the delivery of "routine"
>letters.
>
>there definitely are certain categories of mail that the private
>commercial services are forbidden to carry. Of course, if the laws have
>changed since I last checked, then my information may be out of date.)
Although this is more minor than the above, I belive it is also
illegal for anyone not a USPS worker to deposit mail into the
mailboxes people maintain on their property.
--
Kyle Haight
kha...@netcom.com
"We are mice, posting to Usenet in the first stages of a complex plan
to Take Over The WORLD!"
Griff Miller
It is being done - here in Houston the toll roads have a system called
EZ-Tag. You place a thingy on your windshield. When you get to a toll
booth, you just zip right through and don't even stop. You get billed
at the end of the month based upon your usage. This system has been
in place at least 2 years.
Followups set.
--
Griff Miller "Keep my mind on higher things; keep my
Systems Administrator '95 Z-28 mind on truth."
Positron Corporation '85 VF1100S
griff....@positron.com My opinions are mine, not Positron's.
Jimmy Wales
>>> |... There is
>>> |a reason why the U.S. Post Office is only able to stay in business by
>>> |making competition illegal.
Stavros N. Karageorgis <kara...@ucla.edu> wrote:
>This is really confused. How exactly does the U.S.P.S. make competition
>illegal? Explain please? What is it that you are not allowed to do with DHL or
>FED-EX etc because U.S.P.S. prohibits it?
Stavros, you might want to do a bit of homework on this.
What is it that you are not allowed to do? Go into business delivering
first-class mail! It is *illegal* to do so, it is *illegal* to compete
with the U.S.P.S.. That's just a simple fact.
Contrary to the claims made by the post office, this is a *very*
lucrative business. A close look at the fundamentals suggests
that private competitors would provide universal coverage at cheaper
rates with quicker delivery.
--Jimbo
Tim
: You are simply assuming that socialism, the use of violence to take
: what you want, is morally superior to capitalism, but when we see it
: in practice, Cambodia, Soviet Union, Catalonia, Cuba, we clearly see
: that this assumption is not merely false, but outrageous, monstrous,
: and brutal.
You mean, *everywhere*. EVERY country has got TAXES! NOWHERE has the kind of
economy you suggest!
Goodbye!
*plonk*
--
_____ _ ---- Tim Sweetman, Keele University, England ----
|_ _(_)_ __ ___ http://www.keele.ac.uk/socs/ks27/people/tim.html
| | | | '_ ` _ \ "...the truth is, they're happier when they're
| | | | | | | | | in pain / In fact, that's why they got married."
|_| |_|_| |_| |_| ---- Lou Reed, "Endless Cycle"
Tim
: As for the idea of private operation of roads CAUSING gridlock, I think
: somebody has missed the whole point. The main reason we have gridlock
: during peak periods is that the current owner of the roads -- the
: government -- has no incentive to manage them well.
Duh. Don't you think people might *vote* for a government that sorted out
gridlock?
Steve Kangas
'Tis true. I stand corrected. My point should have been that agricultural
productivity jumped after rural electrification.
Steve Kangas
http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/
John Alway
Nicholas Rich wrote:
> Yes! I've been waiting for years for companies to catch on to how much it
> would reduce their costs by offering customers the option of receiving their
> bills/invoices by email.
> I've used Check Free for about 4 years now. Takes me under 5 minutes every
> month to pay all of my bills using the Quicken/Check Free combination.
I think the problem was low market saturation. Percentage
wise there weren't that many people who had email access just
a few years ago, so it wasn't so obviously profitable for
businesses. Today, many more people have computers, and
internet access, so it can work. Then, there is also direct
dial to a bbs.
One business I would love to see using this technology
is the grocery business. Imagine, an online menu of all the
food stuffs you can buy. You check off what you want, mail
the list in, and they load the bags for you and charge it
to your account. All you have to do is log on, see if the
groceries are ready, then go by and pick them up. Grocery
shopping is a headache, that would be a huge improvement.
...John
--
___________________________________________________________________
\_The most formidable weapon against errors of any kind is Reason._\
/_I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.__________/
\_____________________________________________________Thomas Paine_\
/__John Alway jal...@icsi.net______________________________________/
Steve Reed
John Alway <jal...@icsi.net> writes:
>One business I would love to see using this technology
>is the grocery business. Imagine, an online menu of all the
>food stuffs you can buy. You check off what you want, mail
>the list in, and they load the bags for you and charge it
>to your account. All you have to do is log on, see if the
>groceries are ready, then go by and pick them up. Grocery
>shopping is a headache, that would be a huge improvement.
Jewel Food Stores offers precisely this service in San Francisco and Chicago.
It's called "Peapod," and runs off of GUI software provided for either Mac or
Windows. Pictures of almost all items are available, the Nutrition Facts panel
is always available, unit-price calculations appear automatically, you can
specify grades/sizes/appearances for produce, alternatives can be listed.
Standard shopping lists can be stored. Shoppers are hired who work exclusively
to assemble the orders. Any dissatisfaction as to quality or inaccurate orders
is made good that day.
The system is set up for delivery of the groceries, at user-specified times,
and at rates that are competitive for city deliveries -- though using this on
a regular basis requires a Yuppie income to justify those fees. Being a
self-employed insomniac, I have both the need to conserve funds and the
ability to shop a 24-hour Jewel at an uncrowded 1:00 am that allow me to
resist the blandishments of this service. But it works well for others I know.
Jewel now is pitching it to corporate clients, for their buffets and other
on-premise functions, and they need it even more than individuals. Expansion
to other cities is in the works.
HENRY E. KILPATRICK JR.
ress,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.misc,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show,ca.politics,tx.politics,ny.politics
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References: <31CF2B...@library.iupui.edu>
Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
Distribution:
Tym Parsons (tpar...@library.iupui.edu) wrote:
: Steve Kangas wrote:
: >Yes, the cost gets shifted, but there is a reason to do so. A completely
: >similar thing happened under Rurual Electrification. When Roosevelt first
: >started this program, the free market saw no profit motive to wire the
: >countryside with electricity. In 1935, only 13 percent of all farms had
: >electricity. Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Administration began
: >correcting this market failure; by 1970, more than 95 percent of all farms
: >would have electricity, almost all of them thanks to the REA.
: "Market failure" = a refusal of the market to grant the unearned or
: undeserved.
Obviously you are not an economist. Stop pretending to know what you
don't.
Go look up the word "externality" in Palgrave or some other economics
dictionary and report back to us.
: >Prior to the REA, American agriculture had been suffering depressed times
: >for decades. But today our agricutural sector feeds not only America,
: >but the world.
: Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Industrial policy.
--
Buddy K
VOTE FOR ART GOODTIMES
San Miguel County, CO
Commissioner
HENRY E. KILPATRICK JR.
rian,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.usa.congress,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.misc,alt.economics.austrian-school,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show,ca.politics,tx.politics,ny.politics,sa.republican
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References: <mcculloch-160...@newshost.cc.utexas.edu> <d17_960...@rational.vaxxine.com> <4qftna$k...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> <31CD04...@surf-ici.com> <4qqjl9$s...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> <31D304...@aol.com>
Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
Distribution:
Tomm Carr (tomm...@aol.com) wrote:
: David Michael Wright wrote:
: >
: > In article <31CD04...@surf-ici.com>, <m...@surf-ici.com> wrote:
: > |Now a free market solution to this is to pay me money for the privilage of putting
: > |the road in my yard (similar to eminant domain except that I have a choice in the
: > |matter)
: > |
: > |Your "collective" approach (see above) is to just put it in my back yard or put it
: > |in the back yard of the folks who lost the last political battle.
: > |
: > |Your method will certainly work. It just doesn't seem
: > |friendly.
: >
: > And you prefer the market approach than the political approach? Now
: > that seems a might unfriendly to me, and irrational, if one is
: > planning a road network that is rational, and designed to lessen
: > gridlock, and move people efficiently.
: All the statists' argument boils down to is this: because someone *may* refuse
: to sell their property so the road can be built and there are *never* viable
: alternatives in such a case, we must take away the freedom of *everyone* so we
: don't even have to face the problem.
All the utopian looneytarians' argument boils down to is this: despite
the lack of prohibition against building private roads and the interest of
budget-strapped governments in seeing them built, the fact that we see
almost nobody building them, except the one that was built in this country
in the last decade (the Dulles extension in Northern VA), which was built
using government powers of eminent domain & is losing money at present,
means only that somewhere, somehow, government must be oppressing the
private road builders.
: Ah, Freedom. We claim to hold it so dear yet we sell it so cheaply.
: In this case, we sold it to avoid a *possible* inconvenience.
It must be nice to be a looneytarian living in a fantasy world. Well,
sport, as the airline ad says, Delta is ready when you are. Take the next
flight to a land that gives you the freedom you want.
: ... Wishing does not add to reality.
Something you should take to heart.
Dan McIntyre
The difference between the U.S.P.S. and it's competition (UPS, FED EX,
DHL, ETC.) is that the U.S.P.S. doesn't have to make a profit which makes
it easier for them to give the consumer a lower rate of service.
HENRY E. KILPATRICK JR.
ress,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.misc,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show,ca.politics,tx.politics,ny.politics
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References: <31CF2B...@library.iupui.edu> <ddfr-27069...@ddfr.vip.best.com> <31D6D1...@scruznet.com>
Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
Distribution:
Steve Kangas (kang...@scruznet.com) wrote:
: David Friedman wrote:
: >
: > Steve Kangas wrote:
: >
: > >Prior to the REA, American agriculture had been suffering depressed times
: > >for decades. But today our agricutural sector feeds not only America,
: > >but the world.
: >
: > I think if you check in _Historical Statistics of the U.S._ you will find
: > that the U.S. was a major agricultural exporter from at least the mid-19th
: > century on.
: >
: > David Friedman
: >
: > --
: > dd...@best.com
: 'Tis true. I stand corrected. My point should have been that agricultural
: productivity jumped after rural electrification.
But US agriculture has been helped by government "industrial policy" ever
since the Morrell Act of 1862 established land grant colleges and
government funded agricultural research (which may have been a few years
later, but started in the 1860s also. Our agricultural system has well
over a century of government involvement.
--
Buddy K