Freedomain Radio

I was listening to a description of how an anarchistic system would deal with crime.  The general idea seemed to be that since EVERYTHING is owned, and perfect information is always available, that a criminal would have no where to go.  Their DRO would drop their coverage which would instantly render them a prisoner in their own home, assuming they owned their home.  They wouldn't be able to walk to streets because someone would own the street (pay for upkeep, charge for use) and that someone would immediately know that a non-DRO-covered person was attempting to use their street.  They would be evicted and, presumable, would have to stand on the border between two different streets without being allowed into either.

No one mentioned this that I saw, but maybe a company would be paid for transporting criminals outside the borders of the anarchistic area.  Whatever.

The point is that EVERYTHING is apparently owned.  I'll ignore the problem of the free flow of perfect and immediate information for now.

I don't think that's possible.  How would a street owner make a profit off of owning a residential street?  Who would pay for it?  Would anyone who wanted to pass through the area have to pay a toll?  Would the people who lived on the street pay for it and charge their houseguests a fee for visiting them?  If someone's car broke down on the street would they have to pay a fee for the entire time it was left there awaiting repairs?

No, I think that just like the DRO system consciously assumes a free flow of information it unconsciously assumes a free flow of things.  I think that it would be too inefficient to have the avenues upon which things flow from high concentration to low concentration be a series of individually owned toll roads.  I think the roads, for lack of a better term, would be a no-man's-land.  I don't think anyone would own them. 

Perhaps a roving company would maintain the roads.  They would only repair the roads outside the shops/homes that paid them.  If no one pays, the road that feeds their area would slowly become impassable and business would bypass them.  Of course, this opens up the question of other things that, rather then being publicly owned, are simply not owned at all.

That is exactly right, I applaud your thinking process!

As I talk about in my free book Practical Anarchy, no individual is intelligent enough to accurately predict how an optimized society of voluntary interactions would operate in the future - that is like asking someone what the architecture of a computer chip will look like - down to the last detail - in 100 years...

My suggestions are just possible icebreakers are about how things might work in a stateless society - if you can come up with better ways, then you would be free to compete on the free market and provides these improved services to customers.

Finding flaws with my possible solutions - of which there are many I am sure - is an excellent thought exercise, since it actually reinforces the value of anarchism. Criticizing Microsoft is actually praising the free market, since everyone is welcome to provide superior alternatives, in a way that is largely impossible under a coercive and monoplistic statist system.

Anarchists cannot be certain about any future solutions to complex social problems, except to say that a coercive and violent monopoly is not a viable "solution." A parallel to this would be that I cannot be certain who my son will end up falling in love with, but I am certain that if his girlfriend beats him, it will not be love that he experiences...

Stefan Molyneux:

Anarchists cannot be certain about any future solutions to complex social problems, except to say that a coercive and violent monopoly is not a viable "solution."

Not viable, huh?  Wanna point out all the successful anarchist areas for me?  Do you currently live in one?  If the answer is no, why don't you move to one?

Anywho.  I think that you need more support for your ideas than "we don't have to explain them."

I have yet to see or invent a mechanism in anarchy which will retard the natural human inclination towards lying, cheating and stealing.  So, at this point, anarchy requires that people voluntarily be good.  However, if people were voluntarily good it wouldn't matter what system they were living in.  A state system would be just as benign as an anarchist one.  It actually seems to me that anarchy would encourage all the worst in people because I don't think you will ever be able to create a system that collects and distributes perfect information instantly.

You could well be right of course, and so people can continue to support violent institutions such as the state, because they are concerned about potential imperfections in information transfers, but I myself will continue to bend my energies exploring non-violent social solutions, because I think working to end war, for instance, is more important than worrying about software bugs and possible data incompleteness.

Time will tell which is the best course...

Also, of course, since I have written free books containing detailed arguments about anarchism and moral theories, the more accurate explanation is not "I don't want to explain them" but rather "you don't want to read them."

blueback:

I don't think that's possible.  How would a street owner make a profit off of owning a residential street?  Who would pay for it?  Would anyone who wanted to pass through the area have to pay a toll?  Would the people who lived on the street pay for it and charge their houseguests a fee for visiting them?  If someone's car broke down on the street would they have to pay a fee for the entire time it was left there awaiting repairs?

Why does every street have to be a profit-making venture? I see lots of people with driveways who don't set up tollbooths on the ends of them. People might just have them put in because they want them.

More importantly, why do we need to give all the possible options that millions and millions of people might choose? Some people might put in and maintain streets out of the goodness of their hearts, others might wall them off for the sheer pleasure of seeing a street enclosed in walls.

Nasikabatrachus:

Some people might put in and maintain streets out of the goodness of their hearts, others might wall them off for the sheer pleasure of seeing a street enclosed in walls.

Do you really fail to see how useless an answer this is?

What is so hard about TRYING?  How can you be so sure that anarchy will work when you are so un-sure about exactly how?  Why do you feel like you have to defend the idea with rhetoric instead of logic?

 For a self-described "shiny" philosopher you make a lot of errors.

Stefan Molyneux:

people can continue to support violent institutions such as the state, because they are concerned about potential imperfections in information transfers

This is called "our best against their worst" and is a transparent attempt to compare the best qualities of one idea against the worst qualities of another idea.  You are pretending that the problem I brought up is a minor, potentially non-existent issue while the one you have brought up is obvious, horrible, and insurmountable.  Your own description of yourself is better than that; try to live up to it.

Since information transfer will be so vital to the success of an anarchist system it will also be a point of failure.  What if people start paying for better reviews?  Or to have negative information removed from their record?  How will you ensure that the information remains untouched and impartial; not to mention avoiding mistakes in the first place.  I think it will simply become a new form of bribe.  Everyone will include "bribe for good information" in their cost of doing business.  Of course, this will mean that people don't actually have the information you assumed they would, so how will the system work?

blueback:

What is so hard about TRYING?  How can you be so sure that anarchy will work when you are so un-sure about exactly how?  Why do you feel like you have to defend the idea with rhetoric instead of logic?

These loaded questions make me angry. You have ignored a full half of my post, which showed the premise behind many of your questions--that roads are only profit oriented business ventures--to be absurd. 

I will not debate with someone who doesn't want a debate. Goodbye.

The questions only sound "loaded" because you apparently have no idea how to answer them.  I don't personally care whether or not you have the answers.  I'm just interested in the puzzle of trying to construct an anarchistic system.  I am also bothered by the fact that everyone seems to be certain anarchy will work "in general" but no one can answer my questions when I ask about something specific.  Well, this is the half of your post I didn't specifically respond to.

Nasikabatrachus:

Why does every street have to be a profit-making venture?

I didn't say it would be.  I said it would be owned.  The point is that no one has made a provision for public ownership, which means everything would have to be privately owned or not owned at all. 

Nasikabatrachus:

  I see lots of people with driveways who don't set up tollbooths on the ends of them.

Right.  Do you really expect me to respond to this?  This is just an observation; it gets us no closer to figuring out how an anarchis system would work.

Nasikabatrachus:

 People might just have them put in because they want them.

Again, this is an observation that people "might do something" simply because they "want to."  Where is the application to the topic?

Nasikabatrachus:

 More importantly, why do we need to give all the possible options that millions and millions of people might choose?

 You don't.  You just need to give one option that is consistent with all the other options you propose.  You're the one who thinks it will work.  WHY do you think it will work? 

blueback:

However, if people were voluntarily good it wouldn't matter what system they were living in.

Violence causes violence, hence, people can't be generally good in a coercive system, with all the propaganda and corruption around them. Read Practical Anarchy, before you step. If people were voluntarily good, they wouldn't need a government, since there'd be no need of control. If you think they can't be good, then again, government is out of the question. Read Practical Anarchy.

All of your questions are valid.  They are some of the first questions I had many years ago.  Remember, none of us here were born into Anarchist thought, so we didn't get here by defacto process like most statists.  The journey here for most of us was wrought with scepticism and questioning and reason and logic.  So please assume that any question you have, we've also had.

So to save time for everyone, instead of spending 3 days posting explainations/rebuttals/explainations ad infinitum, I think you should read/listen the following books because they'll answer all of those questions and more.

 Check out Everyday Anarchy, then Practical Anarchy.

They are free and entertaining.

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I think I can generalize your question to:  "How will the free market supply X?" 

This "X" is usually roads, courts, laws, schools, defense.

If X is desired it will most likely be supplied.

(If it is not desired by the majority then why would anyone support democracy?).

There is no one answer to "how" X will be provided.  Economic systems are too complex to plan. Only independant actors can rationally allocate resources in the 'best' way.

So that explains our reluctance to tell you how the road info will be provided, it's dictitorial and smacks of hubris.

      I think one possible solution would be for many roads to be toll roads, and I don't think that this is such a ridiculous scenario. Remember, right now, all roads are toll roads, most are just payed for off site through taxation. The illusion that they are free to the public is created by seperating cost from delivery, but you are still paying to drive on the roads under the current system.

     Under an anarcho-capitalist system, some roads would be payed for locally by businesses who have a vested interest in increasing traffic to their stores. Roads in commercial districts would then probably be payed for jointly by the businesses in those areas who would share the cost and then pass it along to their customers in the form of price increases. This is happening already, as whatever taxation businesses incur is always passed on to customers.

     In purely residential areas homeowners would probably share the cost of the roads and would pay some fee to have companies maintain and improve those roads on a regular basis. Some of these costs would be offset by charging tolls for people moving through the area who did not live there and used to contribute to the maintenance of the roads. The rest of the cost would be shared by people living in the area, and while any homeowner would certainly have the right not to help pay for the roads, he would then be charged a toll at the higher non-resident rate.

     Other roads would probably be wholly owned by private concerns who would set and collect fees for their use. They would of course maintain and improve their roads on a regular basis, or else their customers may choose to take an alternate path to their destination, in effect selecting their competitors roads over their own.

     The thing to remember when discussing the issue of roads is that you must already pay for their use, and that the cost of using a road to any one customer is very small. Frequent users of certain roads would probably receive some type of discount. Those who used them for commercial purposes, such as pizza guys and couriers, would probably pass on their cost to the customer, or contract with the owner of the road for passage for all agents of their company over a certain amount of time for a set price. There are many different possibilities, and more than likely, there would be many different practices.

     As for the collection of tolls, that would seem relatively simple. Private roads would be monitored by the owner, he would confirm the identity of the people using his roads, contact them, and arrange payment. Most people would probably pay a user fee per a set distance electronically via debit card or EFT. Others might arrange for bulk purchase of rights of passage, and there would probably be some allowance for delayed payment within a reasonable time. Anyone who failed to pay for the use would be subject to higher rates in the future, possible litigation, and possibly denial of service.

     I can't emphasize enough, you are already paying for the roads. The idea that they would all be toll roads offends so many because they think the roads are free. They are not. They are owned. They are maintained. This would be no different. The difference is that you would only pay for what you use, voluntarily, instead of having private assets seized by force from you pre-emptively for something you may or may not ever use.

-Rob 

@blueback

     I already replied to this thread, but as I reread your original post I saw some more things I wanted to comment on.

     "No one mentioned this that I saw, but maybe a company would be paid for transporting criminals outside the borders of the anarchistic area."

     Probably. I imagine that people who had refused to comply with the mandates of a DRO or similar orginization after commiting some kind of heinous act which left them incapable of coexisting in a peaceful society would be given the alternative of being transported out of that society to some place where their kind was welcome at their own expense. This may mean transfer to a penal or mining colony where high risk individuals were excepted because the need for labor outweighed the greater risk, or it could mean transfer to a state run society which allowed their immigration. If there was no such alternative, or if the offender could not afford it, then this service would probably not be offered. Of course, upon delivering the criminal to the new area, the transportation company would have some legal obligation to inform the inhabitants there of his history, which might make living in this new place problematic, but if they failed to do so, they could possibly face litigation themselves.

     "How would a street owner make a profit off of owning a residential street?  Who would pay for it?  Would anyone who wanted to pass through the area have to pay a toll?  Would the people who lived on the street pay for it and charge their houseguests a fee for visiting them?  If someone's car broke down on the street would they have to pay a fee for the entire time it was left there awaiting repairs?"

     In my last post I addressed at least to some degree the ownership and financial aspects of the roads. As to your question about vehicles breaking down in the roads, I imagine that a well run privately owned road would have a financial incentive to monitor their roads for this sort of thing, and get a tow or repair truck out to the disabled vehicle as quickly as possible at the vehicle owners expense. A stalled or disabled vehicle would block traffic and discourage people from taking that road to their destination, thereby costing the owner of the road money. Even with todays technology people with GPS systems can receive real time updates on traffic conditions along their route. Almost the instant a vehicle became an obstacle to traffic, the road's owner would begin losing money. It's even possible that some road owners would offer towing as a free service to entice more people to drive on their roads thereby increasing profits.

     "I think that it would be too inefficient to have the avenues upon which things flow from high concentration to low concentration be a series of individually owned toll roads."

     I think the problem here, and I may be wrong if so I apologize, is that you are envisioning a toll booth every time someone turned off one road onto another. With modern technology there would be no reason for there to be physical toll booths, in fact, it would not be an economical way to collect tolls. I addressed the issue of toll collection in my other post, but in short, I believe tolls could be tracked and collected electronically without any interference in the flow of traffic.

     "Of course, this opens up the question of other things that, rather then being publicly owned, are simply not owned at all."

     I think this is entirely possible. For instance, there would probably be areas of land that were unowned, at least temporarily. And it's certainly possible that the ownership of some items could lapse due to death or disuse. There would also be thoughts, ideas, and concepts which would defy singular ownership. And if we accept the possibility that in the future humanity will move beyond the confines of one planet, then we must accept an entirely unowned universe, at least unowned by humans. I think the important difference here is that under the current system, the state claims proprietary ownership of everyone and everything. They claim ownership over the land, the people, their rights and priviliges, their bodies, and the fruit of their labor, and this claim of ownership is upheld through force. Under a voluntary society, ownership is an individual right, created by labor and maintained through contract and use.

-Rob 

@blueback

A good answer to much of your concerns would be to "look around yourself". Some of the solutions you expect us to come up with have already been come up with. In this post, I will respond with an example of a current system which solves the problems you mention.

"I think that it would be too inefficient to have the avenues upon which things flow from high concentration to low concentration be a series of individually owned toll roads."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_toll_collection

http://www.ezpass.com/

" "How would a street owner make a profit off of owning a residential street?  Who would pay for it?  Would anyone who wanted to pass through the area have to pay a toll?  Would the people who lived on the street pay for it and charge their houseguests a fee for visiting them?  If someone's car broke down on the street would they have to pay a fee for the entire time it was left there awaiting repairs?""

Parking meters exist already by stores in cities. I'm guessing that the few stores that do not have parking meters on the curb have paid off the owner of that street (i.e. the government) to not put parking meters there. So you can see that depending on your desires, you can choose to charge people to use your street or not. If someone valued friendship more than parking fees, then surely they would make sure that their agreement with their street owner (if one existed) would not deter people from visiting them.

blueback:

I don't think that's possible.  How would a street owner make a profit off of owning a residential street?

Does Tropicana make a profit from paying millions for naming rights to Tropicana Field?  I doubt it.  The truth is that companies are constantly looking for ways to get their name out there.  Why wouldn't Bill Gates build the Windows Vista Expressway?  Millions of people would see the name everyday or hear it on the radio during traffic reports and such.  I have a couple of small businesses and I definitely wouldn't mind having 4MuscleMagic.com Boulevard somewhere in return for maintenance costs.

If you believe that the vast majority of citizens want roads, and I agree with this belief, then why wouldn't citizens get together and form public trusts to build and maintain roads? 

Where there is a will there is a way.