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"In a fully free society, taxation - or, to be exact, payment for governmental services - would be voluntary." - Ayn Rand

Posted by GaltsGulch 8 years, 1 month ago to The Gulch: General
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"In a fully free society, taxation - or, to be exact, payment for governmental services - would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government - the police, the armed forces, the law courts - are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance." - Ayn Rand


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  • Posted by XenokRoy 8 years, 1 month ago
    When I first saw this I loved the concept. Then you start to think through some of what it means.

    You pay for the services of firemen and you neighbor does not. His house catches on fire and the fire services come out and hose your house down to keep it from catching on fire, and let his burn. If a society is not willing to do this, then the system of voluntary payment for services would not work.

    This is but one example but there are many that could be used. While I like the concept in practice it does not work so well unless society is willing to allow the full ramification of choices land in the face of those who make poor ones.

    I am not sure I could sit by and watch my neighbors house burn in the example above, and I am not certain I would want to live in a society that could do so. Lots of pro's and con's to it.

    If it can be done (IE charge for the service like a company would). It should not be a government service as it can follow the model of private business and should be privately held and done for profit. .

    As
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    • Posted by $ sjatkins 8 years, 1 month ago
      First of all a lot of fire departments were and many still are not government services. They seem to work just fine. The fire department doesn't generally check to see if you have paid some special bill to put a fire out. That is not what their profession is about.

      There is nothing to stop a community from imposing costs with an explicit contract to be part of that community. Nor is it at all unethical. But having government presumptuously take over more and more services and types of business with a so-called unsigned implicit "social contract" is quite different.
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      • Posted by XenokRoy 8 years, 1 month ago
        I was not stating that fire departments do typically work that way, but if you go to a model where you pay individually (not imposing costs with an explicit contract on others but individually) then it has to also be provided individually.

        What your talking about is largely how it works, most fire is private (and should be) where I live as well. Some cities however have public fire and you pay for it as part of your property taxes.
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    • Posted by helidrvr 8 years, 1 month ago
      In a fully free society, there is also never a monopoly provider of services. Fire protection, like any other service, would be offered competitively by multiple providers, most of whom would likely offer insurance as well.. The question therefore would not be whether to pay for fire protection but WHICH fire protection service to contract with. Someone who foregoes the offer of protection might be a fool, but that's another issue. :)
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      • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 1 month ago
        I lived in Montana and there were two waste facilities one could engage with for garbage collection on a weekly basis. It was awesome. The workers were friendly and considerate (to the point I actually gave them cookies at Christmas) and the bills were very low (I think we paid $15/month for two garbage cans).

        I'm not quite sure how that would work with the Fire services, but I'd certainly be in favor of giving it a try.
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        • Posted by helidrvr 8 years, 1 month ago
          Actually, the home insurance providers would be the most likely to offer fire and other protection services. After all, having their own money on the line would make them far more motivated to provide the best service and most rapid response times possible.
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          • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 1 month ago
            I've wanted to see this sort of thing for a long time. Even better, a police (or guard) service or an alarm service could be combined with insurance against theft and the other problems that service is supposed to protect against.

            The problem is that the combination could also create a conflict of interest (moral hazard). If your police service is also your theft insurance agency, and they decide to rob or burgle you, they will certainly rule that your claim isn't justified. Now try to prove them wrong, when all the evidence is in their hands.
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            • Posted by helidrvr 8 years, 1 month ago
              You are completely overlooking the context in which this would exist, namely the availability of multiple competing providers, all of whom would do their utmost to establish a stellar reputation to attract and retain clients.

              Moral hazard only exists in the context of coercive monopolies such as we have today.
              -
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    • Posted by blackswan 8 years, 1 month ago
      For the person who chooses not to pay the fee, if his house catches fire, the fire department would put the fire out, but would also take a lien on the property for a higher fee, and could foreclose on the property if it isn't paid. So, you don't have to worry about your neighbor's house burning down.
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      • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 1 month ago
        Or the fire company would be paid (perhaps at a reduced rate) by a charitable group formed to accept contributions from those who wish to contribute. In any event, the fire company's priority would always be to save the property of its paying subscribers.
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 1 month ago
          hardly feasible at the current costs of fire trucks. and....liability insurance, medical insurance etc. It might be cheaper to just insure the property let it burn and take a profit that way then sell to a developer. GRIN The New American Way.
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          • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 1 month ago
            Wouldn't stay in business long that way.
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            • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 1 month ago
              isn't that the pont? why stay in business if no profit? i think you see more meltdown...with skills applied to art of superior mooching instead of superior producing. Seem like mooching is going to be the career choice of the future with largest immediate profit potential...
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              • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 1 month ago
                You may have lost the point of this thread. We are discussing what a free society would be like in accord with Rand's vision. Are you saying that in a free society everyone would deliberately go out of business? In other word's, Galt's Gulch fails?
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      • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
        That's right. Handle the emergency now, and worry about collecting later. That's how we do things in this country. That's how we would handle all-private fire services.

        The main reason a public police force must exist, and take precedence over private guard forces, is to keep everybody on the same page regarding the management of physical force. Otherwise, private guard forces turn into warring militias, or even gangs!
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        • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
          What facts are you basing this assumption on? If the law is the same for all and the private police force operates within the law, what makes you think that they will act like gangs? Perhaps the opposite is more likely - the police will be responsible to the citizens who pay them and actually protect them, as opposed to the current situation where the police work for the State, are responsible to the State and protect the State, not the citizen. As it stands now, the police does not have a duty to protect the citizen. But the State has been feeding us propaganda that the State is so great and indispensable!
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          • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
            Rand herself described this fear. "Suppose," she said, "Mr. Smith, citizen of Government A, alleges Mr. Jones, citizen of Government B, stole his wallet. He goes to Police A and asked them to arrest Jones. Jones calls Police B to meet Police A--with weapons drawn."

            We can hope the competing police forces will standardize the law and agree to mutual enforcement and mutual conflict resolution. But we have no guarantee of that. That's why Rand said we needed a government.
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            • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
              Rand was not infallible. She too was subject to certain preconceived notions. Although believing in the free market, she also believed that some societal functions can only be performed by the government. Police is one of those functions. Yet, if one thinks through the scenarios carefully, there is no proof that privatized police forces cannot be better, more efficient and much more honest than the same people working not directly for the customer, but many layers removed.
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              • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                As regards direct defense of life, liberty and property, I agree.

                But as regards recovery of stolen goods, and pursuit and interception of perpetrators, here you're into retaliation. Where does retaliation end and improper initiation of force begin?

                The government may not regulate force in clear cases of defense of life, liberty or property. But how do you regulate force in retaliation? Or do you count a good, once stolen, as lost forever and not subject to recovery, in order to avoid scenarios such as that which Rand feared?
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                • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 1 month ago
                  Once the initial act of force or fraud or theft is over, there's no longer an emergency demanding the immediate use of force. So naturally some form of court is called for to decide the issue first, and then send police to carry out the decision.

                  Privatization doesn't change that, because privatization can't be allowed to go so far that you have protection agencies that won't recognize rulings from the same set of judges. If it does, then the problem in Rand's example exists, and the agencies fight a war until one side defeats the other.

                  Friedman's apparent ideal -- and mine -- is something like the Icelandic system he talks about, in which the highest courts belong to the state but enforcement is something each injured party has to obtain (or do) for himself. That results in a very minimal state, but it is stable only as long as no faction controls anything close to a majority of the enforcement power. In effect, preserving it becomes the puzzle of how to enforce an "antitrust law" on the enforcers themselves.

                  Ultimately, that state, like any other, will fail if most of the people stop wanting it to succeed.
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                  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                    Exactly what I was trying to say. Worse than Rand's hypothetical example is the very real example of the history, in the United States, of that phenomenon that goes by the names (translated from the Italian) "Our Thing," "The Sicilian Union," or simply "The Mafia." Neighborhood protection, in the context of a negligent government authority, became organized crime. And the people tolerated this organized crime, up to a point.

                    Then, on 14 February 1929, several men, disguising themselves as police officers, stood seven other men against a wall--and facing said wall. They then withdrew--and a squad of other men carrying Thompson submachine guns proceeded to execute those men summarily.

                    And instead of committing a fresh atrocity of his own, the leader of those seven, severely injured himself in an attack his rival co-ordinated with that summary execution, did something gangsters weren't supposed to do. He broke the Code of Silence. He said, "Only [Alphonse Gabriel] Capone kills like that!"

                    The perpetrators of this Saint Valentine's Day Massacre all came to ignominious ends, some sooner than others. But that did not satisfy a badly frightened and disgusted public. Rather than believe none of them need ever suffer from such an attack, they voted for whoever promised to crush the gangs. With the result we have today.
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                    • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 1 month ago
                      I don't regard the American Mafia as comparable to lords in a feud system, because their sort-of feud system was never accepted by the general population. The original M.A.F.I.A. in Italy in the Middle Ages, though, was.
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                      • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                        A good bit of information. But it didn't matter that the general population did not accept the Dons as legitimate feudal lords. The residents of the various Little Italies in major American cities did, and that was enough. The rest of the population accepted that those men had guns, but generally would not train those guns on bystanders, so long as said bystanders "minded their own business" and "kept their traps shut."

                        In short, the general American population tolerated the gangs.

                        The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre changed all that.
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                • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                  Keep in mind that it is the same people, with all their faults, that constitute the government. I am suggesting that having people directly responsible to the customer may be a better choice than removing that connection. If privatization works better in every endeavor where it has been applied, why stop at arbitrary points? As to having armed conflict between various police forces, if such problems do not occur between states or between counties, why would the occur between corporations?
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                  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                    And as to States and counties, each type of polity has an overarching government level which keeps the peace between them. Open warfare threatened to break out among the States under the old Articles of Confederation. Hence the Constitutional provision: "No State shall, without the consent of the Congress...engage in war, unless already invaded, or under circumstances which will not admit of delay." Among other things. And: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
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                    • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                      States constantly engage in making laws that abridge and deny Constitutionally enumerated rights of citizens of other states. Just look at the Second Amendment issue.
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                      • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                        That's why some of us are pressing lawsuits against the said States, citing Amendment XIV, Section 1. And: winning.
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                        • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                          Winning? The Constitution is essentially nothing more than a museum fossil. Try going to any court, quote the archive and see how far you'll get... I've mentioned this before, but worth repeating - I think it may have been 2009, a study was done on lawsuits for that year in the Federal District of Maryland based on the Bill of Rights. There were some 1,000 cases, of which half were considered frivolous and rejected from the study. The remainder, deemed legitimate, were all thrown out of court. That was before the Terrorist-in-Chief made his appointments. But you're welcome to keep trying...
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                  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                    And what happens when the interests of two customers, each hiring his own police force, conflict? Do you, or do you not, recognize an inherent conflict between a thief and one from whom the thief steals? Between a rapist and his victim? How do you propose to resolve such conflicts in your propose system of rational anarchy? For you do advocate anarchy--lack of a ruler--do you not?
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                    • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                      First, I do not advocate anarchy. Second, anarchy is not a lack of ruler, but a lack of rules. Rules, or laws, are important for the society. The question is who enforces (or creates) the rules. I refer you to the YouTube link that Freedom provided. It's right on the subject.
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                      • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                        The Greek word archon is the present participle of the verb archein, which in the present tense active voice means "to rule," and in the middle voice, "to begin." You here confuse anarchy with anomia, which would be "lack of laws." You propose laws that would somehow self-enforce. But you do not reckon with the inherent conflicts between criminals and those they predate upon. Nor, thus far, have you any role for a judiciary.

                        It's all very well to cite the example of Galt's Gulch in AS. But membership in the Gulch was by invitation only. Membership in any other society is an accident of birth or of movement, at least in the United States and to a lesser extent in the European Union and its various member nation-states. Conflict will arise. Murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault--the Big Four--represent the worst instances of conflict between individuals. Now I ask you again, and I ask you to repeat it here, not give a reference or a command to run an engine search: how do you propose to resolve that conflict, when criminal and target have different police agencies "protecting" them?
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                        • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                          An excellent answer is provided in that video; I would only be amateurishly paraphrasing it - it is one hour long. BTW, Robert Heinlein, in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" also delved into this subject at some length.
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                          • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                            Yes, he did. But special circumstances obtained to induce people to follow a set of "self-enforcing" laws in that scenario. The Authority (which is to say, the warden of the vast prison system that was the moon in that novel) didn't care how many of the inmates killed one another. ("They get so desperate [for sex] that they will kill for it. And from the stories the old-timers tell me, [there] was killing enough to chill your bones in those days.") Then it occurred to the inmates--why it should have thus occurred to them, no character fully explains--that they would do better to get along with one another, and make and enforce their own order, not wait for the Warden and his "Yellow Jackets" to enforce it for them, negligent as he was.

                            Let's look to a real-life example, shall we? Pitcairn's Island after the mutinous crew landed HMAV Bounty there, got off, and burnt and scuttled the ship. Within a generation, all but two men on that island, and maybe two or three of the women, were dead--the rest having killed one another. Those two survivors decided they would rather enjoy one another's company. So they decided on a set of laws to go by. But they did not leave it at that. They formed a government--a fully independent government, that had no horizon beyond the island until a Yankee whaler discovered them a few generations later, but a government just the same.

                            I have to reject any simplistic answer that assumes without warrant that men will naturally get to a point, before it gets down literally to two of them, that they would rather have one another's company or decide every man needs every other man to trade with. I follow Hobbes. "Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." That is life without something we truly call "police."

                            The best scenarist who described what happens when duly constituted authorities decide to take their own dishonest gain, and only private militias exist to keep order, was not Robert A. Heinlein. It was Mario Puzo.
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                            • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                              You seem to be making a common fallacy that people left to their own devices will cut each others' throats. Keep in mind that the government consists of those same people, and not necessarily the best of the lot; I would argue that often, the government consists of the worst of the lot - the most incompetent and power hungry predators that are only too happy to cut their neighbor's throat. In the case of the Bounty, yes, those were the bottom of the society and they acted accordingly. However, contrary to the popular belief and pushed by the Ministry of Propaganda, the "Wild West" was actually not wild at all - the average annual homicides per capita were lower than in the current USofA until recently (the current homicide rate has been steadily dropping with more citizens being armed; the two levels matched about 10 years ago). Of course, people that have been brought up in an environment of slavery, where most decisions were made for them and they have no experience at being responsible citizens, all of a sudden given the freedom to act on their own, will often do poorly. But the answer is not more slavery, until the society becomes a safe jail, but a gradual re-learning of freedom and responsibility. And, btw, in Heinlein's version, although there was much talk of vigilante justice and violence, in actuality (in his scenario, of course), there was very little of it, as everyone was aware of the result of bad behavior. Kind of like when I lived in a rural area in Texas and often left my apartment door unlocked and never locked my car - everyone knew what the result of bad behavior would be, so no one misbehaved. Pretty simplistic, but it worked.
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                              • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 1 month ago
                                The biggest difference between Heinlein's moon and present day reality was not the uncaring government but the fact that there were always airlocks close at hand, and thus, any group of three or four adults had the ability to easily kill someone if they felt the need. (Even a cop, though that would take more people, maybe 20 or 30 against a squad of cops.) Of course this would lead, initially, to plenty of vigilante justice, but that soon stabilized because if it had not, everyone would be dead.

                                For us to get close to that situation, the best weapons (things only the military has now, not just machine guns and grenades but tanks, rockets, and weaponized drones) would need to become available to everybody. Which may happen sooner than we think, if the stories about drones being successfully taken over by radio are true.

                                If it does, then those western countries that have largely disarmed through gun control laws are going to be at a big disadvantage in the next major war. Because I don't think the military on any side will be able to keep civilians out of the line of fire as they have in the past.
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                                • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                                  Don't take the "airlocks" literally. They represent a means to terminate an offender. Any handgun represents the same function. The important thing to keep in mind, as I mentioned earlier, is that although there was much talk about that option and everyone was aware of it, in practice it was rarely used, precisely because it was available. Just like a handgun. I now live in Virginia, where I carry a gun almost all the time and have not had a need to use it, when as when I lived in NYC, where no citizen is allowed to carry a gun, I've had several occasions where a legitimate use of the gun was very much called for. So, we can leave the issue to the State, which will only protect itself and the elites running it, or we can leave it to the citizens, who will protect themselves, and do a much better job of it.
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                              • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
                                Sir, I have observed that people left to their own devices will cut each other's throats. I've had my throat cut too often to recount here. Yes, that's a metaphor (for if it were the literal truth, once would be enough). But if men were always rational, crime would never occur, would it? Yet crime does occur. That it does not occur in Galt's Gulch in AS is only because membership is by invitation only, and the community is hidden from view and even from human ken.

                                In my school days, people could behave badly toward me with no consequence. I can't tell you how often people stole or simply damaged my property with obvious malice aforethought. And let me once answer in kind, and BOOM! Detention.

                                The transition period would necessarily be Hobbesian. You seem to propose that the only defense be self-defense, that property, once stolen, be counted as irretrievably lost, and that he who cannot by himself--or by dint of his own personal hire--defend himself and his goods, have no recourse at law, because courts of law would not exist.
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                                • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
                                  In no way am I suggesting that courts or the police should not exist. Nor an I suggesting that property cannot or should not be recovered. I don't understand how that misconception came about. What I am suggesting is that the same function of the police, and possibly the courts, could be performed by the same people as currently and essentially using the same rules and laws (hopefully fewer of them, as I believe less will be needed), only working for different bosses. Instead of working for the State, with responsibility and accountability to the State, these same cops will be responsible to a corporation that actually values its customers (not because corporations love customers, but because customers are free to switch to a different corporation, something that they can't do with a State). Closer to the customer is always a more efficient and effective way.
                                  As to self-defense, an 80-year old woman, as long as she can pull the trigger, all of a sudden becomes as powerful as a 300 pound gorilla - a weapon is a very effective equalizer. And you may find that many of those bullies that you've mentioned, when hit back, learn to behave very quickly, even if they are not the brightest examples.
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                                  • Temlakos replied 8 years, 1 month ago
    • Posted by freedomforall 8 years, 1 month ago
      Assuming the neighbor wanted a loan to buy his house, it is likely the lender would require that he pay for the fire service to get the loan. Alternatively if he wanted to buy insurance to protect his house against fire hazard, the insurance company would not write the policy unless the home owner could prove he paid the voluntary fire protection fee. Almost everyone would pay as a result. The rest would have to be "self insuring."
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    • Posted by Kittyhawk 8 years, 1 month ago
      You said "I am not sure I could sit by and watch my neighbors house burn in the example above, and I am not certain I would want to live in a society that could do so."

      That is a concern you could raise when you were shopping around for a firefighters' service to buy. In a free market, a service which meets its customers' needs and addresses their concerns will succeed.

      The issue of private vs. government services reminds me of this article I posted about a private police service in Detroit: https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... With it, some people pay, but even non-payers benefit.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 1 month ago
        Me either but my neighbor may be applying the law of superior skills applied and superior mooching looks like a growth industry.with best profit versus overhead potential.

        you gotta read between the lines with a perverse sense of humor
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    • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 1 month ago
      Well said.

      One of the real problems we have with our current system is that it encourages free riders and taxes the daylights out of everyone else to pay for it. I am not so much against communal services like police and fire departments as I am the free rider problem that seems to go along with it. We pay for garbage, sewer, and utilities services, we should be willing to pay for fire services the same way.

      And I'm not sure if anyone notices, but we already pay for the roads in our fuel taxes. The funny thing there is that the government is both complaining about the decrease in fuel taxes while simultaneously mandating more fuel-efficient cars AND encouraging the use of electric cars! Talk about shooting one's self in the foot!
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      • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 1 month ago
        The only reason fuel taxes haven't kept the roads repaired is that politicians have been diverting them to stupid things like mass transit since the 1970s.

        I'd much rather see all the roads privatized. Neighborhood streets would most likely become owned in single blocks by the people living on them, and would be gated. Through streets would be tolled, but with transponders there wouldn't need to be any toll booths. And in cities where people still live on major streets, some redevelopment would take place so that locals wouldn't have to have through traffic on their streets. The best feature of this system is that nobody would have to ask permission to build or widen a road -- just buy the needed land and build away.
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        • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 1 month ago
          I'm really struggling with trying to figure out how privatized roads would work. It's never really been done, so we have no template. It is pretty much a monopoly infrastructure thing, but the problem comes down to ownership: are you going to try to control who drives on the 10' of road in front of your house? And it is incredibly inefficient to do road projects (resurfacing, etc.) piecemeal. It sounds noble from a ideological perspective. I'm just trying to figure out the practical application and just not picturing it.

          And regarding gated communities, what about the ancillary traffic like delivery trucks, moving vans, relatives coming to visit, etc.? Anytime you want to restrict access, you're going to have to pay for the administration and overhead of running such and then charge fees to cover those costs, hold neighborhood meetings (and get everyone to agree) on policies, etc. Sounds like a lot more work than I want to deal with.
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      • Posted by ProfChuck 8 years, 1 month ago
        Unfortunately, being capable of rational thinking is not a job requirement for those holding political office. If it were Washington would be a wasteland. (Not that it isn't already)
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        • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 1 month ago
          Rational thought isn't really a common characterization of mankind in general, unfortunately. Thought takes effort and many people simply do not have the will to - as Hercule Poirot would put it - "exercise the gray cells." Our political establishment is merely an extension of this.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 8 years, 1 month ago
    Government, an agency which is force, should be
    stripped down to its proper function: to protect man
    from force and violence (including fraud), and to
    punish same. (As to firemen, fire companies could
    operate as parts of insurance companies; and also, there would be no prohibition on volunteer fire
    departments).
    As to paying for government, there could be
    payment for actual services when rendered;no-
    tarization of contracts (percentage of the mone-
    tary amount concerned); if you don't want to pay
    for it, don't get it notarized, and take the conse-
    quences of the risk (I got that idea from Ayn
    Rand, who also mentioned a lottery); also, there
    could be something like the present local sales
    tax; if the store owner declined to pay it, he
    wouldn't get his Law Enforcement Fee sticker to
    put in the window, and, if held up and he called
    911, the police would refuse to come.--As to
    buying things over the Internet, the same prin-
    ciple could apply; the government would de-
    cline to prosecute cases of identity theft which
    might take place over a website which did not
    agree to pay the Law Enforcement Fee.

    Also, people already pay to have the govern-
    ment register their patents and copyrights.
    This (the above) could take care of local and state law
    enforcement. As to Federal and national defense, there could be a certain percentage of
    whatever was in the state coffers (for instance,
    25%) to go to the Federal government for these
    purposes, so that a man would know, when he
    paid his local Law Enforcement Fee, he was
    also paying for national defense.--
    Would this pay for all the things the govern-
    ment does now? Of course not!!--But that is
    part of my point. I don't want the government
    to do all the things it does now. And if it were
    so much smaller, and leaner, people likely would
    not be so unwilling to pay for it as we often are
    now.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 1 month ago
    One must keep in mind that Rand was expressing an ideal. I won't work in any current society. Perhaps in the future on Objectivist Island, populated by rational persons, it would work. Most of the "leaders" of today, don't fit that description. Some may be more rational than others, but I don't think any of them could meet the necessary criteria. Take a guy like Ted Cruz. He has a resume that would knock your socks off. Brilliant, from his humble beginnings to his current status. But in the midst of all that is the expression of devotion to a mystic entity, whom he credits for his success.
    "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow, you're always a day away." -- The Musical Annie.
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    • Posted by ProfChuck 8 years, 1 month ago
      The success of Objectivism depends upon rational and honorable behavior of all citizens. Is this even possible?
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      • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 1 month ago
        In a fairly small population.
        If the population was to grow, with the basic principles of Objectivism as the ethical base, and the children had grown up with those principles both taught and illustrated by people's actions...well, who knows? It might happen.
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      • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 1 month ago
        People have free will. Therefore it is always possible that someone will turn into a thief even if he abhors theft now. However, I reject your premise that the "success" of Objectivism depends upon honorable behavior of all. A rational legal system has sanctions on behaviors that abridge rights.
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  • Posted by brkssb 8 years, 1 month ago
    I advocate "subscriptions" to services in exchange for benefits, and would choose insurance rates commensurate with risk and those subscriptions. E.g. subscribe to the local fire company of volunteers, and because I am a subscriber, I pay less to insure my property. Insurance rates are much higher for those non-subscribers, and substantial risk of loss is assigned to those without either subscription or insurance. IBID for roads, courts, defense. I might even decide to subsidize my neighbor's subscriptions or insurance to reduce my own risk, just as I might choose to support a scholarship for a gifted (or ungifted) student. (Keep in mind that many so-called services we are required by a government to pay for are in fact not required by any sense or sensibility, and lead to the fraud, waste, and abuse perpetrated upon us -- for example, a firearms license, or the Fed.) -- Now why in blazes did Wisconsin even have to pass a "law" regarding unions and right-to-work?
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  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 1 month ago
    If this were how things had been kept from way back it would be working fine, but as we know the thieves took over and have found as many ways as is currently possible to extricate or steal our money to benefit themselves for so long that it is virtually impossible to change to what should have been.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Are you not suggesting that neither courts nor police ought to exist? Have you not in fact plumped for anarchy--meaning here "lack of a ruler," not necessarily (on your terms) lack of law? Now you've changed your case in an effort to accuse me of unreasonable construction on your remarks. Tsk, tsk.

    Police, by definition, are a State agency. Period. End of memo. The first police, or literally "rod bearers" (Greek rhabdouchoi, from rhabdos a rod and echo I have/hold) were municipal slaves, armed with sticks, assigned to keep order at public events in ancient Alexandria in Egypt.

    What you propose, are competing guard forces, not one of which is accountable to everyone in the community, and not one of which would be accountable even to a Committee of Safety within a community. Therefore, if one guard force decided to protect the "interests" of its customers, no matter how unreasonable said interests might be, who's going to stop them? The result is the Mario Puzo scenario. Young Vito Andolini di Corleone assassinates Don Fanucci and becomes the new Don in his stead. Eventually he takes the title of "Godfather" and "makes one an offer he can't refuse."

    I once had to deal with a bully who was as brave as you could ask for, and worse: just plain crazy. Sociopathic. (Only when they are minors, one calls it "conduct disorder, socialized, aggressive.") That guy would have killed me one day, if my parents had not physically intervened and applied physical force to him, and threatened to sue his parents. Under your system, I would have had no recourse save to try to train my totally unco-ordinated eyes to squeeze off a straight shot. Under your system, if a man can't shoot straight, he has no rights.

    Now. Do you want to try your argument again?
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    • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
      Yes, let's try it again... I agree with you that police forces have and do belong to the State. However, I disagree that they have to. In fact, in the so called "Wild West," sheriffs very hired by individual towns that had little to do with each other. Yet, the homicide rate was much lower than in today's State controlled, policed and protected Detroit, Baltimore or Chicago. It seems that the root of our disagreement is in the amount of trust (or mistrust) that we have in our fellow citizens. As it stands now, given the irresponsibility, lack of education and overall decay of the average American citizen, I agree with you - they are incapable of self rule. However, that state of decay came about intentionally, with the citizens giving up their freedom and responsibilities to the State in exchange for the State doing all the thinking for them. The original America did not start that way - it was in fact much closer to the Gulch version - people did come here by a sort of an invitation - only the few that were determined to improve their lives through their own efforts. If that is ever possible again, perhaps even in a different country, I think that what I am suggesting should be looked at. As to implementing it here and now - I'm not crazy!
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      • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
        You just said it: all the townsfolk hired the sheriff. You did not have competing sheriffs, each the sheriff for some but not all. Therefore, you could never have the scenario of sheriffs going to war with one another to protect the interests, reasonable or un-, of their respective clients. You had one voice speaking for the law that applied to everyone.

        Laws are a dead letter without one voice speaking to uphold the laws for everyone.

        You lament the obviously lawless behavior of many levels of government today. You lament certain sheriffs who have forgotten their Constitutional duty and who have made themselves little more than lackeys for the half-Communist, half-poor-man's-caliph who now (illegitimately, I maintain) occupies the White House. As you should. As do I. But Don Vito Corleone is a poor substitute for an honest speaker-for-all in matters of law.

        This is not to say that the police should have a monopoly on force. It means only that if anyone challenges the police without cause, the police have to respond.

        Of course the police ought to allow each stakeholder to arm himself and his guard force to the extent he can afford, to protect himself and his employees, relatives, and associates, as appropriate. Of course the police--which again I define as the upholders of the law for everyone--ought to work in concert with any guard force that does not behave like the fictitious Dons Fannucci and Corleone and the very much real-life Alphonse Capone. But when some guard force gets out of line, and goes from being guard force to gang, someone has to have the authority to stop them, or at least to raise a posse comitatus to stop them.

        Even the Gulch, I maintain, had a Committee of Safety. It consisted of the largest stakeholders, or their proxies. John Galt attended as proxy for Midas Mulligan. Francisco d'Anconia attended as a stakeholder in his own right. Ragnar Danneskjöld brought to the Committee its sole offensive, power-projecting capability--for offensives against the world, that is. But we do not hear of enforcement actions in the Gulch--because if anyone had any criminal tendencies, John Galt would never have invited them.

        We come together here to plan law enforcement for--what did John Galt call them? Ah, yes--"such outposts of civilization as you will build." Crime will occur. Someone will have to deal with it. At least a Committee of Safety would be a recognizable entity everyone would acknowledge as speaking for everyone--and not even charging them for it. Security for those beyond the Committee would be a commensal, not a charitable, function: members of the Committee serve their interests by ensuring a law-abiding community of end-users. But if even that does not exist, a venal Don arises. As Al Capone did in real life, even before anyone ever heard of the word prohibition.
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        • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
          Would you agree that the current state of affairs, with the courts doing whatever they want to do outside of the Constitution and the police openly admitted that it is not their duty to protect the citizen, is not an ideal situation? Would you agree that we have gotten to this sorry state of affairs by consolidating more and more power with the State, while giving up individual freedoms and responsibilities? If you agree with the above, perhaps it would make sense to roll back all government functions? Seems to me that going in the direction that has gotten us into this mess will only get us deeper into it.
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          • Posted by Temlakos 8 years, 1 month ago
            In the current situation, the courts have arrogated to themselves the notion that their word is law--and the executive has arrogated to himself the notion that his word is the supreme law of the land. Under the circumstances, revolution becomes a moral imperative. I am merely asking you to plan properly for the aftermath of such revolution.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 1 month ago
    I think we can adopt at least somethings to this idea of voluntary financial support for services rendered; there are some that everyone does not.

    For instance: education...I do not have any kids, I should not have to pay for yours. My parents did their part and paid for mine until of age to pay for my own.
    I am sure there are other examples like this but not many.
    It seems, the way Ayn stated the premise, it is true that we do share much and rightfully should share the cost.
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  • Posted by EAJewett 8 years, 1 month ago
    Interesting thoughts and a few seemingly rational frameworks. As a counter-case, what about the economic "tragedy of the commons"? In short, some thing that is not owned by any one person, so there is little motivation for paying for its support. This fed the burning of the Cuyahoga River. I'm sure there are folks here who can explain much better than I.
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  • Posted by pdohara 8 years, 1 month ago
    Obviously I generally agree, but I am concerned about those who wish to benefit from others work/payment. Recently here in Wisconsin we pass a right to work law that says that employees of a company cannot be required to pay union dues. Though I agree with this in principal, from a practical point of view this obviously means that some group of employees will benefit from the work the union is doing while not participating (through union dues) in that work. An example that comes to mind for governments is roads. We can make them toll roads, which I would prefer to avoid or some citizens can choose to pay for the roads, but wont some citizen choose not to pay and use the roads anyway? I think this requires ethical citizens.
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    • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 1 month ago
      "My position is fully consistent. Not only the post office, but streets, roads, and above all, schools, should all be privately owned and privately run. I advocate the separation of state and economics. The government should be concerned only with those issues which involve the use of force. This means: the police, the armed services, and the law courts to settle disputes among men. Nothing else. Everything else should be privately run and would be much better run." Ayn Rand, The Playboy Interview, 1964.
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    • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 1 month ago
      There is no reason to think that in a free society all workers would be paid the same. Perhaps the unionized workers could negotiate a higher wage. Perhaps not. Their contract does not bind the non-union workers or the employer to anything. As to the roads, anyone would tries to "free ride" on private roads will be subject to liability in court for theft of services or trespass.
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      • Posted by pdohara 8 years, 1 month ago
        The reason I think that "all workers would be paid the same" or more accurately on the same scale is because in most work places this is true. I suspect it is true because creating a pay scale is work that most employers don't wish to do twice. Yes in an ideal world everyone would be evaluated and paid for their personal merit, but that takes time that the employer may not have, or may not choose to spend.
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        • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 1 month ago
          You are correct that Rand was speaking of about how things should be, not how they are. You are also right that many employers would simply price the non-union workers at the same scale as the union workers. Some workers would accept that, others may not. Other employers would jump at the chance to price at multiple scales. The non-union workers might receive higher or lower pay offers which could be accepted or rejected. Some might want the same wages and benefits as the union employees. The employer would be free to accept or reject such offers on an individual or group basis. And the problem with such arrangements would be what exactly?
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          • Posted by pdohara 8 years, 1 month ago
            My concern is that there is an incentive to attempt to "game" the system. I agree that the market will push against this, but it is not clear to me that the market would succeed in overcoming the desire to get something for nothing. Not the end of the world just something I have thought about.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 1 month ago
    Trading a limited amount of personal freedom voluntarily in order to gain either more feedoms or improved freedoms is one things. police, military, fire fighters, to some degree courts and attorneys (now declared moot and not needed by the current patriot act.} can be voluntary in two ways. One is I feel like giving a nickel even though an exact division of costs wold be $5.00.

    the second is I agree to split the costs as listed equally with all the others There ten The Cost is $50 we each pay Five. Not a penny more nor a penny less.

    Part two is remember government is a service and therefore government employees are servants and all employees need to be monitored. That is a responsibility that goes along with the particular right be serviced.

    It cannot be delegated.
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    • 10
      Posted by $ sjatkins 8 years, 1 month ago
      You do not get freedom by giving up freedom. Signing a contract is not giving up freedom but exercising freedom to mutual advantage.

      Most of the government practices today are a distinct disservice and should be paid for by no one. They should be abolished. These are not legitimate functions of government. Many are not things that can or should be done by anyone or any group.
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