From: Theresa O'Connor <t...@george.rose-hulman.edu>Subject: Re: Roads.Date: 1999/06/24Message-ID: <u4c674es9fw.fsf@george.rose-hulman.edu>Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Jesus07312 <jesus07...@aol.com> writes:
> It would seem to me that every single person who owned a small
> segment of road would want to have people stop there and pay a tax in
> order to use it. so you'd be driving along and every 100 feet or so
> someone would flag you down and charge you 5 dollars. Usualy things
> are much better handled in the private
This would be a very innefficient allocation of resources.
> sector.. but roads? No. Private companies should build and design
> roads, but the contracts and the details ought to be worked out by a
> central agency. Roads are something which by their nature need the
> cooperation of a large area to be effective. They do not work if
> everyone builds their own little road section and tries to profit the
> most off of it.
Roads function much more efficiently when you have 'the cooperation of a
large area'. On this I agree.
How does this preclude private ownership? Remember that 'Private' does
not necessarily mean 'individual'. Certainly there would not be barriers
against individuals from owning roads, but a bunch of companies could
definately do a better job.
Given the nature of this market, I expect that it would be dominated by
a small number (>1) of corporations.
_______________________________________________________________________
Ted O'Connor ted@george.rose-hulman.edu
You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tune a fish.
-- HP/UX tunefs(1M)
From: Theresa O'Connor <t...@george.rose-hulman.edu>Subject: Re: Roads.Date: 1999/06/24Message-ID: <u4c4sjys3kw.fsf@george.rose-hulman.edu>Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism> Also, with this concept of no public property. Men would be fenced
> into certain areas and would have to die. If neither of my neighbors
> on all 4 sides of me allows me on their property, and the even own the
> sidewalks, I must sit in my home and starve to death.
I encountered this problem as a high school student, and described it in
an email to ARI[1]. Harry Binswanger replied to this email, and here is
the substance of that reply, which cleared up some issues for me:
I first heard it [this problem] in 1964, and call it the problem
of the "donut." It comes from the fallacy of context-dropping.
One's property rights do not extend to using that property to
harm another's life. So the owner of the surrounding land does
*not* have the right to imprison the guy in the center of the
"donut." I believe this is even recognized in the common law of
land, though the idea that even in less extreme cases the owner
of nearly surrounding land has to grant an "easement" for
reasonable ingress and egress.
Note that the same principle would be involved if I walked up to
you and extend my arms around you to encircle you without
touching you. Could I make you pay me to let you out of the
circle? Of course not. Someone (not an Objectivist) once aptly
said that my right to swing my fist ends at your nose.
It's context dropping because the origin and source of the right
to property is the right to life, so you can't claim your
property right gives you the right to deprive me of my life,
which would be what happens in the donut case.
_______________________________________________________________________
Ted O'Connor ted@george.rose-hulman.edu
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the
system, but too early to shoot the bastards. -- Claire Wolfe
[1]: Note that at the time, I had not encountered the issues involved in
the latest 'schism', and that after considering said issues and
forming my own take on the whole thing, withdrew my sanction from
ARI. That, of course, does not change the legitimacy of this
particular solution from Mr. Binswanger.