Posted on 08/10/2014 8:07:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
No, this post is not about that kind of fantasy.
Instead, we’re dealing strictly with public policy and specifically addressing whether the libertarian agenda is unrealistic.
This is because when I talk to people about libertarianism, they often will say something mildly supportive such as: “I like the idea of getting government out of my wallet and out of my bedroom.”
But then the other shoe drops and they say something skeptical such as: “But you folks are too idealistic in thinking the private sector can do everything.”
If you ask them to elaborate why libertarian ideas are fantasies, you’ll usually hear comments such as:
“Libertarians are crazy to think that we can replace Social Security with personal retirement accounts.” Apparently they’re unaware that dozens of nations including Australia and Chile have very successful private systems.
“Libertarians are silly to think that money could be handled by the private sector.” Apparently they’re unaware that paper money was a creation of the private marketplace and that competitive currencies worked very well in many nations until they were banned by governments.
“Libertarians are naive to think the mail could be delivered in the absence of a government monopoly.” Apparently they’re unaware that many nations such as the United Kingdom and Germany have shifted to competitive private mail delivery.
“Libertarians are foolish to think that the private sector could build and maintain roads.” Apparently they’re unaware of what I’m going to write about today.
It turns out that the private sector can build roads. And a great example happened earlier this year on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Here are some passages from a story out of the United Kingdom.
A grandfather sick of roadworks near his home defied his council and built his own toll road allowing people to circumvent the disrupted section. Opened on Friday, it’s the first private toll road built since cars became a familiar sight on British roads 100 years ago.…Mike Watts, 62, hired a crew of workmen and ploughed £150,000 of his own cash into building a 365m long bypass road in a field next to the closed A431. He reckons it will cost another £150,000 in upkeep costs and to pay for two 24 hour a day toll booth operators. …Father of four Mike asked his friend John Dinham if he would mind renting him the field until Christmas and hired three workmen to help build the road in just 10 days. He worked with the Highways Agency, has public liability insurance… But a spokesman for the council said it was not happy about the bold build.
Wow, talk about the private sector coming to the rescue. Two things jump out from that story. First, it took only 10 days and £150,000 to build the road. If the government did it, it would take 20 times as long and cost 30 times as much.
The other noteworthy part of the story is that the local government isn’t happy. Well, of course not. Mr. Watts showed them up.
Some of you may be thinking this is a once-in-a-lifetime story and that we shouldn’t draw any lessons.
But that’s why an article by Nick Zaiac in London’s City A.M. is a must read. He cites the new toll road, but puts it in historical context.
Adams’ work falls into a long tradition of private provision of public services in order to serve some private goal. …Actions like these are not without precedent. In the American island state of Hawaii, residents and business owners gathered together in 2009 to fix a road through a state park that was vital to the area. They completed it entirely for free, with locals donating machinery, materials, and labor. In fact, the project was completed in a shockingly brief eight days.…Private roads have a long and storied history in both Britain and the US. Between 1800 and 1830, private turnpikes made up an astounding 27 per cent of all business incorporations in the US. Britain, between 1750 and 1772, had previously experienced a period of “turnpike mania”, as noted by economic historians Daniel Klein and John Majewski. Put simply, private infrastructure is by no means a new thing. It is simply the slow return to the way many roads were originally built.
Nick then explains that the private sector is making a comeback, and not just for little projects in the United Kingdom and Hawaii.
Australia stands out as one of the leaders. There are currently eight P3 projects on the market, with others in the pipeline, ranging from new rail lines and roads to hospitals. Each of these projects brings private financing into traditionally public projects, with benefits to companies, taxpayers, and, local citizens. Even better, as David Haarmeyer notes in Regulation, infrastructure projects such as those funded public private partnerships serve as good, long-term investments for investors seeking safe returns. …The traditional role of the government as infrastructure monopolist is slowly falling apart. Whether from grassroots efforts or large, complicated P3 projects such as the M6 Toll, the market is proving that it can provide infrastructure that people need, in one way or another.
John Stossel also has written on the topic and discussed modern-day examples of private sector involvement in the United States.
Heck, there are even private lanes on the Virginia side of the “beltway” that circles Washington!
So the moral of the story is that the private sector can do a lot more than people think.
In other words, libertarians may fantasize when they think of very small government. But the fantasy is not because libertarian policy is impractical. The fantasy is thinking (and hoping…and praying…and wishing) that politicians will actually do the right thing.
P.S. You want to know the best part of private roads? If they’re truly private, that means local governments wouldn’t be able to use red-light cameras and ticket traps as scams to generate revenue!
P.P.S. As I explained on Wednesday (only partially tongue in cheek), I’m willing to let the government be in charge of roads if the statists will agree to give people more personal and economic freedom in other areas. I’m not holding my breath waiting for a positive reply.
P.P.P.S. Though if government continued to have authority to build and maintain roads, that doesn’t mean Washington should play a role. The Department of Transportation should be abolished as quickly as possible.
I was not aware that Libertarians wanted to be dependent on the govt. I always thought they wanted only the thinnest threadbare govt possible, if that.
Is it possible the author doesn't know what Libertarians actually want/are?
I always thought they wanted only the thinnest threadbare govt possible, if that. Is it possible the author doesn't know what Libertarians actually want/are?
Barring any further explanation, I'll say that you don't know.
The Founders had the time and the intelligence to think it all through. They understood human nature. Times have surely changed, but people don't. They understood the perils of centralized power and how to avoid it.
There seems to be two definitions of a libertarian. One is the classic definition and one is the rewritten version that the liberals have created. I am not a liberal libertarian.
I read revolutionary times book that said patriots would sometimes fly a flab that said “Liberty Unity”. A more popular flag said “Don’t tread on Me”! I am a libertarian of the patriotic and founding Fathers type.
Yet I am not a fan of public roads. The big problem with private roads is the interaction of liability for long term risks and tort law. One can cut corners in construction, look good for a decade or so, and then go out of business leaving the users and property owners in the lurch. Fixing those old problems is VERY expensive. I have a pending landslide on part of my property caused by that old road construction that may cost me $10,000 just to slope, pack, and vegetate. Of course, I could just let it fail and the County would then come in and do a crappy emergency job of it and leave it until it fails again. It's just how things are.
Those of you interested in the details can view images and discussion of these problems here (13MB file).
Now if they can point to an example of a private highway that was built WITHOUT seizing land (or at least threatening to such), then it would be a PRIVATE highway.
...otherwise it is political gift to a well-connected person (or company).
Aren’t all the roads in gated communities private roads?
*** First, it took only 10 days and £150,000 to build the road. If the government did it, it would take 20 times as long and cost 30 times as much.***
Same in the USA. In Oklahoma, I’ve seen it take 20 years to build half of an 80 mile stretch of public road, the the other half was built as a toll road and it was in in less than 5 years.
Obama’s foreign policy is very close to libertarian in nature.
I like basic libertarian ideas on domestic policy, but not on foreign policy.
BTW, the idea that one need only follow the Constitution to reach national nirvana is a huge oversimplification. Following the Consitution is just one step towards sanity.
The country can be harmed greatly and even destroyed while following the Constitution, just as you can wreck a car while following the speed limit.
BTW, when I read the title of the thread, I presumed it might be about Iraq, because current events there in some respect resemble the “great power” vacuum libertarians prefer to direct involvement.
“Same in the USA. In Oklahoma, I’ve seen it take 20 years to build half of an 80 mile stretch of public road, the the other half was built as a toll road and it was in in less than 5 years.”
In California it took them something like 30 days to rebuild a bridge on I-10 that collapsed in the Northridge Earthquake (and this was like an 8-lane bridge). The governor (Wilson, at the time) called his friend that ran a large construction firm, told him to drop his other projects, go there and rebuild it...and they’ll deal with the paperwork later.
The problem isn’t really private versus public, but rather all the crap that a publicly funded project now has to deal with.
If we do not police our own, the lib/commies will do it for us and cause us embarrassment or worse!
I've never heard anyone say that.
Also there are some streets that are not in gated communities that are restricted for certain vehicles like commercial trucks that are not allowed to drive through
The biggest fear that these LIBERALS have against LIBERTARIANS, is that should LIBERTARIANS win, they will lose their CONTROL over the population. Almost every GOVERNMENT ENTERPRISES can be done better by “PRIVATE ENTERPRISES”, except fighting wars ( ARMY, NAVY, AIR FORCE), police and fire fighters. Other than those, “PRIVATE ENTERPRISES” can do a better and cheaper, and less intrusive.
The trouble with libertarianism is that it is not a single thing.
“Libertarianism is a classification of political philosophies that uphold liberty as their principal objective.
“Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association and the primacy of individual judgment.
“While libertarians share a skepticism of authority, they diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing political and economic systems.
“Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling to restrict or even to wholly dissolve pervasive social institutions.
“Rather than embodying a singular, rigid systematic theory or ideology, libertarianism has been applied as an umbrella term to a wide range of sometimes discordant political ideas.”
Importantly, to understand libertarianism, it also helps to understand that conservatism is also not monolithic in its view. Various major branches of conservatism include:
1) “True definition” or “status quo” conservatives, who are apprehensive about radical change in any direction. They believe that change in any direction must be slow and methodical, a process of half-steps, lest it make things markedly worse from where they are right now.
2) “Classical” or “pragmatic” conservatives see *recent* change as having been for the worse, so wish to rescind it. They are not reactionaries, but regard change as experimental, that should be reversed if it fails.
3) Truly reactionary conservatives are so staggered by the magnitude of government overgrowth and failure that they want to substantially prune decades of bad policies. The left is frightened of them, because they could undo much of what the left has created, so they have tried to demean the word “reactionary”, to make it sound impossible or radical.
4) The “Military-Corporate-Intelligence-Law Enforcement” conservatives, who are willing to pour vast amounts of money into these four things, at the expense of all other government functions. They are not really conservatives, but rally with them.
5) “Faith” or “Social” conservatives, who want to reverse the harm caused by government to religions and morality. They see the purpose of government through this lens, which is their right.
6) Other forms of conservatism and blends of the above.
Libertarians are just Democrats who feel bad about being greedy.
And republicans are democrats in drag.
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