GOP and DEMS Vote to Strengthen "Bell Monopolies"

LibFreeUSA ^ | 02/28/02 | LibFreeUSA

[js1138]

Just to inform those Microsoft hating FReepers who believe you can have a monopoly just by creating something everybody wants -- THIS is how monopolies are created. By government handing out limited licences for some limited resource. Or creating an artificial limit on some resource.

[secretagent]

I agree, reluctantly. I don't support the antitrust action against Microsoft, because I see no limit on human ingenuity. I do see the limits on rights of way in land, which communications companies need and use government to acquire.

This brings the government into the "market" and I hate to admit the necessity.

[js1138]

Thank you bump.

[Free the USA]

Bump List

[annalex]

This brings the government into the "market" and I hate to admit the necessity.

Where do you see a necessity of government in any of this?

[secretagent]

I look outside at all the telephone poles, and I assume that the local government owns the land that they sit on. Not enough room for every telephone and cable company that might want to compete, so I assume that the government has some franchise they give to the current phone company. Not a pure market here.

[annalex]

You describe what is, and I agree with the description. The question is, is this a logical necessity? If the road were owned privately it would lease the limited space alongside for poles just the same.

[secretagent]

I can imagine private ownership of all the land necessary, and then we would have a purer market. But without assurances that they could complete their lines, I don't know if line stringers would even start. I don't know how much a few holdouts might doom the whole enterprise.

[annalex]

Yes, that is what is usually pointed to as a justification for eminent domain, and therefore for government. I think that the example with the recalcitrant property owner that wouldn't sell to a road builder is fanciful. The reality is that the market easily bypasses the stinker:

1. The road builder would be foolish to start until he has all the lots under contract. He would secure more contract options than he will end up executing. For example, if I my road could go though either A, B, or C, I will try to take an option with all three, but make the final decision when the available options along the entire route are known to me. Thus no individual lot owner is in the position to wreck the project (unless we have a lot that stretches from Louisiana to Minnesota, which is fanciful)

2. The lot owner who is willing to sell in principle would be in competition with his neighbors who also wish to sell. Thus the price of his lot has a natural competitively-defined cap.

3. The lot owner who doesn't want to sell will be bypassed.

[secretagent]

Interesting points about roads, and perhaps some day private roads will predominate.

Until then, we have the current situation with most roads owned by government and most phone and cable lines strung along government land. and the phone and cable companies in a non-market monopoly position. I don't object to the government intervening on behalf of competition in this case, while expecting constant corruption always needing "good government" reforms.

[annalex]

We agree then.

This is another case to complement #10. A lucky property owner can be in a sole position to hold up the road building enterprise, as for example, in the case of a property owner on an isthmus. If he refuses to sell and it can be shown that the high price offered would compel any reasonable owner to sell, then I believe that a case of wilful disruption of the rights of his neighbors to trade could be proven in courts, still obviating the need for eminent domain. If he simply uses his position to obtain the highest possible price the road builder would be willing to pay, that should be his right, -- and eminent domain tends to violate that right. If the highest price offered is not objectively enough to justify his trouble, and so he doesn't sell, then we conclude that the need for the road did not surpass his needs, and again no violation of rights occurs.

I am somewhat troubled by the necessity to involve an objective yardstick of a "reasonable person" in order to properly judge this; but at any rate the mythical inevitability of eminent domain laws remains disproven.

[secretagent]

This comes down to initiation of force on the part of the collective against the ithmus holder, assuming we consider property in land no less deserving of libertarian rights protection than other tangible property.

It still seems like eminent domain to me, merely achieved by a different route. Perhaps libertarians err in treating land like other property.

[annalex]

Consider the following law:

When a single property holder blocks the construction which by its nature cannot be located elsewhere;

When the builder had made an offer that would substantially improve the condition of the owner in comparison to the value he or his estate could reasonably derive from the property without selling it;

Then the court may force to auction off the property with the starting bid being the above mentioned offer.

I believe, it is far superior legislation to eminent domain, because it only applies to properties that block construction in a monopoly fashion and owners who demonstrate unreasonable recalcitrance; when it is applied, the unique character of the property and its subjective value to the seller are reflected in its price. It takes care of the truly unjust case of blocking, when a stubborn potato farmer would prevent a valuable improvement to the infrastructure simply because he only understands potatoes and wouldn't move to a better field a few miles away from the isthmus. The state here acts on the best interest of the property owner, after it's proven that he is incapable of a rational decision, as opposed to its own interest.

[secretagent]

Ugh! Now we have the State deciding that someone doesn't have rationality because they don't agree with the herd on the highest and best use of their land. We've gone a long way from the libertarian the enabling rule of non-initiation of force here. Someone can believe that the highest and best use for them lies in preserving their land as a potato farm, a nature preserve, or whatever, and his neighbors decide that he lacks rational capacity, intervening as "guardians" through the State!

No, unless we carve out an exception to land ownership, perhaps based on Georgist or Lockean principles, I think we have, with your proposal, a pretty clear violation of the whole libertarian approach to property.

[annalex]

I believe that the non-initiation of force is a very poor way to describe natural rights in general. For example, it tells us nothing about conditions of ongoing conflict, or about criminal inaction. Without getting too theoretical, note that libertarianism does not object to the state acting on behalf of the mentally incapable when there is no private guardian. Such is the case in which my law operates.

Besides, libertarian or not, the point of my law is to demonstrate the lack of need for eminent domain laws in a legal system that seeks common good. A pure libertarian system (based on the narrow interpretation of non-initiation of force) doesn't seek public good at all and would view a blocked isthmus as something the society should be concerned about.

[secretagent]

In your isthmus case, we don't have an ongoing conflict where we can't recall who threw the first punch - the neighbors did via state intervention, a new form of eminent domain in your interesting proposal, but one perhaps even more vulnerable to corruption than current law.

I'd reverse that if I instead viewed rights in land as special and less than absolute, where all citizens in a jurisdiction had partial claims upon each other's land for certain narrow purposes (roads, sewers, etc.) of broad impact. Then the holdout trespassed upon the property rights of other the other citizens, and they justly call for government intervention in defense against his initiation of force.

I don't equate the refusal to sell something at a "reasonable price", or any price, with criminal inaction. I don't have a right to your property, or even the temporary use of your property, even if I want it intensely, except in some immediate life or death cases, and probably not even then. But I don't see how your isthmus case meets that stringent requirement.

Assuming for this discussion that I want the state to intervene as guardian on behalf of mentally incompetent adults, I'd want a separate hearing to establish true disability, and not one presumed proven by the mere refusal to sell a land parcel. I'll bet the potato farmer/isthmus holder would easily pass that test.

A pure libertarian system (based on the narrow interpretation of non-initiation of force) doesn't seek public good at all and would view a blocked isthmus as something the society should be concerned about.

I don't know if you meant to say "... shouldn't be concerned about."

As to a pure libertarian system not seeking the public good, of course I agree, but then no system does - only individuals do! Seriously though, some see a libertarian system of maximum individual liberty, with the enabling rule of non-initiation of force, as best promoting the general welfare.

[annalex]

I was offering examples of why non-initiation of violence is a shaky foundation. Ongoing conflict is not related to our blocked isthmus. Unjust inaction is somewhat related, as the following paragraph would show. Sorry for not making that clearer.

State as guardian of mentally incompetent is a good analogy, but it is not what we precisely have under my law. The state doesn't have to determine that the potato farmer is a medically mental case. The state has to determine that his refusal to sell is driven by a desire to harm the builder or the neighbors, and not by a desire to derive a better value out of his property. That can be a very tough test for the government to prove indeed.

The comparison between my law and eminent domain is stark. Under eminent domain the state simply disregards the rights of the owner; it doesn't set up a competitive system of determining the changing market price of property; it picks cases where eminent domain is exercised based on its own priorities and not on the ability of the builder to pay for the properties. My system is rooted in property rights and case-by-case resolution through courts. It removes the decision-making from the government and therefore eliminates corruption.

you meant to say "... shouldn't be concerned about."

Yes, thanks.

[secretagent]

I see, as others have, a big problem with broadening the concept of actionable harm beyond the narrow libertarian limits of physical violence, theft, and fraud. Every action that every human makes or doesn't make,without exception, has a negative impact on someone. Your proposal would open the door to lawsuits without end.

I have a further problem with agonizing over the motive of the isthmus holder. Either he causes harm or he doesn't, and the courts should intervene or not in relief of the neighbors.

[annalex]

Whenever you remove a power, such as eminent domain, from the government and let the individual players sort it out, you "open the door to lawsuits without end". There are no lawsuits in a dictatorship.

The motive of an economic player is recognized to be significant in law. For example, if a business pollutes the environment because it can't help it, that situation is treated differently from a situation when one poisons the environment with a malicious intent.

Further, the harm that our potato farmer causes is concrete, it is a loss of opportunity for the traders who would use the road. Loss of opportunity is recognized in common law as well.