From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Transport subsidies - Was: Car Parking
Date: 17 Dec 92 17:35:57 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:

>I'm going to have to start winding this down in preparation for news
>being inaccessible (to me) over the Christmas period, but...  Consider
>this my parting shot.  Tired fingers, last minute rush, better things
>to do at 8PM (enjoyable though this is), and besides, I've argued with
>enough libertarians in my life to know that I'm no more likely to
>convince you than you are to convince me.  (If anyone else wants to
>take up the argument, feel free to chat amongst yourselves. :-)

OK Paul, I figure it's gone as far as it's likely to anyway, and I'm
missing meals to keep up here. Have a good xmas/solstice/holiday.

>In article <29455@castle.ed.ac.uk> fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:
>>smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:
>>No, folks can get together for an integrated bus service if they want,
>>so long as people who don't want to use it don't have to pay to run it.

>And, so get a free ride.

If the free riders cost the folks running the service more than the
security to stop 'em then they'll hire the security. If not, then it's
not likely to be a huge cost relatively speaking.

>The point you are missing is that the public
>transport does benefit you.  If you use it, it's obvious of course.  If
>you drive, each busload of people is 50 (30, 60, pick a number) fewer
>cars to end up stuck behind at traffic lights with a concomitant
>savings in fuel and frustration, and is 50 more parking spaces
>available to you when you get where you're going.

But I'd advocate that there be congestion charging to the price where
the congestion reduces to acceptable levels. I'd also advocate that
parking charges reach their market rate - the point where the number of
cars coming in to park is roughly equal to the number of parking places.

>>I guess the best situation would
>>be for folks to own their own local roads, then they could decide what
>>they wanted done.

>I'll tell you what they'd want done, because the local papers are full
>of articles and petitions to the city council about it.  They (each
>group) would want their road closed to all traffic except the folks
>who live there.  Of course, these petitions usually fail, for the
>simple reason that someone clever in the city planning department can
>see the flaw in this line of logic -- specifically that if you let
>everyone do this, then everyone is trapped on their little bit of road,
>and no-one can go anywhere.

Unless they form an agreement with others to do so. That's what free
trade is about: people consensually agreeing with others to trade some
resources, not being forced to do whatever The State thinks best.


>>>>>Then you are 'forcing' people who need to use those roads to pay for
>>>>>them whether they wanted them unclogged or not. 
>>
>>There's no force in it. If they want to travel on your property then
>>they pay the fee. They have the choice to travel by a different route or
>>not to travel at all.

>Right, so if I were to buy the road your house is on, and the back
>alleyway (if there is one), and impose a mandatory toll, then I'm not
>forcing you to pay it?

Nope, my choice, but I'd be wise to buy up rights of way when I buy my
property. There are country places in France for instance where rights
of way come with a property and cannot be revoked since they are a
resource belonging to someone else.

In other words, I can own a right of way on a road, even if I don't own
that road. I'd own the right of way by dint of buying an adjacent
property, and if you sold the road, the right of way would still be
required of the new owner. Of course you could still charge tolls of
people not using the road as a right of way to a specific property.

>There are parallels in US transportation
>history, again, which I think apply (and, no doubt, you don't, but
>that's OK).  In railroads, this time.  

I gather the railroad companies bought *political* influence from the
local or state governments in order to achieve certain ends. Naturally I
don't advocate allowing governments to have enough power to sell in that
way. 

>Applying the lessons learned there, what could I do to become filthy
>rich?  Well, I could buy an inner ring road in any city (either the
>existing one, from the council, or the land necessary to build a new
>one).  Then put up toll gates on all existing crossings, and refuse
>rights of way to cross my land with new roads.  Then, just sit back and
>watch the money roll in.  

Unless the road was sold to you with existing rights of way for those
city dwellers, which I rather suspect would happen. 

For instance they are now talking about privatising certain
roads/tunnels/bridges, but I'll bet that in each case, there are
particular situations which require particular people to have rights of
way written into the sale deeds. It willo certainly be interesting to
watch.

>Why should I sell?  Either you will pay me, or you'll leave -- in which
>case, I can probably buy up the town centre at a song, for future
>development.

That's capitalism. I have no argument with it.

>You'll retaliate in kind?  No, this is a game for a very
>few, very rich, individuals, and you're not one of them.  I've reached
>an agreement with the other players that we'll each stick to our own
>patch.

That's a cartel, and would probably be illegal. If you're talking about
a city, you're talking about competing with a lot of individuals witha 
lot of money. It'd be in their interest to outbid you.

> Comparable tactics made a lot of early railway moguls very rich
>-- a monopoly-like stranglehold on the right bit of land, and you're
>in.  Didn't do anything for the communities involved.

I'm very vague on the details now, but I did discuss this one a long
long time ago and the local governments had a lot to asnwer for both in
providing political protection for these "moguls" and for turning a
blind eye to violence used to force people to sell particular plots of land.



>>For people just walking, the
>>maintenance cost could be so low that free riders could be tolerated.

>Non-free-market solution.  See my article elsewhere.  Free 'walkers and
>cyclists' are a marketing or operating disadvantage, and so can't be
>permitted.  There is no reason to believe that it would happen otherwise.

Except that these people might be related to customers who would
otherwise take their custom elsewhere. These people might also require a
path of their own for which they were willing to pay. There are a lot of
solutions once you realise that people can take action without the
government doing it for them.

>>Force is when you make someone do something that they don't
>>want to do, not when you charge them for using something of yours
>>voluntarily and in full knowledge of that charge.

>No, too simple.  It depends upon what that 'something' is, and also
>upon whether a true free market exists in that 'something' or whether
>monopoly or oligopoly rules apply.  If the 'something' is a virtual
>or actual necessity of life, and the market is under control of a
>monopolist or a small group of companies colluding, then it is entirely
>possible for 'force' to come into play.  Again that has been historically
>seen on many occasions.  If, for example, I own the only water supply in
>town, then I can force you to pay whatever I like for water.  Your
>freedom of choice is then limited to 'pay up or piss off'.

Actually, I had this argument put to me recently. What if someone owned
the entire water supply? They could charge BILLIONS a pint!!!!! Answer
that! eh? eh?

- errrr, this is Scotland. Water falls from the sky.

That'd never be enough.

- Ok, if they charged billions, then it'd pay the competition to ship it
  in.

That'd be too expensive.

- Not if we're talking billions.

They wouldn't let people bring it in.

- Free market remember? Use force and the government stops you. It's
  their job to protect your rights. And besides, lots of things are
  illegal and the whole government tries to stop them getting in. It
  doesn't work does it?

Ok then, the price would be just below what it'd cost to ship it in.
That's still a hell of a lot

- Well, they ship a lot of oil in. It couldn't cost more than oil or the
  oil tankers would bring water instead since there'd be more profit.
  The price of Petrol is your upper limit I suspect and that's around
  30p(?) a pint. It's already more expensive than that to buy bottled
  water. I don't see a huge problem here.

Ah, but they can't just bring it in by road. We're an ISLAND.

- uhuh. And what are islands surrounded by?

Seawater, you can't drink that.

- It's easier to distill seawater than it is to make home brew. WE know
  how cheap homebrew is.

ok, well maybe not water then. But something else.....

------

I don't think so.



>Similarly, transportation is the basic bloodstream of society.
>Improper ownership patterns could certainly (and would probably) result
>in economic force being used.  You might be able to justify (and
>arrange) for there to be 3 or 4 competing trunk roads from London to
>Edinburgh, for example, but you're certainly not going to get 3 or 4
>competing road operators running roads past your house.

There are a lot of routes that could be taken between Edinburgh and
London. Some are faster and their price could be high. If they were too
high, more folks would go the slow routes and their profits would be
threatened, the businesses along the motorway would demand action to get
more customers (they'd be paying a fee to be there) and the price would
head back to market equilibrium again. I don't see a major problem here either.



>>>Fuzzy thinking, again.  You've got no problem with forcing people to
>>>pay for rights of way
>>
>>Yes I have. I advocate that they be allowed to choose whether they go by
>>that route or not in knowledge of the costs required.

>Might work, when/if there is a choice of route.  In many cases there is
>not, and, worse, cannot be.

Where?

>>By your argument, anyone who isn't an olympic swimmer is "imprisoned" in
>>the UK by the evil airlines who insist on charging people fares to get
>>out of Britain. Somehow, I don't think so.

>No, there is a salient difference.  It is entirely possible to live a
>full and satisfactory life 'stuck' within the confines of the UK
>because you can't or don't want to pay the fare to get out.  The same
>cannot be said for being stuck within the confines of your house and
>garden -- unless, maybe, you own a Highland shooting estate you haven't
>told us about.

Answer this question then: You are really saying that if people won't
pay the road toll, they're imprisoned, and this is bad. Why then is it
ok by you that folks can be imprisoned for not paying the toll (tax)
levied by a government. You are being at least inconsistent here.


>>>Back to the original problem then.  If it was that simple, that's what
>>>would happen.  It's not.
>>
>>No, but that's because the government has thus far said that only they
>>will be allowed to build roads and motorways.

>Umm?  Seems to me that there are an AWFUL lot of examples of places
>where private people or developers have built private roads upon their
>private land.  My mother-in-law lives on one such, in fact, in
>Kirriemuir -- in a row of cottages built on a farmer's land and then
>sold, where the council has refused to adopt the road.  There's another
>very nice private coastal road running north from Weston super Mare,
>which is used by a number of commuters.   Another little one handy for
>getting around Bath.  One running between Studland and Poole (including
>the ferry), down in Dorset.

Uhuh. And how many of them are charging an extortionate fee and
threatening to "imprison" people in their houses/estates/towns?

I gather that most of the trunk roads in the uk were private at one
time. Isn't there an "Old Toll" somewhere near you? Maybe it's a pub
now? This method of payment allowed many roads to be built and this
infrastructure helped britain during the industrial revolution. It also
didn't require central planning.

>What the Government has thus far said, far as I know, is that it will
>not subsidise private road-builders to build roads, and that it will
>not allow private roadbuilders a monopoly -- i.e. you could build a
>road from Edinburgh to Carlisle, but the government will not guarantee
>that it won't put up a public road serving the same points and will not
>guarantee that no-one else will build a competing private road.  Oh,
>and that it will not give private road developers the right to use
>eminent domain purchase to acquire difficult parts of the route.  If
>you can buy the land using only normal consuming power, you can
>certainly put a road on it.  What the companies want is guaranteed
>rights to have the *only* (private) road.

And I totally agree that they should be denied any such right. That'd be
using political power to defend their market position. The government
shouldn't have that sort of power to give.

[on slavery being economically efficient...}

>No, the market was indeed serving the needs of individuals.
>Specifically, the needs of the individuals with the money; if you've
>got no money, your needs don't count.  That is how the market works.
>It was doing it rather well, in purely economic terms; only by stepping
>outside the economic viewpoint could this be appreciated as wrong.

Libertarianism is not simply economic conservatism, it's about people's
rights. You still have rights to property even if you don't have money.
Your life is part of your property as is your willingness to *agree* to
any transaction. Slavery is clearly outside that definition.

>>Except that now, people are working and having some of their wages
>>removed. That includes the doctor, so for some of the time, he's a
>>slave, he has to work unpaid. And, since the money is extracted from all
>>of us, we've all been made slaves to the extent that we're being charged
>>involuntarily. 

>Irrelevant, really.  I am not claiming that my system is morally better
>than yours, I am simply claiming that yours is not morally better than
>mine. 

I've shown how libertarianism would avoid slavery, and I've shown that
the system you advocate mandates it. You hinted that you didn't approve
of slavery. Either renounce that disaproval or renounce the systme you
advocate which involves it.

>It doesn't surprise me that you can find ways in which the
>(im)moralities match. 

They don't. See above.

>What I'd like to do is batter you into discussing
>relative utility, rather than pretending it is a moral issue; the more
>such parallels we can find between my system and yours, the better I'm
>doing.

But I'd regard freedom as being the utility to be maximised. You regard
whether or not your social engineering schemes get done or not as the
measurement. We wouldn't likely agree to measure the same things.


>In any case, your doctor has the same sorts of 'freedom of choice' as
>does my poor sod who lives on a road which has been privatised and made
>a toll road.  (You said, you'll recall, that he has the choice of
>paying the toll, or of staying in the house.)  Your doctor, on the
>other hand, has an incredible range of choices by comparison.  He can
>choose to work as a shop assistant -- less pay, less taxes. 

With *any* taxes, he's still a slave for some of the time. There's no
choice in that.

> He can
>choose to work as a dustbin man -- even less taxes.  He can choose to
>stop working entirely, and live rough -- no taxes at all. 

And that's what your solution really amounts to. You can be down and out
with no freedom to trade or you can be a slave for some of the time. I
hardly think that's offering more freedom or more choice.

>He can also
>choose to move somewhere else, where he can work as a doctor with a
>lower tax rate.  No, I'm not being flippant; I think I'm being kinder
>to your doctor than you are to my homeowner.

I've advocated that your homeowner be free to buy or not at the market
price. YOu haven't yet advocated that my doctor be free to trade without
being forced to be a slave some of the time.


>Let's go back a bit.  I said:

[on private roads in the past having failed...]

>You said (sorry, I've lost your original reply) something to the effect
>that you wouldn't accept my assertion, and you believe that the public
>roads took over due to pressure from the car companies.  Now, I'm still
>sure I'm right, and all you'd need do is look it up.

I'll try to do that over the holidays.

>(Or, for a small
>fee, I'd consider a research consultancy.)  However, just to save
>rehashing that, let's 'pretend' you're right.

>What have you said, then?  Well, in essence, you've said that these car
>companies, working in an essentially deregulated free-market
>environment, to free-market rules, succeeded, by using available
>methods, in maximising their benefit, and the benefit of their
>customers.  That's just what you want, que no?  

Political means were used to close the trams for instance, not the free
market. 

>'Maximising benefits' is a tricky business, because in a cut-throat
>free-market (particularly one such as this, where required capital
>outlays make it harder to set up competitors), the players with more
>money have more say in determining what is 'maximal'.  There is no
>reason to believe that what is 'maximal' for a large company and its
>customers is 'maximal' for anyone outside that set.  Companies are not
>out to maximise social utility, they are out to maximise their very own
>utility.  In monopoly situations, there's not even any reason to believe
>the the company's, and its customers', maxima coincide.

I've said that I accept the monopoly problem to an extent. I'm loathe to
accept a Monopolies Commision as a solution. I'll have to think about
it. Score it as a point you've convinced me on.

>>As I've said, I'm more interested in freedom of choice. People should be
>>free to associate and implement whatever scheme they want. As I've said,
>>they can buy up whatever resources they like and give them away free for
>>as long as they're able. It's just forcing others to join their scheme's
>>that I disagree with.
>>
>>>However, note that in practice the statement 'whoever it is worth more
>>>to will win' reduces to 'whoever has more money will win'. 
>>
>>Nope, and I'll give an example why not:
>>
>>Big Bad Company X wants to build a road and knows that there are
>>customers willing to pay tolls so there'll be a nice profit.
>>
>>Farmer Giles owns a bit of spare pasture with some rare orchids growing
>>there.  Lots of people like to come and see the orchids and it's
>>otherwise useless land and they're no hassle so he leaves them be.
>>
>>Company X wants to build a road there though and is willing to buy that
>>land. Farmer Giles is getting old and needs some security and so is
>>willing to sell. But wait, the orchid people get together and start
>>bidding against the company. They know they don't have nearly as much
>>money but they up the bidding enough that the profit margin is
>>threatened and the company thinks it will now be cheaper to take a route
>>around the orchids by buying the land next door.

>You are assuming some fairly rich orchid lovers (or else a hell of a lot
>of them, highly organised) and a fairly poor company.  The reverse is at
>least as likely.  Go look for newspaper stories about the new Tesco
>being built (in the face of great opposition) on Golden Hill in Bristol.
>Even as we speak.

Is the opposition willing to buy out the land used? If not then the land
is worth more to Tesco than the opposition. Wealth has been maximised.


>>As for the idea of an individual stopping a route. This is perfectly
>>possible. The folks that want that route bid up as high as they are
>>willing and the individual refuses the offer. All that means is that for
>>some reason (possibly including a pleasure in being perverse) it is
>>worth more to that individual to block the route. 

>Well, historically this has been done not so much to block a route for
>aesthetic purposes, but rather to stop a route being built in
>competition with an existing route, so as to preserve the monopoly
>position of the person who owns the orignal route.  As such it is rarely
>of benefit to anyone except that individual.

>>So this scheme only requires the ability to appropriate funds without
>>permission and possibly the ability to take people's land without their
>>permission to work eh? It's amazing how efficient government can be!

>>They're free to get together and implement it or someone could just do
>>it and charge for usage. It doesn't have to be government. What you
>>advocate is even more silly, you advocate that government build a road
>>and charge *everyone* for it whether they use it or not.

>OK, let's close out with a little thought experiment.  (Only sort you
>can get funding for, these days.)  Consider town-building companies
>A and B.

>A and B each go out and buy a square mile or 3 of greenfield sites
>(greenfield just to avoid arguments about things like prior rights of
>way), and each builds a new town on its site -- self contained, houses,
>shops, pubs, roads, parks, whatever you like in a new town.  So, now
>we've got new town A and new town B.  No people yet, but no problem.

>Both companies decide to sell/rent their houses/shops/etc with a tied
>maintenance contract and behaviour covenants.  I.e. they will decide
>what services to provide, they will provide them, and they will charge
>an annual management fee for doing so, on top of your purchase price.
>Further, they will determine local bye-laws as they deem them
>necessary, subject to constraints about reasonableness and so on -- you
>agree to obey such bye-laws as they are promulgated, or to move out.
>Fair enough?  After all, it IS their new town, and all of this is made
>clear in the purchase contract; if you don't like it, you don't have to
>move there.

>Then, at some later date, company B decides (under their power to set
>bye-laws) that the needs of the community could be better reflected by
>setting up a management committee elected from amongst the residents.
>This management committee will handle the services, being paid a salary
>to do so, and will collect the annual management fee.  Hey, presto,
>I've invented local government.  How and when has the operation of town
>B become improper?  Prima facie, it looks like it has even increased
>freedom of choice -- after all, now it is representatives of the
>residents setting policy, rather than the rather feudal company A in
>the other town.  All of the inhabitants' contracts are still being
>fulfilled, and they entered the agreement voluntarily.

If that's how the company wants to collect it's rent and administer its
properties then that's fine. Folks can either buy a property under those
conditions or not.

I wouldn't buy a property though if I had to give the company rights to
set laws over me which didn't concern the property.

I guess I wouldn't live in either town.

>No, I know, it's 100 years later, when the descendants of those people
>are living there, because they didn't sign the contracts.  (If you
>moved there from outside, you've got no complaint; you knew what the
>situation was.  Only being born there gives you any case at all.)  OK,
>that's a rational viewpoint, but a highly unprofitable one; unless you
>are going to seriously suggest tearing the place down and starting from
>scratch every time a new generation is born.

No, just allow them to opt in only to those agreements they want to.

>However, it's also
>rational, I think, to say that these newbies have the power to change
>the system, working from within it, if they can convince enough people
>to get them onto the management committee.

Indeed.

>Society evolved precisely because there are things which need to be
>done which benefit everybody, which are more effectively done by people
>working in unison, and for which everyone should pay since everyone
>benefits. 

Yes, I just disagree that it has to be government that does it and since
you'd be talking about a lot of people wanting those things done anyway
if people were elected to the management committee to do them, I
disagree that it's necessary to force dissenters to join in too.

>You are asking to share in all the benefits, but only to pay
>for those which you choose. 

No, I'm asking for the right to pay only for what I use and the right
not to be charged by force for what others use.

>Public transport, for example, benefits
>drivers as much as non-drivers.  I am claiming that belonging to
>society gives you certain rights and benefits, and imposes certain
>obligations upon you; and that society has the right to force you to
>meet the obligations, in order to share in the benefits.  

I'd rather be charged for a "benefit" than have to take it free with the
condition that I allow myself to be charged for anything someone thinks
that someone else should have.

I do believe in societal responsibility though. I just don't think that
people forced to do things are in fact being responsible since they
didn't have a choice whether to be responsible or not. I also think that
doing this, does in itself, erode responsibility.

>(Side note, this does NOT justify the theory behind the poll tax, since
>there are at least 3 different working definitions of 'equal payment',
>and I know which I prefer.  If anyone wants to argue that, wait until
>January.)

I didn't agree with the Poll Tax any more than I do with other taxes.
Privatising those things that the Poll Tax pays for would have been a
better solution.

>Even your much-praised free-market now relies upon society.  Go cut out
>10000 pieces of paper the size of 50 pound notes, and see how much you
>can buy with them.  Check out how the free market works in countries
>which don't have a stable social base, or a solid infrastructure.

Agreed. That's why I'm a libertarian rather than an anarchist. Please
don't confuse the two.

>You claim that 'if people want something, they can form a group and
>provide it'.  They have formed such groups, called communities, and
>since such groups are generally too big for mass meetings, they have
>elected 'subcommittees' (called 'governments') to handle the day to
>day affairs. 

I'm totally in favour of this. Where I part company is where this
committee gets to "So we're all agreed that this should get done. OK,
should we all pay equally? No, that's expensive. I know, we'll charge
all the people not in the group that didn't want the damn thing started
anyway, that way we'll be able both to pay for our scheme, and take a
nice litlle cut for administration."

Sorry, but I just call it what it is: theft.

>It may be that you don't feel the government is properly
>handling your interests any more.  Fine, but that doesn't invalidate
>the concept, which is in fact precisely your own.

Not if you weren't on the committee or didn't advocate it getting set up
to pursue those schemes.

> It might mean that
>the present incumbents need out-cumbenting, or even that the details of
>the mechanism need tuned.  

Indeed. I think we can be reasonably sure that we agree that getting rid
of this particular government would be a good place to start.

>Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK

Happy Solstice

FoFP