The case for government

[WillMagic]

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UMMMMM.....
OK, so we have these differnt roads. Owned by different companies. What stops those companies from getting together and saying: "Hey... we have what is essentially a necessity of life. If we get together, we can increase prices and we all make more"?


(if anyone replies with "then another company comes along and charges less" ill laugh my ass off)

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Nah...the cartel won't be able to hold. Each road owner will be under tremendous financial pressure to violate the cartel agreement and undercut their competitors, because if they do so they'll get all the road business. Without government to ensure that all members comply with the cartel, the cartel will always be broken.

[tolbiny]

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Also, private contractors will have armies that will fight for you if you pay them. I think.

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Then how do we prevent the largest army from taking over?

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Currently the US has 100,000 of the best trained and best equipped soliders in the world tyring to keep Iraq under control, and even with the support of large section sof the population, and factions at war with each other they have spent 3 years and hundreds of billions of dollars to still be in an uncertain situation. Estimates of how large the initial invasion number would have had to be to keep the peace are in the 200-400,000 range, the US being about 12 times larger in population i wouldn't be unreasonable to think that 2.5-5 million troops would be nessecary to subdue the country (probably more as there would be little infighting amoung US citizens, and there are more natural barriers to overcome/provide shelter for guerrillas). Who is going tobe able to afford to field this large of an army? Mexico? No one on our continent (or even the western hemisphere) could put together those kind of troop levels. Russia, China perhaps, but those are enourmous costs for them to endure for an endless occupation for what cause? War is hella expensive.

[CallMeIshmael]

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Nah...the cartel won't be able to hold. Each road owner will be under tremendous financial pressure to violate the cartel agreement and undercut their competitors

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No they wont.


If they undercut they return to the previous situation (competition). Since they know this, and the cartel has higher profits than the competitive market, they will not undercut.

[tolbiny]

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Today, nearly all successful countries have governments.

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Heres your fallacy -
All successfull "countries" have governments in place, therefore governments are responsible for the sucess. At least as likely is that a country has to be successfull for there to be enough money for a powerfull central government to form. In my view a large government is a parasite living off the sucess of others, run by con men who talk the populace out of large sums of money.

Ohh and England went hundreds of years without a strong central government and many a road was buit throught out the towns and countrysides, not to mention there were entirely privately funded railroads built throughout america. Why would regular streets be any different?

[CallMeIshmael]

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4) They (falsely) believe that evil businessmen could essentially hold people and communities "ransom". I love this one. It's a completely pathological hypothetical that these private road conversations always lead to. "Oh yeah? Well what if Bill Gates [it's always Bill Gates, that evil bastard] bought up all the roads surrounding your house and charged you a million dollars to use them? Huh? Huh? What are you going to do TEHN?" It's completely absurd, for a number of reasons:

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OK, well lets see how you refute this:

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a) One thing's for certain: I'm not going to pay Bill Gates exorbitant amounts for access to the roads. So he's not going to make as much as he could by simply charging competitive rates. It's just a bad business plan.

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OK, lets say the competitive price is $2 for x miles on this road. This means that the companes in the market can operate profitaby when charging $2. But, if someone did have a monopoly, they could charge $5 (clearly not exorbidant) and you would still pay, since you need to go to work.

(fwiw, just in case people were thinking: "if im willing to pay $5, why isnt the competitive price $5?" Simple, business can turn a profit at less than 5, and thus competion forces it donw.

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b) To do this, one has to presume that the person buying up the roads has a large supply of capital to invest in his nefarious scheme. How did he accumulate that capital? Presumably through some profitable business (like Microsoft). No sane businessman is going to divert capital that could be invested into profitable businesses into kooky schemes like buying up all the roads in Gotham and then holding the city for ransom; the whole scheme is a bad comic book plot (Holy Robber Road Baron Batman!).

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Yeah, good point. Why on earth would someone want to own a monopoly on A PUBLIC NECESSITY when they can invest in a company that cant make an O/S run from more than 6 straight hours.

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c) Who the hell would sell their roads once they saw what was about to happen? Even if Gates managed to buy up a large fraction of the roads surrounding a community, the inhabitants would quickly catch on and not sell their remaining roads, because they'd be shooting themselves in the head.

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This could be valid, but ONLY if roads were owned by MANY people. Like, everyone owns a little peice of road. If we're assuming roads are owned by companies, then this doenst work (im tired, so I dont feel like posting anymore. If anyone doesnt see why and wants me to back it up ill post tomorrow)

[hmkpoker]

Here we go again.

[WillMagic]

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OK, well lets see how you refute this:

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a) One thing's for certain: I'm not going to pay Bill Gates exorbitant amounts for access to the roads. So he's not going to make as much as he could by simply charging competitive rates. It's just a bad business plan.

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OK, lets say the competitive price is $2 for x miles on this road. This means that the companes in the market can operate profitaby when charging $2. But, if someone did have a monopoly, they could charge $5 (clearly not exorbidant) and you would still pay, since you need to go to work.

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You realize that that's basically the status quo, right? The government has, um, a monopoly on road provision. They own all the roads!

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(fwiw, just in case people were thinking: "if im willing to pay $5, why isnt the competitive price $5?" Simple, business can turn a profit at less than 5, and thus competion forces it donw.

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Yeah, you're right! Sounds like a great reason to end the stupid government monopoly and bring in some competition, eh?

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b) To do this, one has to presume that the person buying up the roads has a large supply of capital to invest in his nefarious scheme. How did he accumulate that capital? Presumably through some profitable business (like Microsoft). No sane businessman is going to divert capital that could be invested into profitable businesses into kooky schemes like buying up all the roads in Gotham and then holding the city for ransom; the whole scheme is a bad comic book plot (Holy Robber Road Baron Batman!).

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Yeah, good point. Why on earth would someone want to own a monopoly on A PUBLIC NECESSITY when they can invest in a company that cant make an O/S run from more than 6 straight hours.

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Your frustrations with Microsoft aside...do you realize how hard it would be to acquire a monopoly on roads without force? There are thousands of different routes to any given destination. And while driving may seem like a necessity...if you are unreasonable people will find a workaround (working from home, going to a different store, etc.)

But remember...all these negative things you bring up actually exist in the status quo! It's only that the cost is hidden. Government has a monopoly on roads. It spends whatever it wants and passes whatever cost overruns it needs onto the taxpayers. There's no accountability, no feedback, and no competition. So how do you suppose that a free market would lead to a system that is more monopolistic and less responsive to consumer demand?

[Chris Alger]

Are you seriously arguing that, throughout history, "people as a whole" have been better off with armies than without them? Are you some sort of hero warrior cultist or just kidding?

[Nielsio]

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It works really well. There are some things that people as a whole need. Individuals cannot provide these things. An army is one. Roads are another. You can claim under your 'no government' system that these things will be there but the facts are that there are governments in almost all the countries and they have provided armies and roads.

For almost all of history we were without governments in the modern form. Today, nearly all successful countries have governments. This is unreconciably (horribly mispelled, I'm aware and too drunk to care) with your theories of AC.

Sorry guys! But AC is probably a hoax you have bought into.

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You are mistaking being forced to with a need.

Lots of people have aids. It is really succesful. People need aids?

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There are some things that people as a whole need. Individuals cannot provide these things.

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So a government doesn't consist of individuals. Interesting.

[Borodog]

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It works really well. There are some things that people as a whole need. Individuals cannot provide these things. An army is one. Roads are another. You can claim under your 'no government' system that these things will be there but the facts are that there are governments in almost all the countries and they have provided armies and roads.

For almost all of history we were without governments in the modern form. Today, nearly all successful countries have governments. This is unreconciably (horribly mispelled, I'm aware and too drunk to care) with your theories of AC.

Sorry guys! But AC is probably a hoax you have bought into.

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Wow. Arguments are really brief when you simply assume all of your conclusions.