1. Roads without Taxes: Possible?
Why does the question of roads seem to be the go-to argument many people use against a libertarian standpoint?
Answered by Dennis Pratt
This is a great question, because it certainly puzzles us libertarians quite a bit, and as a group, we’re some of the best puzzle solvers in the world.
What causes nonlibertarians to be unable to imagine anyone other than rulers building roads seems to be an interlocking series of assumptions, intentionally programmed into our just forming brains to short circuit the development of logic during Mrs. Kravitz’ fifth grade civics class, as per her government lesson plan entitled: “Why do we absolutely, positively need government?”. Sadly, because this illogic was inculcated at such an early age, it seems particularly immune to logic.
But let me share some clarifying questions I will sometimes ask nonlibertarians to specifically diagnose their current stage of misconception. [Footnote 1]
Do you believe that libertarians have never considered this question? I don’t ask this question all the time because it is a bit confrontational, but certainly anyone who sneers their question about roads deserves this query.
His inference was that he, with perhaps what he considers to be his superior intellect, has quickly sent me back to the drawing board. My 40 years of serious inquiry into freed people living freely has been thwarted with just 30 seconds of his most careless thought! How could I be so stupid to have missed this glaring design problem?
Frankly, it’s a bit insulting. But I have to remind myself that the imagination of nonlibertarians has been so badly stunted by Mrs. Kravitz and her ilk that he has hardly ever considered that humans might some day be freed from the violent subjugation of a plundering and psychopathic ruling class. He doesn’t realize the damage that Mrs. Kravitz did to his brain; instead, he believes that his thoughts about the inevitably of submission to rulers are the result of his outside-the-box, independent thinking (even though, he is simply parroting back Mrs. Kravitz’ lessons.) And his well-trained mind is so superior to mine that it stretches into areas where my poor libertarian brain just never venture:
“The roads! How did I miss this!?”
And so, ask this question of those folks: “Do you believe that libertarians have never considered this question?”
If he is sincere, he ought to come back with, “No, I guess you probably have thought about it.”
You might want to get him to empathize a bit further with you:
“Do you think that libertarians ever came up with a plan to have roads?” “What do you think such a plan might entail?” “How would you solve the problem of building a road so that you and your neighbors could get into town, but you weren’t allowed to threaten violence on your neighbor?” Wait for his answer(s).
These are useful questions, at least at the beginning if you are facing intensely superior arrogance, to prevent the nonlibertarian from prancing about, pumping both fists into the air, triumphantly dropping his mic, and playing the fool.
Let him wrestle with this problem a bit more than the 30 seconds he had given the issue before he dismissed an entire philosophy he doesn’t really know anything about. Doing so, might help him be much more open to exploring the rest of the questions with you in earnest.
Do you think that libertarians want roads? So, this is an important question to ask next. You see, we have probably shocked the nonlibertarian by introducing him to the idea that humans might not require a master race of rulers. His mind is careening into an alternative bizarro world where nothing he has today is there. “If there are no rulers, why there would be no roads, no life in the world at all!!”
You see, rulers have been a constant parasite on us for millennia, and thus, the nonlibertarian is operating using the simple logic he learned in government school:
We have always had X, therefore, we must always need X. <0733>
And so, when we suggest excising one of the most destructive cancers of history — ruler subjugation of us — his brain immediately wonders what else will we crazy libertarians try to get rid of!
I guess we should feel thankful that they don’t start with, “But who will supply the oxygen?”, but even Mrs. Kravitz didn’t try to convince us that politicians were our only source of oxygen. (Even though I don’t like giving ideas to authoritarians, this might not be as impossible a case to make, given the amount of hot air that politicians constantly ejaculate.)
This question is designed to get him back to recognizing us as fellow humans who want and need the same types of things he does. In this case, roads.
We are trying to reel our untethered nonlibertarian back to imagining a more realistic world — albeit one absent overlords. We need to get him to realize that, even though libertarians don't want a ruling class, which will steal, beat, cage, or kill us, we surprisingly nonetheless still want roads.
It’s amazing how the nonlibertarian will relax once he realizes that we are both on the same side — road-wise.
Do you believe that politicians and government bureaucrats physically build roads? This is an excellent question to ask, because of course the nonlibertarian is conflating the actual planning, designing, building, and maintaining of the road with their rulers’ subjugation of them. The fact here that we want him to realize is that the rulers are — road-wise — at best little more than corrupt, evil, uncaring, wasteful middle men. So, the more we can get the nonlibertarian to discriminate the minimal value added by the politician and the government bureaucrat from the actual work required to build and maintain a road, the easier the rest of our task will be.
Take your time and break down all the tasks of road design, construction, and building and find out which of these he believes his rulers uniquely do, and which are simply hired out to some private firm. (And feel free to note that often that firm is chosen because of their campaign contributions.)
Do you believe that politicians and government bureaucrats are the only ones who can hire the companies that actually build the roads? If you handled the previous question well, (and if the nonlibertarian is actually sincerely open and curious), the nonlibertarian will have admitted that the politician is primarily someone who hires other people to build and maintain the road. This next question helps the nonlibertarian to take the next logical step to consider that just maybe someone other than a government bureaucrat could similarly hire those same private companies. (Or perhaps, dare I suggest, better, cheaper, non-crony private companies.)
Do you believe that the only way to acquire a large pool of investment is to steal it? The nonlibertarian will now look for non-building aspects to justify his “No road can be built without Dear Leader” belief.
He may doubt that private investors would be able to raise enough money without taxation. (Note that this will directly contradict his inevitable upcoming objection that any road will automatically produce monopoly profits,. Don’t let him have it both ways — that no one would ever invest, and that there would be enormous profits for investors.)
You can talk about all the people who want the road. Those who need to take Little Susie to dance practice, or businesses that need to bring customers to their stores, or investors who would profit from the road’s tolls, or companies that would sponsor a road for advertising.
(You can also add that the roads would be much cheaper to build, as government usually hires cronies in return for political support. Politicians are not using their own money and are thus terrible, wasteful investors. So the cost of the roads would be fractions of what the nonlibertarian is coercively paying for today.)
Because many nonlibertarians are anti-capitalists, many of them won’t really have an understanding of investment. If you run into a brick wall here, where he just refuses to accept that anyone would ever invest in a road, go to [Footnote 1]. You’ve done the best you could do here. Mrs. Kravitz has won this round.
Do you believe that the only way to acquire land is to steal it? Another you-can’t-do-it-any-other-way argument that the nonlibertarian will try is that a road is not possible unless they have rulers who can steal land for the road (e.g., eminent domain). <1071>
Again, here you can find out if they believe that no one can buy land honestly, and that instead land must only be stolen. Most nonlibertarians will acknowledge the absurdity of that position, but will then suggest that to buy all the contiguous land that a road would need, they must steal it from those who would “unfairly” hold out.
(You can have a conversation if you like about “What is a market price?”, and how when a government violently uses threats of violence to force sellers to take a price, it isn’t “fair”, nor can it be a “market price”.)
Suggest various peaceful alternatives to theft (e.g., buying options contingent on other purchases; optioning multiple paths; offering higher prices; offering more shares; emphasizing the benefit of, and land value increase from, the road to the seller; etc.).
And I always emphasize the evil of stealing something through the use of threats of violence just for a bit of convenience or for a (presumed) lower price. Remember it’s selfish to steal. (We must remind ourselves that the nonlibertarian usually does not recognize that violence is being used, so taking him through the steps of a land holder refusing to sell for a “fair market price” that leads eventually to the homeowner’s death (if he does not submit to the thuggery) might help them realize what they are doing to otherwise innocent peaceful people just to selfishly steal their land.)
But if the nonlibertarian really cannot imagine peaceful, win-win exchange of significant tracts of land, and has little ethical concern about threatening violence to steal for his own benefit <1001>, then fall back on [Footnote 1]. You’ll have to hope that the seeds you’ve set today might someday set root in him. (Durn that Mrs. Kravitz!)
Do you deny that people can voluntarily cooperate to build things together? Most of the time, nonlibertarians can only think of large scale projects as being “led” by government force — they have a fascistic take on large projects. (Think massive Egyptian chain gangs building a pyramid, with plenty of jackbooted guards holding tommy guns.) However, we have numerous examples of big commercial projects being built voluntarily and consensually without threats of violence and slavery.
Of course, sometimes people won’t want to pay for a bridge to nowhere, and you know what would happen in a freed society, the freed people wouldn’t build it then, as opposed to the politician who can steal your money to feed his cronies and suffers no ill-effect for waste and a nod and a wink. <0680>
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A Milestone and a Beer If you have worked through the illogic of the nonlibertarian this far, you are doing great. You might suggest a beer, because you have already altered his foundational assumptions about the world greatly; the poor guy deserves something for being so gutsy, thoughtful, and open.
I would wait a while before broaching the subject again, because the next phase is even harder. He needs some time to process, and you need to brace yourself, because the false assumptions are going to come fast and furious from a wide variety of directions….
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Do you believe that a monopolist can charge “any price they want”? The nonlibertarian will now argue the opposite of “no one will invest”: that a road is a “natural monopoly” and therefore whoever owned the road would let access only for “a million billion dollars”.
Here you need to talk a bit about whether monopoly pricing is unconstrained. Most nonlibertarians will think that the road owner would rather almost no one drive on it, so you want to talk about the investors being anxious to get a return on their investment, to attract customers to use the road, to convince customers to prefer their road. You can also talk about how access to the road had to be negotiated at the time of land purchase with the neighbors. And of course, if the road is subsidized by businesses (who can’t sell their products without customers), there would be similar reduction on price.
Finally, ask him,
“Is the road you drive on today a monopoly?” “How much do you pay for your road today?” “How do you know whether the government monopoly is giving you a good, nonmonopolistic price?” “How can they be charging you a reasonable price if they use that money for cronies and for non-road projects?” “Could they be charging you more than a private company would and you just don’t realize it?” “When confronted with a monopoly, it better or worse to be forced to pay for it no matter what, or to be able to refuse to pay for it and use a different company’s product?” He will probably argue that the road is “free” to him. Ask him who pays for it and from where those people get their money.
“I don't pay real estate taxes.” “Do you rent?” “Is your real estate tax part of what you pay to your landlord?” “I don’t pay income taxes.” “Do you buy products?” “Do those companies pay taxes?” “Is therefore part of the price you pay an income tax on you that someone else is simply turning in for you?” “Do you pay gas tax” (For more description about the misdirection of taxes “on them” that always land on us <0290>)
Do you believe that a road would have no competition? Most nonlibertarians have never heard of Schumpeter’s creative destruction, so you can introduce, to those who reject that there would be any limit to monopolistic pricing, how monopoly profits spur innovation: investors and entrepreneurs who want big returns will notice the monopoly profits of the road and will:
Build alternative roads Build rails and trams Build tunnels and tubes Organize busses Build flying cars Monopoly pricing would herald a gigantic innovation surge in transportation, the benefits accruing to the consumer. And fear of being obsoleted, where they could lose their entire investment, would dampen the road owners’ greed.
Do you believe that you would have no say in the governance of a road? Many times, nonlibertarians think that evil “corporations” are not run democratically. But of course, they are. In fact, a shareholder has more per person power than does a voter.
The people who sell their land will get shares to vote, and in this way they will have more power than they do with the local government to manage the road. In addition, if a road was important to you, you could buy more of the road. There might even be Road Funds that invest in roads to manage for users’ interests. <1085><0247>
Do you believe that you would lose access to a road? A lot of times nonlibertarians will build a fantasy that all of a sudden, they would not be able to leave their own home because the evil corporation forbids them access to their road. This ignores that houses would be sold with road access — because without access, the houses are useless. (See especially <0088>)
Do you believe that government is more inexpensive, efficient, innovative, managerial, customer-oriented, stewarding? I actually would ask these questions separately, but I’m tiring just thinking about all the false assumptions we have to de-mythify when asked “What about the roads?”.
Now, the nonlibertarian probably just hasn’t been paying attention to the reality of government and actually thinks that government bureaucrats are better on these dimensions than private people spending their own money! <0889>
You can try to disabuse their misconceptions, but at some point, they wlll likely just “Knows whats I’se knows” and so you will probably have to go to [Footnote 1]. The nonlibertarian just has too many interlocking false assumptions for you to handle this year. (But frankly, being libertarian is not a matter of disabusing an authoritarian from decades of indoctrination with just your single conversation. It is planting the seed of an alternative future of freed men, and allowing that vision to grow over the years in the minds of a few capable and ethical men.<0388>)
But that’s the problem with “the roads”: it touches on so many of the false assumptions that old Mrs. Kravitz — doing her government job in her government school for her government pay by teaching the government lesson plan to government-coerced students — indoctrinated the nonlibertarian with. And so, it is too hard for him to imagine that anyone else but government can build and offer a road — at least he can’t today.
But hopefully you will have taken him maybe one or two steps further down the road. It’s a long road, and he may not make it to the end, but it’s always a kindness to help a stranger along.
But then disengage gracefully (with Footnote 1), hoping he works through the rest of of Mrs Kravitz’ illogic on his own, and you go out and get yourself a nice cold beer.
You will have deserved it!
Footnote 1: Before you bother trying to diagnose where the nonlibertarian’s major block is, make sure that you are not dealing with the close-minded, the sneering, the dull, the certain. To them, “What about the roads?” is simply one amongst many cliches that they use so that they don't have to think about how we ought to treat human beings more humanely. They’re comfortable as they are, and if they can use a bit of asphalt laid on dirt to justify enslaving people, they’ll use that, but, if that doesn’t work, they’ll just use their next excuse. You see, “the roads” have nothing to do with these anti-libertarians rejection of human ethics — the ethics of respecting each person as the exclusive owner of her own body is their real problem, because they’d have to change how they treat people.
This series of question only has any value to you if you are dealing with the rare “open and curious” segment. (You can find out by asking them directly if they will change their minds if you can convince them that there would be roads in a libertarian society.)
If the person is not in this segment, then simply assure the anti-libertarian that you have no intention of taking away their current roads. They can continue to use and pay for the roads they have, which were built by their altruistic and efficient politicians and government bureaucrats.
Explain to him, that as foolish as it might be, you and your friends simply want to form a separate country, which the anti libertarian doesn’t even have to visit if he doesn’t want to. There, you’ll be trying more peaceful, voluntary, win-win ways to build roads. But it might turn out that he is totally right and no one except a government bureaucrat is able to figure out how to pour asphalt onto the dirt, and you will have to admit defeat, because you and your fellow libertarians won’t have any way to travel around. But you’d like to try the impossible anyway.
And then leave it at that.
