Public parks, public roads......privatize?

[christagious]

I decided to make a thread concerning this due to a post made on another thread concerning privatizing roads.

From what I understand, if roads were privatized we'd have to pay to travel on them, thus taking away our right to travel. I can't bring myself to support this action, I don't really want to have to pay to drive on a road, I already pay enough to renew my license and license plates as it is. If roads were privatized would they all be "pay-per-drive"?

And with parks, I kinda like being able to walk a few blocks from my house and enjoy a walk through the park, push my daughter on the swings, and watch other families enjoying themselves; enjoying being able to go somewhere, have fun, and not have to pay a dime. Versus if you were to go to the theater, amusement park, or elsewhere where you'd have to pay to enjoy yourself. The idea of privatizing parks seems kind of dumb, I realize it's also dumb for tax payers to have to pay to maintain and expand parks as well, but I don't see too many people willing to pay to enter a park that was originally free to enter.

Any thoughts on the privatize issue? Maybe somebody can further educate and school me, and maybe tell me that my preconceived notions are wrong concerning this?

 

[Maverick]

Parks are easy. Donations and charitable contributions already make up a significant portion of the money that goes into building them. As far as maintaining them goes, I don't know if that money usually comes from the city or not, but I can't see it being unreasonable for the parks to continue to be supported by donations.

Roads are another matter though...I'll have to get back to you on that one.

 

[brandon]

I have a ton to say about this issue, but I will just make one point right now.

You are only talking about the negative side of privatization, and neglecting the benifits. Sure you would have to pay to use a private road or park, but you will be able to afford to pay for it because you will be saving money in taxes. Ultimately, the free market will make the price of these things much cheaper then they are now. After a few years you may be able to pay to use the roads AND buy yourself something nice with the same money they used to take from you in taxes for the roads.

 

[Danke]

I have a ton to say about this issue, but I will just make one point right now.

You are only talking about the negative side of privatization, and neglecting the benifits. Sure you would have to pay to use a private road or park, but you will be able to afford to pay for it because you will be saving money in taxes. Ultimately, the free market will make the price of these things much cheaper then they are now. After a few years you may be able to pay to use the roads AND buy yourself something nice with the same money they used to take from you in taxes for the roads.

I disagree. Roads should not be privatized. If they were, how would anyone travel without traversing private property? Private property owners can make up any rules they want (the unlimited right they have to contract). And we can now see they are selling a lot of roads to foreign companies.

No, it is a RIGHT to travel (in the pursuit of happiness). A natural right, or for the religious amongst us, a God given right, secured by our Constitution (and repeatedly upheld by our Supreme Court).

 

[Alex Libman]

Long term vision --

• Local government is better than federal (or world) government, the more local the better.

• Private is better than socialized, but privatization takes time. Private interests exist for their own sake, not to fix government's screw-ups.

• Non-profit organizations are better than for-profit organizations. This is a new phenomenon, but it's already starting to appear in complex and rapidly-maturing fields like open-source software. All things being equal, most people would rather deal with something created by volunteers, no matter if it's Web browser software or parks.

 

[kalami]

Working under the presumption that a person has a right to travel is not the same as a right to having roads built and maintained for you so you can drive your personal car. And the fear that a private company is simply going to make up any rule they want because they can is ridiculous. They have to make a profit and any rule they make is going to have that to consider. In this case, profit is directly correlated to increasing and not decreasing the traffic of their roads. In the event they tried to make up a arbitrary rule that denied people access to their roads that neglected the profit incentive, they will go broke. People would drive anyways, a black market would emerge, and the costs of enforcing that arbitrary rule would be greater than whatever they thought that rule was worth to them. Private companies can actually go bankrupt for making bad decisions.

 

[Fox McCloud]

I decided to make a thread concerning this due to a post made on another thread concerning privatizing roads.

From what I understand, if roads were privatized we'd have to pay to travel on them, thus taking away our right to travel. I can't bring myself to support this action, I don't really want to have to pay to drive on a road, I already pay enough to renew my license and license plates as it is. If roads were privatized would they all be "pay-per-drive"?

I'll admit this is one that I don't really argue with people about much, as I view it, personally, as an issue that can't really be dealt with privately anymore...though I could be dead wrong.

Either way, you likely wouldn't pay those large fees for your license or license plates, and your gasoline bill would be about...oh 20-40 cents per gallon less...all these things are used to fund the building of roads. Chances are, yes, they'd be pay as you drive...but they could also set it up so that you'd go to the corporation that owns the roads and they'd issue a "unlimited mileage/time" permit for a select area...the larger the area, the more expensive it would be (though there'd like be so many mileage allowance for traveling on other roads)....therefore, with drastically reduced/no licensing fees and no gasoline tax, at all, your overall bill, per year may end up being considerably lower than what you pay right now.

And with parks, I kinda like being able to walk a few blocks from my house and enjoy a walk through the park, push my daughter on the swings, and watch other families enjoying themselves; enjoying being able to go somewhere, have fun, and not have to pay a dime. Versus if you were to go to the theater, amusement park, or elsewhere where you'd have to pay to enjoy yourself. The idea of privatizing parks seems kind of dumb, I realize it's also dumb for tax payers to have to pay to maintain and expand parks as well, but I don't see too many people willing to pay to enter a park that was originally free to enter.

There's a park that's in my town (and it is by no means a booming town...though when the park was built, things weren't going so poorly....now all the industry is leaving) and it is owned by a Hospital...I'm not sure how it was funded, 100%, and how much was donation and how much was owned by them (it was so long ago), but it's a private park that's open to anyone....ironically it's the nicest park in the entire town....I'm not 100% sure it's private, but I do know that there's a lot of private entities and people who donated money/supplies/labor to help build the playground...and it is one MASSIVE playground.

Any thoughts on the privatize issue? Maybe somebody can further educate and school me, and maybe tell me that my preconceived notions are wrong concerning this?

no problem! I hope my rantings weren't too intolerable.

 

[Mini-Me]

As far as the parks go, there was a great thread months back about how terrible the federal government is at taking care of national parks and how it runs them into the ground. The overall consensus, from what I remember, was that states do a better job and private organizations (Sierra Club, etc.) do the best.

On roads, though:
I do understand that privatized roads could potentially be non-disastrous or exploitative financially - after all, if a company overcharges, you can always buy stock shares so your dividends help to offset the payments you're making - i.e. voluntary collectivism. However, it is important to note that there's only room for so many roads, and they're also such a huge undertaking that very few companies could really afford the cost of market entry: In other words, there really would be VERY little competition, it could easily become monopolistic, and owning stock would probably be the only way to keep from paying well over what we pay now in taxes. Then again, on the monopoly side of things, if one company owns all of the roads in some given area and it overcharges, people will move their businesses/homes elsewhere, so there would be competition between different areas...although the cost of moving to another competitor would be enormous. (These are my thoughts at least - I'd love to be proven wrong, though.)

Aside from that, though, there's another problem: I also wonder how much more inefficient and congested toll roads would be. After all, if you have to go through a toll booth bottleneck on every single road, your trip time is probably going to at least double as you're getting nickeled and dimed. On the other hand, if roads were paid for on a subscription basis, the only feasible scenario I can think of is one where a camera scans every license plate, and anyone who passes through without a subscription gets served up with a subpoena and sued for trespassing. Clearly, that's not exactly desirable either, since it raises some obvious privacy concerns. You can't just have a pass hanging from your rear-view mirror, because you'd need one for single every road you might travel on - and actually, it seems that toll booths are probably inevitable, considering you won't be buying subscriptions for roads you travel infrequently (then again, it would be a moot point if everything in a large area was owned by a single monopoly - but that would completely undermine any practical arguments about competition). As a side note, roadside advertising wouldn't likely cover the costs either (you could litter every road with a hundred advertisements, but then it would look horrendous and they wouldn't fetch a high price anyway, since people are unlikely to notice one out of a hundred).

So, in other words: If we were to privatize roads, I think the overall inefficiency of facilitating payment would be such a time drain and a hassle that its impact on the economy and our lives would be much greater than the impact from public roads paid for by taxes. I'm against socialism in practice and principle, but since roads are something utilized by damn near everyone, it seems that public roads paid for by a uniform tax are just a necessary evil (even if different people drive different amounts, turning it into a form of slight wealth redistribution). Besides, let's face it: Unless we want absolutely no government, in which case non-aggression would be protected much less than optimistic anarchists believe, we have to compromise somewhat on the non-aggression principle with respect to taxes anyway (although what kind of tax is always debatable). Technically speaking, there could be an "opt out of being a citizen" option in which you are completely unprotected by the justice system, police, etc., and disallowed to drive on public roads, in return for zero taxes, but...

 

[pdavis]

What do you mean by "privatize"? How do you define private property? Your problem is you are viewing the statist, mercantilist view of "private" property as it exists today in an unfree market. In a true free market property would be obtained through trade or homesteading of unowned and unoccupied land. Since government has obtained land and roads through theft, government is therefore not a legitimate owner of such property and government "property" should be viewed as unowned (since it's unowned they cannot transfer or sell state "owned property" to the highest bidder, powerful elites, or corporations). Then who owns/controls the roads and parks? The person(s) who have mixed their labor with the soil; the people within your local community. Yes, in a true free market there can still be public/community/collectively owned property based on the Lockean theory of property, natural rights, and homesteading. This property can be controlled by the local community and funded and maintained through mutual aid, donations, and charity.

Murray Rothbard, Karl Hess (Barry Goldwater's speech writer during his presidential campaign, and (believe it or not) an Academy Award winner for Best Short Documentary: Karl Hess: Toward Liberty), and Roderick T. Long have written several articles about public property and homesteading in a free market society.

Confiscation and the Homestead Principle
http://www.mises.org/journals/lf/1969/1969_06_15.aspx#3

A Plea for Public Property
http://libertariannation.org/a/f53l1.html

 

[AutoDas]

Everyone will be able to keep their right of way to their property when roads are being privatized. It's just any new roads that are being built will have tolls to use. Drew talks about how a privatized road has reduced congestion and saved time and money.
http://reason.tv/video/show/6.html
Eventually when a road deteriorates then whoever maintains it will be the owner of it under a homestead act.

 

[angelatc]

I disagree. Roads should not be privatized. If they were, how would anyone travel without traversing private property? Private property owners can make up any rules they want (the unlimited right they have to contract). And we can now see they are selling a lot of roads to foreign companies.

No, it is a RIGHT to travel (in the pursuit of happiness). A natural right, or for the religious amongst us, a God given right, secured by our Constitution (and repeatedly upheld by our Supreme Court).

I used to think that same way, then I started reading history.

You should study the history of American roads. They were all private, until the auto industry began insisting that the Government should provide them, so that we would all buy cars.

If that had not happened, we probably would not be so dependent on foreign oil these days.