If the revolution happened today...public property to private property

[JohnDJasper]

If, today, the people of your country stood up in unison and cast off the yoke of slavery to government and embraced morality (UPB,) respect for private property and the non-aggression principle, how would you manage the transition from publicly-owned roads to private ownership?I've seen plenty on this forum and others about the future scenario where we've magically appeared at the other end of the process and all of the problems have been ironed out but how do we get there in the first place?  I say roads to focus the discussion but I suspect that the process will be similar for any publicly (government)-owned property or services.

 

Do proposals already exist in writing somewhere that I've yet to run across?  Either way, I'm interested in knowing how others see this process working.

[Pepin]

There would be a large economic correction that would take many years to reach a point of stability. Certain goods and services would subject to almost immediate impact, while others will change over time.

 

The issue of roads, especially in the US, would take a bit of time to change. Roads that were used constantly would likely be maintained for quite a long period of time. Roads that were not used very much, or were located in the middle of nowhere likely would not be taken care of for very long, and would be abandoned with enough time. Economic factors would cause people to migrate towards living in closer proximity, likely into apartment complexes.

 

A single approach for privatizing public property would not exist, and the process of privatizing the same or similar good or property would vary greatly. There would be thousands and thousands of different proposals and agreements met. Some resolutions would be rather straightforward and take the basic homesteading principal, while others would be debated for quite some time.

 

There would be a lot of failures and attempts to exploit the circumstance. These would diminish and be corrected with time and negotiation.

[Rob_Ilir]

In my opinion as soon as public property ceases to exist, all the private property borders should extend on average to the public ones.

Eg: there is a public park surrounded by 10 private houses, the 10 private houses will divide the park equally between them. It could be shares or point system. 

[ribuck]

Auction them off, so that some "public debt" can be settled.

[thornyd]

Auction them off, so that some "public debt" can be settled.

I reckon an auction could be a good idea, then the most determined buyers would get the resources.

Not sure about settling the public debt though... The people who loaned money the government were gambling on good returns, and they didn't care that their money was being used to enable crimes.

Imagine some bank loaned a lot of money to the mafia, then the mafia went and murdered a bunch of people with weapons bought with that loan. Eventually when that mafia went "out of business", and their assets were auctioned off, I'd think the proceeds should go to the victims, not the enablers. 

 

A victim restitution index could include:

War victims

Police and prison system victims

Public school victims

Taxation victims

 

When the USSR collapsed, a small elite group of people gained a lot of assets, and the victims of communism got nothing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Russia

[JohnDJasper]

There would be a large economic correction that would take many years to reach a point of stability. Certain goods and services would subject to almost immediate impact, while others will change over time.

 

The issue of roads, especially in the US, would take a bit of time to change. Roads that were used constantly would likely be maintained for quite a long period of time. Roads that were not used very much, or were located in the middle of nowhere likely would not be taken care of for very long, and would be abandoned with enough time. Economic factors would cause people to migrate towards living in closer proximity, likely into apartment complexes.

 

A single approach for privatizing public property would not exist, and the process of privatizing the same or similar good or property would vary greatly. There would be thousands and thousands of different proposals and agreements met. Some resolutions would be rather straightforward and take the basic homesteading principal, while others would be debated for quite some time.

 

There would be a lot of failures and attempts to exploit the circumstance. These would diminish and be corrected with time and negotiation.

Interesting comments, Pepin. Thanks for pointing out that some roads would just be abandoned lest anyone should think that all roads have to be kept up.

 

I wonder if economic factors would actually cause people to migrate away from apartments/cities to more rural areas where you can at least try to grow your own food and not be too dependent on the food supply system?

 

I agree with your conclusion that privatizing public property would involve thousands and thousands of different proposals and agreements and that is why I started this thread. Waiting until the 'Fall' to hash out the principles of this conversion process will lead to a lot of failed attempts and disgruntled people who suddenly found that they'd be robbed by others taking advantage of the situation. One "disgruntled and armed" person can cause a lot of concern but it's more than conceivable that 100's of such people could wind up seeking restitution over an easily avoidable slight. That's a lot of concern!

 

Being new to this movement, I'm hoping to find that the best minds available have already hashed out the process and produced a basic shell from which each unique circumstance can be guided. I live in hope!

 

In my opinion as soon as public property ceases to exist, all the private property borders should extend on average to the public ones.

Eg: there is a public park surrounded by 10 private houses, the 10 private houses will divide the park equally between them. It could be shares or point system.

I've heard others talk about this way of dealing with the enclosed park. I wonder how many such parks exist? By what right do these homeowners have a claim to that property over an outsider who might wish to use the property for their own purposes. If one person gets up early and fences the property off completely for his own use, what moral/legal redress do the other claimants have?

 

As is true for any other public-owned property, what is to stop any one person from claiming any public plot of land as their's even if it's a complete section of an 8 lane freeway? I suggest that the only rule that will apply in the beginning is that of "might is right" and holding that bit of freeway will depend on the amount of force you can bring to bear versus the amount of force that others will bring to you.

 

I reckon an auction could be a good idea, then the most determined buyers would get the resources.

Not sure about settling the public debt though... The people who loaned money the government were gambling on good returns, and they didn't care that their money was being used to enable crimes.

Imagine some bank loaned a lot of money to the mafia, then the mafia went and murdered a bunch of people with weapons bought with that loan. Eventually when that mafia went "out of business", and their assets were auctioned off, I'd think the proceeds should go to the victims, not the enablers. 

 

A victim restitution index could include:

War victims

Police and prison system victims

Public school victims

Taxation victims

 

When the USSR collapsed, a small elite group of people gained a lot of assets, and the victims of communism got nothing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization_in_Russia

I like your thinking here. Perhaps for something as "simple" as an access road to a closed neighborhood, the residents could agree to take bids for ownership of the road and sidewalks for which the owner would be required to provide an agreed level of maintenance, guarantee of unrestricted access in perpetuity, traffic control, etc in return for a regular contribution from each property for the duration of the contract. The owner wouldn't necessarily have to purchase the ownership but if they did, the distribution of the receipts would have to be agreed by all those with a clear interest.

 

If this idea were expanded to a through road, the number of interested parties and other complications would grow exponentially. It would seem to be an impossible task to resolve but perhaps would become easier if resolved on a municipality-wide basis through a task force appointed by the local population for the purpose. In this situation, the structure of the deliberations would be similar to any other public project with the exception of the monopoly of force.

[ribuck]

... the number of interested parties and other complications would grow exponentially. It would seem to be an impossible task to resolve ...

The market can resolve this type of situation fairly easily. Look at how the commercial part of the internet got established in the 1990s.

 

Instead of each user (or ISP) having to negotiate connection and packet forwarding with each other user (or ISP), they just negotiate it with their immediate peers using contract wording that is roughly equivalent to the following:

 

"You will accept my connections (and the connections from anyone else who connects through me), and will forward my IP traffic (and the IP traffic from anyone else who connects through me). I will accept your connections (and the connections from anyone else who connects through you), and will forward your IP traffic (and the IP traffic from anyone else who connects through you). There will be a payment to reflect the imbalance in traffic between the two parties to the contract."

 

In this setup, there's no need for payments to be disbursed beyond the immediate peers. When working out a contract price, peers take into account any increased payment they will need to make to their other peers as a result of a new peering arrangement. In this way, the whole system networks together without the need to consider more than say half a dozen peers.

 

It would be the same with roads. Each road user would purchase service from their local "road service provider". That provider would have established reciprocal peering arrangements with the road service providers to whom their own roads connect. The agreements would of course be transitive so that the road user would gain access to the whole network with a single payment or subscription.

[JohnDJasper]

The market can resolve this type of situation fairly easily. Look at how the commercial part of the internet got established in the 1990s. Instead of each user (or ISP) having to negotiate connection and packet forwarding with each other user (or ISP), they just negotiate it with their immediate peers using contract wording that is roughly equivalent to the following: "You will accept my connections (and the connections from anyone else who connects through me), and will forward my IP traffic (and the IP traffic from anyone else who connects through me). I will accept your connections (and the connections from anyone else who connects through you), and will forward your IP traffic (and the IP traffic from anyone else who connects through you). There will be a payment to reflect the imbalance in traffic between the two parties to the contract." In this setup, there's no need for payments to be disbursed beyond the immediate peers. When working out a contract price, peers take into account any increased payment they will need to make to their other peers as a result of a new peering arrangement. In this way, the whole system networks together without the need to consider more than say half a dozen peers. It would be the same with roads. Each road user would purchase service from their local "road service provider". That provider would have established reciprocal peering arrangements with the road service providers to whom their own roads connect. The agreements would of course be transitive so that the road user would gain access to the whole network with a single payment or subscription.

Unfortunately, your easy solution jumps past the important bit which is the creation of the "road service providers." No doubt, many will offer their services to manage some or all of the existing road infrastructure but they cannot offer services on roads that they don't own. If yesterday, all roads were publicly owned, and today the "public" no longer exists because we've ditched government, how do we actually reach the situation where the roads are now privately owned? Who has the right to transfer ownership? If only the homesteading rule applies, will we suddenly have a million fences built across the highway as each person grabs a share?

[ribuck]

Unfortunately, your easy solution jumps past the important bit which is the creation of the "road service providers."

I discussed the creation earlier in this thread. My "easy solution" was just showing how, when there are "n" road users, you don't need "n times n" contracts.

 

I happen to live on a privately-owned road. There are 20 houses, and each owns a portion of the road in front of their house, up to the center-line of the road - except for two houses at the end whose driveways connect to the road without any ownership of the road.

 

Without any fuss, 19 of the 20 houses contribute a very small monthly payment into a fund that pays for repairs and re-surfacing as needed. The 20th household doesn't want to do this, but they happily pay their fair share whenever work needs to be done.

 

This is all done without any formality or contract! The property deeds do specify an obligation to jointly maintain the road, but don't go into detail about how it would be organized or paid for. And we connect our road to the public road network without any problems.

[JohnDJasper]

I discussed the creation earlier in this thread. My "easy solution" was just showing how, when there are "n" road users, you don't need "n times n" contracts. I happen to live on a privately-owned road. There are 20 houses, and each owns a portion of the road in front of their house, up to the center-line of the road - except for two houses at the end whose driveways connect to the road without any ownership of the road. Without any fuss, 19 of the 20 houses contribute a very small monthly payment into a fund that pays for repairs and re-surfacing as needed. The 20th household doesn't want to do this, but they happily pay their fair share whenever work needs to be done. This is all done without any formality or contract! The property deeds do specify an obligation to jointly maintain the road, but don't go into detail about how it would be organized or paid for. And we connect our road to the public road network without any problems.

Thanks, Ribuck, for that very useful illustration of a working solution. I'm familiar with a few shared drives in my area which are not quite so effective mainly because the various owners are not forthcoming with support.For the sake of discussion, if one or more owner in your road decided to restrict travel on their sections of road and charging a toll to cross it, would you see that as a violation the unwritten contract or an act of aggression against others with a right of way?