Roads

[Libertarian guy]

I have a question for everyone on this board. Is it legitimate or justified for a private road owner in a libertarian/anarchistic society to use private security agents with guns to stop drivers on the roads for exceeding speed limits or other rules?Is that aggression or is that justified because the road is his property?

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Sure, if it's their property. There are easier and cheaper ways of making people conform to the rules though. The are already armed guards on the roads but even the state has come up with better ways of preventing road safety violations. I think in a free society you'd have to buy your road pass and if you break the rules it gets cancelled. If you continue to use the roads after that then you are subject to all sorts of problems. Maybe there'd be a pay as you use system and if you break the rules your costs go up. People who are consistently good drivers may get reduced rates. Driving safely may actually become profitable.  

[ILO]

I assume whatever rights landowners have now would not change.

 

Turning everything over to private ownership doesn't seem right to me though, I think public land should remain public including rights and we just need to start looking at non-coervice means to accomplishing our goals.

[Alan C.]

Is it justified for a homeowner to hire armed security to stop trespassers? I don't see how it's different if the property in question is a privately-owned business.

 

I don't see armed security at Disneyland. I'm sure they're there, but they're more discreet. Who would want to visit Disneyland with armed security on Main Street?

 

The reason why the State has armed 'security' everywhere is because the incectives are entirely different than that of the market. The State's incentives are control and expropriation whereas market-based security is oriented toward customer-service and safety.

[Pepin]

It isn't aggression because the exchange is voluntary in that when you choose to drive on the road you also choose to be subject to the rules. It is like any contract.

 

What throws me off in the question is the whole part about them having guns. What would they need guns for? In a way, it is like asking if a bouncer at a bar would be justified in carrying a gun when they work. Certainly they are, but any customer is going to be like "why in the hell do they need a gun?".

 

To go on, I really doubt the system of handling the enforcement of road rules is going to involve anything like traffic cops. It just seems far too inefficient. Something to think about is the impact that various insurers have in safety and liability.

 

For instance, there would be an incentive for you to install some sort of safety monitoring hardware and a camera or two to see how good of a driver you were. Very unsafe drivers would not be able to get credible coverage and likely would not be allowed on any roads, bad drivers would be literally paying for their recklessness, and great drivers would get great rates and access to roads with other safe drivers. Maybe this in combination with a rational upbringing where people understand risks is all that is needed to create safe roads?

 

Also, who knows how prevalent cars and roads are going to be in the future anyway? Perhaps communities will be close together and most travel will be done via plane, train, or bike. Perhaps there will be automation in driving with the addition of the cars being able communicate with each other to coordinate complex paths and intersections to a high degree with essentially takes out the user component and ups the safety. Perhaps we all link our minds up to a simulation and loose the drive to drive. I don't know.

[Magnus]

The standard rules of aggression and defense always apply, unless people make an agreement to change them.  For example, what happens in a boxing ring or on a football field is an unusual level of aggression and violence, which everyone playing agrees to accept.  They do not accept unlimited violence by playing the sport, but they accept a certain measure of it, beyond what exists in normal life. 

 

On a road or in any other private place, the main change to the ordinary rules of Non-Aggression is the right to eject trespassers.  The basic way it works is that if you revoke someone's permission to be on your property, of someone you initially allowed or invited in, you have to give a clear warning to let him know he will be considered a trespasser if he doesn't leave. 

 

Do you remember the "Don't tase me, bro!" incident?  A student at a public university Q&A asked John Kerry some tough questions, and he asked them in an agitated way.  Security was called.  They surrounded him while he finished his rambling questions.  When he finished asking his question, the campus police immediately grabbed him and electrocuted him. 

 

That incident was a straightforward attack.  The campus police did have the right to eject him for speaking out of turn, asking his question in an agitated way, or otherwise breaking the rules of the Q&A.  But in order to eject someone from the premises, you have to warn him first.  If he doesn't leave, you can ethically use whatever force is necessary to effect the ejection, and if he resists the ejection, you can defend yourself, because he is the attacker at that point, because the force used in the ejection is not an attack.  It's defense of property at that point. 

 

But in the absence of either (a) an agreement to submit to enhanced violence (like sports), or (b) revoking an invitation and instructing a person to leave or be treated as a trespasser, we all have the right not to be attacked, regardless of whose property we're occupying.

[Libertarian guy]

Magnus, you said that the standard rules for aggression always apply unless people make an agreement to change them. Suppose that the road users have signed a contract with the road owner about fines for exceeding the speed limits or driving with to much alcohol (or other rules). Then it´s okay to use violence to collect the fines?

[Wesley]

Magnus, you said that the standard rules for aggression always apply unless people make an agreement to change them. Suppose that the road users have signed a contract with the road owner about fines for exceeding the speed limits or driving with to much alcohol (or other rules). Then it´s okay to use violence to collect the fines?

They will use whatever method is cheapest/agreed upon. In signing the contract it is more likely that you will be assigned a tag or identification chip or barcode or something and risky behaviors will be sent to you in a bill which can be sent to arbitration if you disagree with the decision.

 

If someone is doing so risky behavior that they put people in danger it is more likely that they will be kicked off the road and denied future access which only takes an escort most likely, but if necessary you could throw someone off the property.

 

No one wants to use too much force as it would scare away customers and be very expensive. The only time force would be used is against a customer that is acting so badly that every other customer would cheer when they are thrown off the road and barred from entering again.