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Saturday, January 1, 2005 - 9:42pmSanction this postReply
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A Private Superhighway

I’d like ya’ll to take a look at this article, I think it asks a lot of important questions and it has some interesting links talking about the problem in depth. The first paragraph is:

In what sounds like another tall tale told by a Texan, the Lone Star State has embarked on an audacious project to build superhighways so big, so complex, that they will make ordinary interstates look like cow paths. The Trans-Texas Corridor project, as envisioned by Republican Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, would be a 4,000-mile transportation network costing $175 billion over 50 years, financed mostly if not entirely with private money. The builders would charge motorists tolls.

[url]http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/10543776.htm?1c[/url]

If you want, also visit these links: [url]www.keeptexasmoving.com[/url] (support)
[url]www.corridorwatch.com[/url] (oppose)

I know this project has a lot of problems, mostly from their willingness to use eminent domain laws on a massive scale, but is this on the right path or is the project just too choked full of half-measures to be effective? Naturally I don’t care what the environmentalist have to say about it and on the opposition page, one of their main problems is that they are building the highway “just for profit, not for transportation”, a comment which made me laugh a little. But again they did bring up eminent domain which is very much valid.

My questions are:
-outside of military needs, what, if anything, can justify eminent domain?
-how do you build an interstate without it, all it takes is one person who won’t sell?
-what about roads in general? Like on a street, how should they build and cared for?

I have some of my own ideas of the first and last questions but the middle one has me stumped. For small areas the answer is easy, find another spot. For an interstate, especially around a crowded city, how can you possibly build a needed multi-lane highway around it without a taking?

Post 1

Saturday, January 1, 2005 - 10:27pmSanction this postReply
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Clarence, this is interesting, thanks for the link.  I too struggle with the eminent domain issue.  My brother's wife's family are farmers, and they recently lost many acres of their land to a new state highway project in Wisconsin.  Much of it was forest that they used only for recreational purposes (hunting, fishing etc), but it was still sad to see them lose land that they loved and righfully owned. 

Shared infrastructure resources such as roads, water, traditional phone lines, electricity, etc are a tricky challenge for markets.  Development of these systems is so capital intensive that it's not surprising that these industries have a significant statist component to them currently.  I certainly can see a totally free market providing these services, but it's difficult to envision it providing the consumer with the same sorts of options and choices that are available in markets with less significant barriers to entry such as food, cell phones, hotels etc.

Regarding roads in particular, maybe we just need wait for technology to advance to the point where everyone uses some sort of airborne vehicle. :-)  


Post 2

Sunday, January 2, 2005 - 7:05amSanction this postReply
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Hi Clarence,

Good questions.
what about roads in general? Like on a street, how should they build and cared for?
If roads were private, the road companies could put up a tollbooth or charge motorists a daily or monthly road subscription. The company could put up cameras to identify non-payers (i.e., trespassers). Roads would have fairly inelastic demand, so pricing might be pretty high, but bus systems and carpooling might help to combat this. And prehaps eventually competing road systems would encourage high prices to drop.
-outside of military needs, what, if anything, can justify eminent domain?
I can't think of anything from an O'ist standpoint. I suppose we could always argue that if a person chooses to set up camp in a jurisdiction that he knows has the possibility of eminent domain, then he's subjecting himself to that risk, and so it should be okay if that risk is actualized. But i'm not sure this argument flies because (1) it's not as though he has contracted to live in this jurisdiction; the jurisdiction is simply imposed on him and his contracts (as jurisdictions currently work), and (2) it's not like he can choose a jurisdiction that doesn't bear the risk of eminent domain. I'd like to think that every person has his price -- that a farmer will part with his land if he gets a big enough bundle of money -- but I've read cases that suggest that this just isn't true, and even if it were, I doubt the taker would always be able to pay it.
-how do you build an interstate without it, all it takes is one person who won’t sell?
So build around, over, or under (assuming we can get rights to those areas). I think there're cases in NYC where some small building refused to sell to a company that wanted to put a big building in its place. So the big company just put big buildings all around and over the little one. I might have made this up; not sure.

Jordan


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Sunday, January 2, 2005 - 10:42amSanction this postReply
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The concept of eminent domain is evil. There can be no compromise on this issue. Ever. It should be tossed from the constitution as incompatible with man's life and a violation of his unalienable rights.

Our original American system of common law dealt adequately with issues such as "rights of way" without violating the rights of individuals. If roads had been developed privately instead of publicly as a rule, common law would have evolved with it to address such issues in detail. We won't find solutions in the legislative law we're subjected to today.

Post 4

Sunday, January 2, 2005 - 5:52pmSanction this postReply
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It's been a few years since I read Atlas Shrugged.  Was there any sort of model of road privatizaion in Galt's Gulch, I don't recall?

Post 5

Sunday, January 2, 2005 - 8:12pmSanction this postReply
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Not really, Milligan or whatever his name was (the guy who coined the money) owned the entire vally so the road and the car they were borrowing were his.

The problem is solved real easy in areas like subdivisions where you can have one owner but what about a city? How can there even be competation in such a restricted area and how would such a system even get started?

Post 6

Sunday, January 2, 2005 - 5:22pmSanction this postReply
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I think the thing looks strange for a number of reasons. Nafta has always given me the creeps because it removed the American citizen from his voice in representative government, and creates a situation where American businesses are forced to live by one set of strangulation, I mean regulation, and the Mexicans can throw pcb's in the street. I have to agree with said gentleman, the property rights issue must stand truimphant. We have enough underutilized and missmanaged transportation systems. Why not "privitize" our railroads again? Something tell me too that though this is being lauded as "private" it wouldn't be long before we were taxed as well as tolled for it, subsidizing cushy jobs all and deep pockets all around.
How many illegal Mexicans could be scooted in on this super train?

Post 7

Monday, January 3, 2005 - 6:09amSanction this postReply
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Much of the problem dealing with the issue of private 'highways' is that all this is to be an imposition on a pattern established by the collectivist mentality.  This is to say, in a land wherein property was sacred, and no eminen domain existed, the whole pattern of development would have been different, and the listed problems would have not come into being, any more than those problems exist within selected communities now being developed, wherein the roads, like the houses, are all patterened within the developer's 'domain' as it were. Now, would this mean no 'superhighways' would have been developed? Not at all, as James Jerome Hill showed as possible when he built his railroad across the upper part of the midwest, without tax money and without eminen domain. As for the present day, probably the best way would be to transform the tax highways into toll ones, by selling them off to those interested, and absolving any eminent domaining of them in the future.

As for the military, that, too, was predicated on the collective mindset - unlike other, individualistic constructs, and thus engendered a viewing of moving about similar to that of Ancient Rome, not of the world today.  Remember, the ability of such moving goes both ways - friend and foe, and if there is little of paved pathways, then foe is equally - if not moreso- stymied of it, and forced to use other means.


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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 11:40amSanction this postReply
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These “What If’s” are good and all but this isn’t the 19th century were land was plentiful and cheap. I posted this not to say the plan was good or even desirable but to ask: was this a good starting point considering the situation we’re in now? Look at this for instance: Boston’s Big Dig was probably the most mismanaged public works program in recent memory. It was years overscheduled, billons over budget, and even had to use extra money from the federal government.

Now my point is, if Boston was to survive in its current state and keep growing, it needed to be build and considering it was going right by downtown near prime real estate, few people would sell if given the choice. The ONLY other alternative is for this simply not to be done. The result of this would be catastrophic for Boston, within a few years a hundred thousand jobs would leave the city because the highway system is already backlogged for over an hour during rush hour. With no relief in sight, people would leave and the city would collapse.

This goes for every major city, high concentrations of Americans cannot coexists in such tight quarters and keep our standard of living without adequate transportation. Without eminent domain, I don’t see how a city could work. That not saying I agree with it, I’m from the country and personally I say the cities could do some good by spreading out. But I don’t want to see their economies collapse either. The only solution I see it to build new cities from scratch where private interests own all of the land and this could be worked out.

Post 9

Monday, January 3, 2005 - 1:21pmSanction this postReply
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I agree with you Clarence, that without eminent domain some very worthwhile things simply could not get done. It may be abused, but I’m not against it in principle. Property is just a tool, it’s not like the public takes a retina and pays you for it. If compensation is high, I don’t see the problem. The farmer can use the money to buy even more land than was taken (if compensation is high), the auto garage can buy one down the street and I can buy some other house.

And you are correct about comparisons to projects of over one hundred years ago.

Jon


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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 1:35pmSanction this postReply
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Another related question involves sidewalks.  It's my understanding that most sidewalks are government owned and managed, is that correct?  Would private companies also control the sidewalks?  If so, does that mean each individual would have to pay a fee for the ability to take a walk?

Post 11

Monday, January 3, 2005 - 3:23pmSanction this postReply
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Pete,

Good question. I see some Libertarians and Objectivists take private property too far, (if I may speak such blasphemy!) I’m sure your question will get some responses that go, “Everything should be private!” But imagine the mess. A walk to the grocery store would bring you across my thirty feet of sidewalk, across dozens of my neighbors’ sidewalks, some long stretches owned by Microsoft, (find another route if you use a Mac, free pass if you own a current copy of Windows), etc. Your speedpass badge would have a hundred hits on it before you got back home. Sidewalks and the grid streets of towns and cities are properly public.

Jon


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Post 12

Monday, January 3, 2005 - 6:46pmSanction this postReply
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Jon,

Economically and politically speaking, private property can be provided to the consumer at no charge to the consumer if the owner decides that there is a greater benefit to be reaped elsewhere by making his property thus accessible.

For example, right now, nobody charges you for going into MacDonalds because it is assumed that you will buy something when you go in.  Many cafes and bookstores host clubs for free, because they believe that people will buy their products.  Human beings will not just use a space because it is free of charge.  Things may be free of charge but nothing in life is free of cost.

I'm far from an ideological believer that market solutions are always possible or expedient, but I think that your criticism underestimates the flexibility of private property and the market process.




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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 7:04pmSanction this postReply
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Jon Letendre writes:
I agree with you Clarence, that without eminent domain some very worthwhile things simply could not get done.
Worthwhile to whom?
It may be abused, but I’m not against it in principle.
All rights are property rights. If you do not advocate the inviolability of private property then you are against the necessary foundation of the implementation of rights.
Property is just a tool, it’s not like the public takes a retina and pays you for it. If compensation is high, I don’t see the problem. The farmer can use the money to buy even more land than was taken (if compensation is high), the auto garage can buy one down the street and I can buy some other house.
Who are you to decide the value of someone else's property?

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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 7:24pmSanction this postReply
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Pete writes:
Another related question involves sidewalks. It's my understanding that most sidewalks are government owned and managed, is that correct? Would private companies also control the sidewalks? If so, does that mean each individual would have to pay a fee for the ability to take a walk?
Why is it that those who would deny private property always assume that people would be irrational in their dealings with each other?

Shopping malls are private property. Do you have to pay a fee to use their sidewalks? their parking lots? Would you charge guests to use the sidewalk to your home?

Such nonsense is similar to arguments that the broadcast spectrum couldn't be privately owned since broadcasters can't control who receives their signal. That's why Europeans have state owned broadcast stations and tax the having of a TV. But broadcasters in the US discovered a different source of revenue -- advertising. It works quite well.

The market, or more precisely, entrepreneurs acting in the market, is quite capable of coming up with various means of using various resources to satisfy the desires of consumers. In fact, that's what they do. Just because your imagination is limited doesn't mean that the market's imagination is similarly limited.


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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 7:38pmSanction this postReply
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Next,

If sidewalks would be pro bono, why switch from the current situation?

Jon


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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 7:55pmSanction this postReply
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Rick, the shopping mall example is a good one but I don’t think anyone has offered a good answer to the question. Yes you can build a completely private shopping mall but compare that to a city and you would have a private city with people just renting out the space.

The problem is how do we move on from where we are now? The current system is bad, how do we fix it? Literally incorporate a city and turn the current residents into stockholders?

“Wal-Mart is moving its headquarters to Little Rock, better buy up some of that Little Rock stock!”

Post 17

Monday, January 3, 2005 - 8:06pmSanction this postReply
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Rick,

You ask: “Worthwhile to whom ?”
Worthwhile to those who need ingress and egress of their property in order for “property” to mean something. I don’t assume owners will be irrational…do you deny that I could be? How will you ever get to enjoy your home if I own the sidewalks, homes and alleys that surround it?

If your response is easements then you have to acknowledge that the easement would have to be forced on me, a violation of my property rights. So why not just stay with the current system of public corridors that give all of us, property owners and those without property, the right of movement without prior approval? That would seem worthwhile to all.

And you asked, “Who are you to decide the value of someone else's property?”
Not me, the market price (plus something extra for the inconvenience.) Who are you to question the objectivity of value as determined by the market?

Jon


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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 8:35pmSanction this postReply
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Let me clarify my point here:

I don't doubt that a totally free market is capable of providing roads, in fact I'm certain that the market would devise something.  I just don't see how there would be any real choice to the consumer, though, other than perhaps somebody moving to a completely different city whose roads are owned by a different company.  And that's assuming that one entity doesn't just go ahead and buy up all the roads in the nation (And why wouldn't they? It's virtually a guaranteed monopoly).       

The fear of losing customers to a competitor is what motivates businesses to provide maximum value.  I have yet to hear someone propose a hypothetical scenario for road privatization that shows market forces working to the benefit of the consumer.  I guess Rick is right: my imagination is limited in this regard.   


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Monday, January 3, 2005 - 9:07pmSanction this postReply
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How will you ever get to enjoy your home if I own the sidewalks, homes and alleys that surround it?


Let's just say that if you implement policies on your sidewalks and alleys that prevent anyone whose home is accessed by them from enjoying their home, no one is going to want to live on property adjoining your sidewalks, and your owning them isn't going to bring you a bit of profit.

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