Some facts I guess. Any data that would support these particular views. There is a wide variety of evidence that could potentially be convincing. A good place to start might be your reason to believe that this is the case.
RE: Is Taxation Theft?
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Is Taxation Theft?
How much time do you have? :)
Let's be specific. Which is the important service you see as least likely to be provided properly by the market, in the theoretical absence of the state?
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Oh, I have time, especially if you are going to spend the time to go into detail, I will always be willing to read, digest and discuss. After all this is the idea here anyway, right? ;)
I think the market is going to have a hard time with safety, dealing with crime or undesirable and harmful behaviors, infrastructure, things like nature reserves and so on.
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Crime and harmful behaviours both need to be broken down into
Taking heroin is a crime and a harmful behavior, but it doesn't have a victim, so I see no need to try and prevent someone from doing it.
Adultery is a contract violation, so does in fact have a victim, but is not a crime.
'Crime' just means breaking the law.
Sometimes that's the right thing to do; as demonstrated by Oscar Schindler, Harriet Tubman and Edward Snowden.
Nature reserves are certainly something many people want. From camping grounds to hiking trails, botanic gardens etc.
Because people want them, people will be willing to pay for them, and those who supply that demand will make the experience as enjoyable as possible.
I could see for example a florist maintaining a huge flower garden with a winding path, ending at the shop.
Some people would enjoy the garden without buying anything, while others would be more inclined to buy flowers from that florist, without even entering the garden, out of appreciation for their generosity in providing it.
That's only one idea, which I pulled out of thin air, with a few minutes' thought.
Imagine what other possibilities there are.
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Thank you for your reply!
I agree with what you have written about crime and I was even tempted to put it in quotation marks in my previous reply. I don't see your answer about how the market can prevent or discourage harmful and unjust actions that have victims. I personally don't think it can and there is certainly a subset of this category of actions that would in fact be stimulated under a totally free market with zero government and an enforcible legal framework. And police, courts and legislation surely cost money and if there is no taxation to pay for it and to make it available to the public, there is no real way to ensure access to justice for the majority of the population. This is one of those things that in my opinion make the need for some taxation and some government obvious.
If I have to be honest, I think your suggestions about nature reserves are a clear example of wishful thinking. At least 99% of the time people use the phrase imagine the possibilities, they are in fact doing wishful thinking. When determining the feasibility of a system, you should not look at the best case scenario you can think of, but at the possible caveats and likely points of failure. I think it's absolutely unrealistic to think that private for-profit enterprise would have any incentive to maintain such huge undertakings with very low commercial viability as natural reserves. How many people could you charge for camping on the acres upon acres of land that are the nature reserves? Now imagine how much you could earn by taking this land and building hotels, cities, resorts, casinos or factories. The return would be much higher, so you would have very little incentive to do keep them as they are. You can see that on many beaches in Europe where nature has gotten destroyed and replaced by huge hotels and concrete parking lots under the forces of the market and things have been put under control only after governments have decided to step in with more restrictions and regulations. Also, nothing stops florists keeping exotic gardens as an entryway to their shops now, but you don't see that happening. It's simply a waste of money and commercial space that can be used for something with a positive return instead of something you need resources and manpower to maintain. For instance placing a food court and charging rent for fast food stands.
My impression so far has been that most people that view the free-market as something that could replace all government and as something that can cure everything are happy to point out how things like communism or socialism are utopias, but haven't applied the same critical thinking to their own ideals and views and for some reason do not realize that this idea is an utopia as well. A truly free and unlimited and unregulated free market without any government oversight and without any tax burdens is likely to be an inferior system to the types of democracies you see in the free world right now. We should be shooting for a practical hybrid and a hybrid is what we have right now really. There should be an open free market, but not free of regulations, but there should also be reasonable taxation to support a government that can provide the services that are not profitable to maintain but are still considered part of the public good and desirable.
I hope that's not too long of a reply!
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The state doesn't provide us with nature. Nature existed before the state, and will survive long after the state is gone.
Drawing lines on a map, and threatening to attack anyone who builds a structure inside those lines, isn't 'giving' anything to anyone.
The only reason land is too expensive for private businesses to buy and use for low return purposes like flower gardens, is that land first needs to be purchased from the state; and even then it's use is restricted by state zoning rules.
Of course, when it comes to 'giving us' nature reserves, the state doesn't need to buy them from anyone, so it can be very generous, and very vocal about that generosity.
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I live in a country where the free market went on a destroyed nature when left unchecked and this is the problem I am referring to. That is indeed specific down to earth evidence for what market forces could easily lead to. My question is not about ownership, my question is how we prevent the things that we need for the long run from being exploited and destroyed for profit in the short run. I was talking about profiting from the land, not about acquiring it.
Sure, nature as a whole will survive, but what has been ruined is not coming back especially extinct species. How could that be a desirable situation or a market solution for anything? Do you not agree nature reserves are something better to have, regardless of the system?
Btw, did you just agree that the free market can't really provide with nature reserves while centralized government can? Wasn't your point that the free market can provide everything that centralized government can, but more efficiently?
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Understand that politicians were in charge when your country was pillaged, which is unsurprising.
Who's most likely to prioritise the long term health of an area of land?
The owner, who may plan to pass it on to his children, or sell or leverage it is as a valuable asset; or a politician, who has just a few years in power to do favours for friends, and give them anything that isn't nailed down?
Democracy is the tragedy of the commons; which is not good for the commons. Monarchy would be an improvement.
The free market can't provide nature, and the state can't provide nature.
Nature's not a service or product, though.
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Do you mean to say that commercial over-development was not the result of market forces then? Politicians are surely at fault for not doing their job of regulating things. Things were not regulated well enough and this happened. How would a free market prevent that?
Well let's look at the data. Has a private investor ever created something like a natural reserve? Has the corrupt government created something like a natural reserve? To me it seems that the data is in on that and person that wants their land to have value is unlikely to leave it being a forest and is likely to develop it. When everybody who owns property works to develop it with no restrictions and all possible property is privately owned, you end up with over-development. So no need to talk about tragedies and so on, we can be pragmatic and if you want to be pragmatic, I think you should concede that as bad as government might be, there are things that governments do that are valuable that are unlikely to be achieved through market forces.
Now that's an unpopular opinion :P Have dictatorships proven to be more efficient than democracies? You know, there are dictatorships around, if you don't like democracies, you could probably more to a dictatorship if you really wanted to, but when the question is posed like that, I'm sure you would quickly start appreciating the value of liberty and democracy.
But one has a much better record at preserving it and that is of value.
Does that make it any less important? What, we move to a free unregulated market and give up on everything that is not marketable as a service or a product and dub that a good thing?
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