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TN, I am pursuing this discussion because, like you, I used to have serious
reservations about the libertarian models for road ownership. It is rare that I
actually get to argue about anything that I have not totally made up my mind
on. However, my concerns are/were mostly about total monopolization (eg my
most hated enemy buys the road outside my home, and charges me $10,000 each
time I drive my car to work). The duplication issues have never concerned me
much. The main difference here seems to be that you think the monopoly value on an
established road is very high, whereas I think it's pretty low. But tell me - so what if it is very high as you seem to believe? The monopoly
can be established in three ways:
- A government monopoly gets auctioned off and the money distributed to the
'public'. The monopoly value is factored into the price, and the public gets
the economic surplus. [I know that in practice the government will use the
money to buy votes from mentally retarded aboriginal lesbian migrant whales
raped in nuclear war, but that that is a separate argument ..]
- Shares get issued to the 'public' in which case the monopoly value goes to
the public. The public have the option of selling their (monopoly inflated)
shares and cashing in the economic surplus.
- Someone spots the potential of building a road between X and Y, and they
are the first to build it (or the first to build a decent one). No-one is worse
off as a result of that decision - anyone who was planning on building one
next year can still do so - they just can't get the monopoly value from
it. This hardly makes them victims.
One argument that might be presented against this is that children born
of dead-beat parents who squander their wealth might be disadvantaged, but this
can be compensated for by even a very modest welfare / wealth distribution
scheme.
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