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A Question On Government

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Hello all, this is the first thread I have created here on this forum. I apologize in advance if the topic is not located under the proper forum.

I have a question about the abilities of the government. I understand that the Government, under Ayn Rand's view, should only consist of the Police, Army, and the Judiciary system. All of which I understand. However, is the government limited to only these three fields?

This question stems mainly on the governments ability to receive funding for itself. Can the Government be a landlord? A businessman? Or is it only allowed to accept donations?

Any insights on this would be appreciated.

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This question stems mainly on the governments ability to receive funding for itself. Can the Government be a landlord? A businessman? Or is it only allowed to accept donations?

The government can own property only in the sense that it needs somewhere to store its junk, base its army, headquarter its police, etc. It can't use this property for profit-making purposes (or shouldn't), because this would amount to government interference with the economy. A government, for instance, has the ability to establish a coercive monopoly.

However, the government doesn't have to rely on little kids going door-to-door carrying a can with a slot in the top. It's an agent of the country's citizens, and agents need to be paid. So what it does is charge fees; not to make a profit, but simply to cover expenses.

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I have a question about the abilities of the government. I understand that the Government, under Ayn Rand's view, should only consist of the Police, Army, and the Judiciary system. All of which I understand. However, is the government limited to only these three fields?
There are certain related concepts that say that the government should not be in business. First, the function of government is to protect rights by the objectively-controlled use of force. Second, the government should have a monopoly on the use of force, and also the government should use force when needed to fulfill its purpose for existing. If the government were to sell groceries, that would not be acting in accordance to the proper nature of government -- the sale of groceries is not the protection of rights, so the grocery-government would be acting contrary to its nature. The grocery-government would have a schizophrenic nature, being monopolistic and not monopolistic (presuming that private grocers are also to be allowed).

Hmmm. I feel like I just recast Jennifer's summary.

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However, the government doesn't have to rely on little kids going door-to-door carrying a can with a slot in the top. It's an agent of the country's citizens, and agents need to be paid. So what it does is charge fees; not to make a profit, but simply to cover expenses.

:) Sounds like you are defending taxation here ... :)

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:o Sounds like you are defending taxation here ... :)

That actually points up a problem with the Objectivist concept of limited government. There's no way of financing it (or if there is, someone please enlighten me) which does not either 1)involve the initiation of force, or 2)equate in practice to anarcho-capitalism.

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I have a question about the abilities of the government. I understand that the Government, under Ayn Rand's view, should only consist of the Police, Army, and the Judiciary system. All of which I understand. However, is the government limited to only these three fields?

This question stems mainly on the governments ability to receive funding for itself. Can the Government be a landlord? A businessman? Or is it only allowed to accept donations?

I think there are other things which it might be better if the government owned; the road network would be an obvious example, along with other natural monopolies where talking about competition doesnt make any sense (telephone networks?). Obviously this shouldnt be funded via coersive taxation, but if we can assume donations would suffice to fund the military, we can assume theyd cover these sorts of things too.

edit: usage fees would also help. Charging motorists a yearly flat fee to use government owned roads strikes me as reasonable (especially compared to the alternative of having a toll booth on every corner, which really isnt an option in a busy city like New York or London), and telephone networks could be funded by a slightly increased call cost, and so on.

Edited by Hal
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:o Sounds like you are defending taxation here ... :)

I am not. There is a difference between pointing a gun at someone and saying "we will put you in jail if you don't give us X amount of your income for whatever purposes those in power decide to use it for" and informing them that, say, their contractual agreement with the credit card company only has legal force behind it if they voluntarily pay a specified security fee.

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I think there are other things which it might be better if the government owned; the road network would be an obvious example, along with other natural monopolies where talking about competition doesnt make any sense (telephone networks?).

It might be better for whom? By what standard? Why?

I think it would be better if the government owned EVERYTHING! That'd be REALLY convenient.

Oh, wait, that's communism. The truth is that there is no halfway on this issue. Either you accept the principle that the government has the right to interfere in the economy, or you don't. Period. Because once you accept SOME government interference, you've implicitly accepted ANY government interference. There is NO principle that will tell you what should be owned by the government.

Now, there are cases where some vital military resource (like lines of communication) that was created by the government was later opened to private citizens for use, such as the Post Office. However, the U.S. has enforced an artificial monopoly on letter-delivery that has long outlived its usefulness to the military or, really, to actual U.S. citizens. In cases like these, the principle for determining when the government's involvement should cease: simply don't enforce a monopoly. Eventually, when the necessary military resource becomes something that everyday citizens need and use constantly, the field will be entered by entreprenuers. Quite probably it will eventually be cheaper for the government to abandon its facilities and make use of a private one instead.

If private citizens never make that much use of it, then the government can maintain the facility for its own use.

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It might be better for whom? By what standard? Why?
Everyone who wants to live in the society, since we're talking exclusively about things which are essential to the functioning of a modern country.

Oh, wait, that's communism. The truth is that there is no halfway on this issue. Either you accept the principle that the government has the right to interfere in the economy, or you don't. Period. Because once you accept SOME government interference, you've implicitly accepted ANY government interference. There is NO principle that will tell you what should be owned by the government.
There is a principle, and I basically stated it in the above post. For natural monopolies which are essential to the functioning of the country, and where competition is pretty much impossible due to the nature of the service in question, I think government ownership is justified. The specific example I used, road networks, are probably the paradigm case of this; how could you possibly have private ownership of the roads, or the subway system, in New York City?

edit: the fire service is another decent example, although not quite as good because I suppose it might be hypothetically possible that a city could maybe exist with a fully private fire service

Edited by Hal
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The specific example I used, road networks, are probably the paradigm case of this; how could you possibly have private ownership of the roads, or the subway system, in New York City?

How? You just do it.

The only problem with roads is that they are already there. It is a problem of the previous system, not of the free market.

One might think that private ownership of roads will allow the owner to deny you to step out of your house or charge enormous sums of money for you to use it. But that situation only applies if the government privatizes the road while you are still living there.

A solution in a free market is that you rent the street in front of your house for a few years/decades when you move in your house / appartment. You can choose between different streets and different street-owners.

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Everyone who wants to live in the society, since we're talking exclusively about things which are essential to the functioning of a modern country.

There is a principle, and I basically stated it in the above post. For natural monopolies which are essential to the functioning of the country, and where competition is pretty much impossible due to the nature of the service in question, I think government ownership is justified. The specific example I used, road networks, are probably the paradigm case of this; how could you possibly have private ownership of the roads, or the subway system, in New York City?

Ayn Rand identified where competition is impossible for a properly functioning government; force, and force alone. There is nothing special about roads that makes them the one exception.

edit: the fire service is another decent example, although not quite as good because I suppose it might be hypothetically possible that a city could maybe exist with a fully private fire service
No, this isn't a good example, nor is a private fire service an hypothetical. Special industries have private fire brigades due to the specialization that the jobs they do require. Do you think they would be less effective at stopping fires in more simple situations?
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That actually points up a problem with the Objectivist concept of limited government. There's no way of financing it (or if there is, someone please enlighten me) which does not either 1)involve the initiation of force, or 2)equate in practice to anarcho-capitalism.

Something that I see overlooked frequently in discussions of this nature is the laying out of what exactly will be financed. Of course people will coil up in horror at the thought of voluntarily financing today's government. Voluntary financing becomes a much easier pill to swallow when you take out things like Medicare/Medicaid which, if memory serves, makes up a fifth to a quarter of the federal budget. Contrast that with the federal judiciary which, again if memory serves, makes up a mere one percent, and perhaps less. (And keep in mind that the judiciary would be even cheaper under a proper government than it is now, due in part to the incredible amount of judicial resources wasted on dealing with drug cases which, again if memory serves, compose upwards of half of the federal docket.)

[Regarding this memory serves bit, I'm on a different computer than normal and the connection is a chunk slower. It would be a bit of a pain right now to search for confirmation of all this. That's why I'm hedging so much. I will try to confirm at a later time.]

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The only problem with roads is that they are already there. It is a problem of the previous system, not of the free market.
This isnt really relevant. We arent building new cities out of lego bricks, we're talking about how we could move to a free-market economy from where we currently are. Regardless of what created the problem, it is a problem nonetheless.

One might think that private ownership of roads will allow the owner to deny you to step out of your house or charge enormous sums of money for you to use it. But that situation only applies if the government privatizes the road while you are still living there.
Yes. And this is exactly what would happen if the government were to sell off the road network.

A solution in a free market is that you rent the street in front of your house for a few years/decades when you move in your house / appartment. You can choose between different streets and different street-owners.
Assuming we could somehow move to a system where this was in place, how would you handle people who wished to charge others for using their roads? Youre going to have a situation where every single road in the city is owned by a different group of people, and theres a toll booth on every corner. And of course, the people who owned the roads right in the center of the city would be able to charge pretty much whatever they liked.

I think this suffers from the same 'lego brick' problem I mentioned above; its a solution designed to fit a new country which we are building from scratch, not one for the existing world. In order to make the transition from the current system to a free-market, the roads we have would have to be sold, and there is quite literally not enough money in the world to buy the road network in central London, or the Underground subway. I think the account you gave in that blog post fails to appreciate the scale of the problem - a company which owned the transportation network could do whatever it wanted, and it would almost certainly be the most powerful company in the world. It would have the potential to pretty much collapse the global economy single-handedly just by denying people access to the City. It would be able to charge the companies based in central London pretty much any fee it wanted, under the threat of shutting down the roads for a week or so, which would cause wide-scale bankruptices along with the complete destruction of the UK's financial system. The same would apply to the controllers of the transportation networks in any other major city, such as New York or Tokyo.

The only way a privately owned road network would be mangable would be if it were heavily regulated by the government, with laws in place which prevented them from shutting down the system. And in case the 'privitization' is really just a facade, since its still essentially state-controlled.

edit: I want to clarify; I'm not talking about interstate highways or the like here. If a company wants to go out and build a huge freeway connecting 2 states then good luck to them, and they are certainly free to charge whatever they like for the use of their new roads. I'm talking specifically about the transportation networks which already exist in major cities, and are essential to their functioning and existence.

Edited by Hal
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Assuming we could somehow move to a system where this was in place, how would you handle people who wished to charge others for using their roads?
That you depend on whether I wanted to go where the road takes me. I suppose that if I wanted to go to that place and the road-owner wanted to charge me a quarter, I would pay him the quarter to use his property. On the other hand, if I didn't want to go there, I would just ignore the fact that he wants money. It's kind of like newspapers, internet access, and chipper-shredders. If you want it, you can pay, otherwise you don't.
Youre going to have a situation where every single road in the city is owned by a different group of people, and theres a toll booth on every corner.
Well, that's a non-sequitur and furthermore not even ridiculous enough. What about the possibility that there is a toll-boot every 3 feet? Having a toll-booth at the end of every block would be massively inefficient, and it simply would not happen. What would happen is that technology would step in, as it does even now on high-traffic toll roads, and eliminate toll booths entirely. Even though it is imaginarily possible that roads would be bought up in one-block long chunks, it would be inconceivable that this would actually happen, since it would be incredibly inefficient from a business POV.
And of course, the people who owned the roads right in the center of the city would be able to charge pretty much whatever they liked.
Which is also the way it is with government roads and the £5 London toll. There is nothing to stop Red Ken from raising the toll to £20 or even £49.98.
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My parents live on an island where the government doesn't build or maintain side-streets, so the people that own the property simply pitched in to build an access road, which they name themselves. It results in some pretty odd names for roads, but other than that, no real problems.

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@Hal:

Existing roads are a problem because you cannot choose the new owner of a road directly and because the government is the current alone owner.

But you also have to look at these points:

- You will not be able to monopolize the road in front of a house

- You will not be able to make profit from it (except if you are for example in the weapon sale business :worry: ) , the only thing you can cause is destruction

- It would very hard to get a monopoly if you cannot buy the whole network in one strike from the government. If you own everything but a single road that one road owner will get VERY rich :)

I think in future the problem will be solved by blimps or 'flying-cars' ( :) ), competition will automaticly keep the prices of the roads low.

A different solution would be if only people who live in that street may own the street, i.e. it's part of your real estate which you can only sale together with your whole real estate.

Yes. And this is exactly what would happen if the government were to sell off the road network.

And this is happening right now in Europe and the US... You are taxed for the roads and you have to pay for using the roads to a private owner which the government has chosen for you. And if that is not enough socialists then claim that it's the fault of Capitalism :dough:

Assuming we could somehow move to a system where this was in place, how would you handle people who wished to charge others for using their roads? Youre going to have a situation where every single road in the city is owned by a different group of people, and theres a toll booth on every corner. And of course, the people who owned the roads right in the center of the city would be able to charge pretty much whatever they liked.

If every road is owned by a different group of people (ideally those people who live there) this would be no problem. If you charge too much people will choose a different route. If your road has lots of holes people will choose a different route.

If you own the center you can charge whatever you like. People will either pay you or people will use a longer route around the center.

The problem of 'key roads' that may cut a whole part of the city from the rest is not a problem of the free market but a problem of the development of the road system under a state owned system.

@JMeganSnow:

Sounds great :)

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