What do you think about the police?

[FlatAssembler]

Libertarians, as far as I can tell, tend to be far more knowledgeable about history than other people are.

Right, because the only way to have roads work is to have them in the hands of the government that has no financial incentive to make them good. With public roads, the financial incentive is to let them rot. With private roads, the financial incentive is to repair them.

[The Architect Of Fate]

A road system run by libertarians would never work. There is a reason we leave that to the government.

[LinuxGal]

A road system run by libertarians would never work. There is a reason we leave that to the government.

A road system run by libertarians would have a toll booth every time you turned onto a road built by a different asshole. Taxation isn't "theft" it's actually a solution in optimization of cost and convenience.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Nothing is possible under anarcho-capitalism because anarcho-capitalism is an impossibility.

Boru

Why would anarcho-capitalism be an impossibility?

Because people aren't built that way. It requires a nobility of purpose that not enough human beings possess to make that system workable.

Boru

[FlatAssembler]

A road system run by libertarians would never work. There is a reason we leave that to the government.

A road system run by libertarians would have a toll booth every time you turned onto a road built by a different asshole. Taxation isn't "theft" it's actually a solution in optimization of cost and convenience.

Seriously, you think a libertarian society couldn't come up with a more convenient way of paying for roads you are using? With all the modern-day technology? And, who knows, maybe roads would work like free software does today: built by volunteers and used for free.

[FlatAssembler]

Why would anarcho-capitalism be an impossibility?

Because people aren't built that way. It requires a nobility of purpose that not enough human beings possess to make that system workable.

Boru

I am quite sure people a few centuries ago thought similarly that human nature makes a society without slavery impossible.

[HappySkeptic]

I had a roommate who was a libertarian. He believed the only fair way to do things was user-pay. Roads should be paid for by those using them. I wonder if he felt the same way about bicycle paths?

I guess in a libertarian world, there would be cameras everywhere dinging you for every "use" of a sidewalk or garbage can.

[The Architect Of Fate]

I am quite sure people a few centuries ago thought similarly that human nature makes a society without slavery impossible.

1. The drivers that make  libertarian state impossible are more profound than the drivers that kept slavery going

2. We never got rid of slavery it's still alive and well.

[The Grand Nudger]

A road system run by libertarians would never work. There is a reason we leave that to the government.

A road system run by libertarians would never work. There is a reason we leave that to the government.

A road system run by libertarians would have a toll booth every time you turned onto a road built by a different asshole. Taxation isn't "theft" it's actually a solution in optimization of cost and convenience.

That's actually what we did here in the us.  We privatized alot of formerly public roads, or failed to maintain the publics while greenlighting new privately funded and publicly compensated construction - and now here we are.  Did it with alot of our infrastructure (and labor, too).  To the point that there are states that now say, out loud...and perhaps without an ounce of self realization....that they can't operate their public programs without more (private) prison labor. That they cannot build or maintain their roads, and so, these private funded ventures are the only option. We flirted with this a couple of times through the centuries, it always ends the same way - fuckin mess.

I think it's especially galling right now when we decide to tap private capital for public investments, essentially divesting in public investment as a government...at a point in time where we might need to extend the umbrella of what falls under public investment (electricity? food? internet connectivity?)...and as private entities preemptively capture important resources like water.

As far as private users "paying for roads" - that's a non issue. Our sedan drivers do not pay for roads. Trucking companies and their employees do. Fair, as far as it goes. Transportation eats up the pavement. The trouble is that they do not pay enough, even under that taxation regime. They are, thus, subsidized by john q in the form of whatever value is created for them, by the difference between their use, and it's cost. I think this one example handily sums up the way that libertarianism is useful to our growing system of fuedal captialism. Gets John Q A calling John QB the moocher, even though John Q's A-Zx100 don't incur the cost of the entities currently abusing the taxbase. Leveraging half truths to whole lies.

TLDR - eat the rich - but in a wholesome and completely american way, through free markets, ofc.
(and I've been informed many times - especially by folks not stuck in here with these nuts, that american libertarianism is, well....not libertarianism, and I agree.)

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Because people aren't built that way. It requires a nobility of purpose that not enough human beings possess to make that system workable.

Boru

I am quite sure people a few centuries ago thought similarly that human nature makes a society without slavery impossible.

The difference between the two should be obvious, but I’ll tell you anyway: The support of slavery is an expression of human nature - the desire to control other people. Anarcho-capitalism requires the opposite - not desiring to control other people. Since anarcho-capitalism would inevitably lead to an oligarchy of security firms controlling other people, your fantasy is doomed from the start. It doesn’t do away with the State, it simply swaps a public State for a privatized one. It is therefore not ‘anarcho’ anything.

Boru