Are libertarians our enemies?

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Property rights mean nothing without the government acknowledging and enforcing them. Otherwise, who's going to defend you if armed men come and kick you out of your home? Sure, you can fight them off in a gun battle, but there's more of a chance that you'll either die or be hurt, not mention your property will be damaged. It makes more sense to have publicly funded police protecting you in the first place. Or what if your neighbor builds a house on your property? Without government, there's be no court system to right that wrong. The simple fact is, private property means jack without the existence of government.

Yep, competition between different roads is a theme of Snow Crash. Each road is not only a corporation but also a sovereign microstate.

People in Snow Crash don't pay to have private roads built for them. Not everyone can own their own road. They pay tolls. People don't get to decide which roads get built individually, not even by voting with their dollars. If Road Inc has one road that I need to use but they're using my tolls to fund construction of another road I think is unnecessary, I don't get to tell them what to do with their corporation. I could choose not to use their road but if it's runs past my house I'll be a shut-in.

Not all the funds from tolls would be used for maintenance or to pay back construction costs of that particular road. It's common corporate practice that most of the profits go to expanding the business, not maintaining it.

Anyway, Road Inc doesn't get to build roads where ever it likes. In a world where each road, suburb and strip mall is a sovereign microstate, zoning disputes can get very heated. There can also be conflicts of interest. In the book, a section of Fairlanes Inc is bought by a mall and redirected into their labyrinthine parking system, confusing by design. You can attempt to drive through to the other side if you want but it's easier to just park and shop. The plan was implemented to prevent shoppers from driving through to rival malls.

Normally competition between malls would lead to lower prices but this mall has a large section of LA to itself, leaving them free to jack up the prices. This fictional example illustrates how, while the free market can lead to increased competition and lower prices, it can also reduce competition which leads to higher prices.

Remember, if some CEO is talking about how competition leads to lower prices, he may be plotting to set up a monopoly.

Do you even have the slightest notion how much road construction costs? It's out of bounds for the majority of people. In fact, it was President Dwight Eisenhower who had been responsible for the American freeway system, and he was a Republican, hardly a liberal Democrat. He clearly understood that there were many projects that private industry couldn't handle themselves without the government. And even if you had private companies building roads, what assurance would there be that they'd at all intersect? Great, you have a road, but very possibly a road to nowhere. And very likely you'd have roads of varying degrees of quality. And knowing the abuses of unregulated business, the chances are, those privately built roads would be of an inferior quality, as would other unregulated products be. Without an active government looking out for the citizenry, we'd be at the mercy of business taking advantage of us all for the sake of cutting corners to make a buck.

If armed men come and kick me out of my home, I will detonate the explosives I have rigged all throughout my house (or gas, if I feel like I have to save my material possessions). Or, I would fight. "cold dead hands" etc etc etc... Really though, it's up to the individual to protect themselves. As stated earlier in this thread, "you're not entitled to safety". If my neighbor builds a house on my property, I will thank him for the gift, and use it for maybe something like a greenhouse... If he tries to claim something he put on my property on purpose as his own, I will tell him to sod off, and if he does not sod off, I will force him off my property, if he does not comply then, I will have to shoot him. Such is life when people invade your rightfully owned land...


In the first place, I doubt any of those things would happen. An armed society is a polite society.

Also, before the interstate highway system was built, you literally had roads that would end at state lines...

You never said Norway explicitly, but you did say "That's all what your libertarian wet dream will get you if put into practice." My libertarian dream is a free Norway, and you said it would turn into a country very similar to Somalia. I also explained to you that I shouldn't have to move away from the place I was born to have people stop stealing from me.

Also, I'm not really insulted, I just feel like I should be. If you people (the ones advocating theft) are feeling insulted when I'm saying "stop stealing from me," what can I say? "deal with it"? I don't want to be rude, but I'm just saying "stop stealing from me".

Of course road building is expensive, its a very labor intensive process and requires a lot of expensive materials and tools. No single individual is going to build a highway, it would most likely be something like city A and city B getting together and saying "we want a road to go between us", and then people can put money in the pot to get advantages on the road use, like exclusive access during certain hours or lower toll price.

Companies have reputations to protect, it's not in their best interest to be known as "that company who sells faulty pacemakers" or "that company whose roads falls apart after three years". People are not all helpless, some people know to look up the people they are doing business with.

If armed men come and kick me out of my home, I will detonate the explosives I have rigged all throughout my house (or gas, if I feel like I have to save my material possessions). Or, I would fight. "cold dead hands" etc etc etc... Really though, it's up to the individual to protect themselves. As stated earlier in this thread, "you're not entitled to safety". If my neighbor builds a house on my property, I will thank him for the gift, and use it for maybe something like a greenhouse... If he tries to claim something he put on my property on purpose as his own, I will tell him to sod off, and if he does not sod off, I will force him off my property, if he does not comply then, I will have to shoot him. Such is life when people invade your rightfully owned land...

In the first place, I doubt any of those things would happen. An armed society is a polite society.

The people who live outside of society does so risking being arrested and put in jail.

Asking people to hurt themselves instead of me is perfectly reasonable.

So telling people to not steal from me is being a selfish prick? Alright, I'll just write that down on my list of stupid things heard today.

"being public they have to be maintenance and are for the use of everyone seems much more effective." What? Could you explain what you mean by that sentence, it's not making much sense to me.

Of course there would be costs for using roads! There are costs for using roads today too, we just call them "taxes". Here in Norway you have to pay out of your ass to drive a car.

What do you mean by giving large companies more power?

What!?

You actually don't think I have the right to keep my own private property? Seriously?

So even if I work hard and honestly for someone, so that I can get enough money to buy a plot of land in the woods, and then work even harder to build a house, it is still not mine? Even though I worked honestly, bought the land honestly, and built the house honestly?

You're absolutely right! Noone is entitled to safety, comfort, and security! Now you're getting it!

The thing is, though, that if I go and live outside in the forest, I would want to build my own cabin. What I would do, is that I would buy myself a plot of land in the forest, and chop down trees and use the logs as building materials to make myself a nice little log house, but I can't do that since the state would come and tell me what I can or can't do on my own privately owned land, which is the problem here.

No, seriously, asking people to not hurt me, and instead go do something else, whatever that may be, is perfectly reasonable. I am literally asking you to leave me alone and go do something else, but you have a problem with this idea since you feel like you have a right to tell me what to do.

For a start, land can never truly belong to an individual. I'm slightly put off by the idea that it can belong to a state, either. We have agreed upon rules for what can be done on the land so nobody imposes and illegal externality upon others, like destroying forests so that future generations cannot enjoy them.

But the house, assuming it is legal, is "yours", it just isn't "yours" due to some natural right - merely because the government acknowledges it as such.

I have to dispute your argument that "might is right", or that a world where "might is right" would be remotely a good place to live. It would be a huge regression. You've already claimed that you would rig your house to explode in order to deter thieves. This is obviously a huge regression on our current system.

Dude, just to let you know, I'm impressed by what a lot of Libertarians are saying,I'm just a person who believes in mixed economies, and who doesn't hold fast to any particular ideology.

I'd be interested in hearing more of what you had to say.