There's self regulating road systems. Roundabouts are a perfect example. Way fewer deaths, easier to make, & doesn't need over sights & electricity like intersections.
So cool. He's a legend. Please, bring him back soon and talk about Rothbard and Bitcoin. As far as I can remember, Walter wasn't a big fan of Bitcoin. He used to say it violates Menger's theory. I'd like to know his current view on it and to see you guys discussing that.
The easiest way to wrap your head around roads is looking at ISP's and databases. So if you want to make a website you find a server to host it or you build your own server that meets the requirements you need. An internet service provider deals with providing the communication between servers on a network that they maintain. If you have a private road you can have private investors in that road who build it and put it up for service providers to maintain and provide those services. Some companies will have private roads along with shared roads but with lanes set aside for them. Any person can build a road and the person who builds it can become the service provider for it and the soul owner and maintainer. Or they can sell it to a service provider or make an agreement where they can pay for however many people drive on that road for a given time. And what says all types of traffic must be congealed into one area. Why can't companies reduce the impact on infrastructure by building there own roads between high frequency travel areas. Like big semitrucks will emeditly become far less of a harm on roads when they have there own high ways and personalized safety precautions. No longer will big 30+ car pile ups occur due to a semitruck crashing. That also comes with a better out come of cheaper products because the trucks can drive on roads built with the straightest line between to distances. That means less gas to spend and time to wait on smaller cars because of congestion. Not to mention the roads themself can depict best speeds for truckers to travel to reduce any traffic that occurs. Another thing people realize but don't think about is that every road placed today is a permanent installment into the ground. That means if the road is least traveled and is seen as pointless the tax payers will have to fit that bill. If the road was interchangeable meaning If it isn't serving its purpose the service provider or owner can move it to a better location and potentially even reduce the impact on the environment. But that depends on how the road is built. You may even say well we'll run out of room for roads. Well tunnels can be built along with land bridges so if a company wants to go from Boston to Manchester NH. They can build a tunnel that connects the 2 and have trucks drive underground to increase the speed of delivery and efficiency of the product. I'd imagine company's can find the best possible solution for a private road for industrial purposes. There have even been private roads for mines in the past to push out a finished product between the mine and the company that owns the smelter. Although some were owned by the same company. But still the fact they have a road that connects those 2 to make a finished product faster and more affordable is the main thing. They don't have to burn gas waiting in traffic or go a route that is far longer than it would be otherwise. This way they can travel on the road and finish the product faster and more affordably.
The only reason there is congestion is because society is still base around very few major places. New York has all the jobs and wealth. So does Los Angeles. So does London, so does Paris. So you have too many people trying to get into one place for work/social. It's not a road problem it's a concentrated wealth problem. No amount of roads is gonna stop a big city traffic. Small towns hace zero congestion. The only thing that can solve congestion is good public transport. police for safety, people working locally and more money going towards making other cities better to share the load.
@@troyboy6828 no it would be private transportation the subways in New York were build by private companies and they reduced congestion and the same could be said for roads if roads were a competitive market you'd be getting the best solution to the traffic issue. The government doesn't provide a quility serve for roads that's why densely populated cities have construction on roads all the time and show very little progress on fixing the issue do you think if someone was paying for a service to travel on roads that he would pick the roads with the best quility. Also why aren't there more land bridge roads that could easily reduce congestion if place properly in a city to reduce congestion and get more people directly to the area they need to travel. There are some big cities who manage to do a good job of building adequate tunnels for cars like Boston. And what sense does it make to have every road paid for equally if you have a high traffic road there should be more money aquired to build upon the road to get the process traffic flow. The government will always run into the economic calculation because they have no competitive road building and maintaining businesses so the pricing would be completely coming from the state on how much it allocates not weather this amount would build the best road and yeild a profit high enough to build upon that road. The laws of economics are like the laws of gravity you can make anything into a state monopoly but the laws of economics will always provale. Half the reason why infrastructure is so high is because they have to pay more people to do a job that takes far longer than it should because the government has no other entity to go to, to make roads with less man power or make the roads last longer or make them make more sense maiming having more roads where it's needed instead of where the budget can be spent. If you've never worked with government contracts then I'm sorry to tell you they take their time and they usually have more people than necessary on the job and when unchecked they tend to take more time and money to do the same amount of work a basic construction company who builds multiple duplexes and other things like that take.
If companies make costs way too high for driving on their road/s, then people go to alternatives. If they can't, then businesses on those roads will have to leave because of the loss of traffic. With that loss of traffic means significantly less profit. Combine that with companies buying up roads so people can get to their business as fast and efficiently as possible, and they have every incentive to lower costs and cooperate with others' roads. Since, if others make it harder to get on their roads, it'll lower profit for everyone. There'll also be contractual agreements to ensure roads stay open. This assurance would attract businesses & customers to your district more than others. They would also make money from alternatives such as advertising like billboards instead of tolls. Government roads have led to the world's worst traffic jams, roads going to places that aren't best for anyone, and a bloated one size fits all price with no alternatives. Private roads bring competing districts who want to increase traffic & quality for revenue.
The only real viable way to compete with force, is more force. And when competing, they must garner numbers & resources to properly beat the other. In which case militias form, lines are drawn, & that's just government by my estimation. Small, but it's still government. The militia, in its search for resources & power, generally needs to appeal to its populace to some degree in most cases. People love that & flock to it. The ones who have the bigger guns & the most natural resources wins. There is economic incentive to free up their markets to better attract people to their state, but since they operate through force many are perfectly content with theft. It's easier. No need for complex supply chains & an efficient allocation of resources. They can just take it. That's why I don't support the abolition of the state. It's inevitable. Just a matter of which form it's in & how much they control. Minarchism & decentralization, while still maintaining security & unity, is best imo. It's a sad price to pay. There absolutely is anarchist societies that have existed & flourished for some time, but you can't simply maintain it's existence without some coordinated coercive body to help protect against other coordinated bodies. Also, since resources are randomly spread across the world in an unequal manner, each district will have unequal opportunities with their force. So even if one militia is managed better, it can easily be conquered by another who happens to have more resources. In a noncoersive free market, this isn't really an issue (they'll be allocated to the most productive), but with force it is. The state is an inevitability & practically a necessity, sadly
I understand and agree with Block's argument that different traffic safety laws should be empirically tested, but I see no other attractive arguments in favour of private road ownership. All of my own experience with private road ownership has been extremely negative (extortionate fees, poor maintenance), and because anybody located on that road has literally no alternative, it creates a natural monopoly that is ripe for abuse. It's good to get these ideas out in the open, but I am absolutely not persuaded here.
The end of this discussion shows how ridiculous the libertarian perspective is. They couldn't agree what parents should be able to do with their children. If you hold that children are their own legal persons, then a parent has no right to stop them from leaving or aggressing against them. If they are property then you cannot agress against a parent for engaging in child rape or torture.
![Twenty One Pilots - “The Line” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E2Rj2gQAyPA/mqdefault.jpg)
Walter Block is a true roads scholar
Tick Tock, Next Block
great conversation. Wish it would’ve been longer!
There's self regulating road systems. Roundabouts are a perfect example. Way fewer deaths, easier to make, & doesn't need over sights & electricity like intersections.
Agreed.
Lol that title... My aunt said exactly those words when I tried to explain some things to her. I probably shouldn't have...
I don't understand why most people seem to think that the government invented roads?? lol
Classic. I recommend the Candles in the Dark communication method by Larken Rose. Helped me in discussions a lot.
@ Saw this months ago. In my diary to do the course
Thank you Saifedean for bringing us those podcast ! This talk was so good you never fail to teach me a new thing, it's as the rabbit hole never ends.
Am I the only one who sees a strong resemblance to the angry guy from big Lebowski?:) Fantastic podcast as always
So cool. He's a legend.
Please, bring him back soon and talk about Rothbard and Bitcoin.
As far as I can remember, Walter wasn't a big fan of Bitcoin. He used to say it violates Menger's theory. I'd like to know his current view on it and to see you guys discussing that.
A collab we won't see again
Great one
Could the statement _"there are economic laws"_ be understood as _"there are logical and illogical outcomes to economic decisions"_ ?
The easiest way to wrap your head around roads is looking at ISP's and databases. So if you want to make a website you find a server to host it or you build your own server that meets the requirements you need. An internet service provider deals with providing the communication between servers on a network that they maintain. If you have a private road you can have private investors in that road who build it and put it up for service providers to maintain and provide those services.
Some companies will have private roads along with shared roads but with lanes set aside for them. Any person can build a road and the person who builds it can become the service provider for it and the soul owner and maintainer. Or they can sell it to a service provider or make an agreement where they can pay for however many people drive on that road for a given time. And what says all types of traffic must be congealed into one area.
Why can't companies reduce the impact on infrastructure by building there own roads between high frequency travel areas. Like big semitrucks will emeditly become far less of a harm on roads when they have there own high ways and personalized safety precautions. No longer will big 30+ car pile ups occur due to a semitruck crashing. That also comes with a better out come of cheaper products because the trucks can drive on roads built with the straightest line between to distances.
That means less gas to spend and time to wait on smaller cars because of congestion. Not to mention the roads themself can depict best speeds for truckers to travel to reduce any traffic that occurs. Another thing people realize but don't think about is that every road placed today is a permanent installment into the ground. That means if the road is least traveled and is seen as pointless the tax payers will have to fit that bill.
If the road was interchangeable meaning If it isn't serving its purpose the service provider or owner can move it to a better location and potentially even reduce the impact on the environment. But that depends on how the road is built. You may even say well we'll run out of room for roads. Well tunnels can be built along with land bridges so if a company wants to go from Boston to Manchester NH.
They can build a tunnel that connects the 2 and have trucks drive underground to increase the speed of delivery and efficiency of the product. I'd imagine company's can find the best possible solution for a private road for industrial purposes. There have even been private roads for mines in the past to push out a finished product between the mine and the company that owns the smelter. Although some were owned by the same company.
But still the fact they have a road that connects those 2 to make a finished product faster and more affordable is the main thing. They don't have to burn gas waiting in traffic or go a route that is far longer than it would be otherwise. This way they can travel on the road and finish the product faster and more affordably.
The only reason there is congestion is because society is still base around very few major places. New York has all the jobs and wealth. So does Los Angeles. So does London, so does Paris. So you have too many people trying to get into one place for work/social. It's not a road problem it's a concentrated wealth problem. No amount of roads is gonna stop a big city traffic. Small towns hace zero congestion. The only thing that can solve congestion is good public transport. police for safety, people working locally and more money going towards making other cities better to share the load.
@@troyboy6828 no it would be private transportation the subways in New York were build by private companies and they reduced congestion and the same could be said for roads if roads were a competitive market you'd be getting the best solution to the traffic issue. The government doesn't provide a quility serve for roads that's why densely populated cities have construction on roads all the time and show very little progress on fixing the issue do you think if someone was paying for a service to travel on roads that he would pick the roads with the best quility. Also why aren't there more land bridge roads that could easily reduce congestion if place properly in a city to reduce congestion and get more people directly to the area they need to travel. There are some big cities who manage to do a good job of building adequate tunnels for cars like Boston. And what sense does it make to have every road paid for equally if you have a high traffic road there should be more money aquired to build upon the road to get the process traffic flow. The government will always run into the economic calculation because they have no competitive road building and maintaining businesses so the pricing would be completely coming from the state on how much it allocates not weather this amount would build the best road and yeild a profit high enough to build upon that road. The laws of economics are like the laws of gravity you can make anything into a state monopoly but the laws of economics will always provale. Half the reason why infrastructure is so high is because they have to pay more people to do a job that takes far longer than it should because the government has no other entity to go to, to make roads with less man power or make the roads last longer or make them make more sense maiming having more roads where it's needed instead of where the budget can be spent. If you've never worked with government contracts then I'm sorry to tell you they take their time and they usually have more people than necessary on the job and when unchecked they tend to take more time and money to do the same amount of work a basic construction company who builds multiple duplexes and other things like that take.
If there was a free market there would be more public transportation
35:26 "we dont have competition"
competition like trains? that would surely save more lives..
GOATS
No, you can't both eat your cake and have it, too. That's the point of the saying.
😆Auto subtitles translated Saifedean Ammous as 'Safety Diamonds'.
Funnily enough, Safety Diamonds is how I like to think of Bitcoins...
Diamonds are a shitcoin
You can implement rent controls along with other good policies that offset its undeniable costs. Opportunity cost is often ignored
If companies make costs way too high for driving on their road/s, then people go to alternatives. If they can't, then businesses on those roads will have to leave because of the loss of traffic. With that loss of traffic means significantly less profit. Combine that with companies buying up roads so people can get to their business as fast and efficiently as possible, and they have every incentive to lower costs and cooperate with others' roads. Since, if others make it harder to get on their roads, it'll lower profit for everyone.
There'll also be contractual agreements to ensure roads stay open. This assurance would attract businesses & customers to your district more than others. They would also make money from alternatives such as advertising like billboards instead of tolls.
Government roads have led to the world's worst traffic jams, roads going to places that aren't best for anyone, and a bloated one size fits all price with no alternatives.
Private roads bring competing districts who want to increase traffic & quality for revenue.
The only real viable way to compete with force, is more force. And when competing, they must garner numbers & resources to properly beat the other. In which case militias form, lines are drawn, & that's just government by my estimation. Small, but it's still government. The militia, in its search for resources & power, generally needs to appeal to its populace to some degree in most cases. People love that & flock to it. The ones who have the bigger guns & the most natural resources wins. There is economic incentive to free up their markets to better attract people to their state, but since they operate through force many are perfectly content with theft. It's easier. No need for complex supply chains & an efficient allocation of resources. They can just take it.
That's why I don't support the abolition of the state. It's inevitable. Just a matter of which form it's in & how much they control. Minarchism & decentralization, while still maintaining security & unity, is best imo. It's a sad price to pay.
There absolutely is anarchist societies that have existed & flourished for some time, but you can't simply maintain it's existence without some coordinated coercive body to help protect against other coordinated bodies.
Also, since resources are randomly spread across the world in an unequal manner, each district will have unequal opportunities with their force. So even if one militia is managed better, it can easily be conquered by another who happens to have more resources.
In a noncoersive free market, this isn't really an issue (they'll be allocated to the most productive), but with force it is.
The state is an inevitability & practically a necessity, sadly
I understand and agree with Block's argument that different traffic safety laws should be empirically tested, but I see no other attractive arguments in favour of private road ownership.
All of my own experience with private road ownership has been extremely negative (extortionate fees, poor maintenance), and because anybody located on that road has literally no alternative, it creates a natural monopoly that is ripe for abuse.
It's good to get these ideas out in the open, but I am absolutely not persuaded here.
What are presented as the strongest arguments against anarchism are inevitably a description of the status quo.
-eminem
Kids raised vegan do fine....
The end of this discussion shows how ridiculous the libertarian perspective is. They couldn't agree what parents should be able to do with their children. If you hold that children are their own legal persons, then a parent has no right to stop them from leaving or aggressing against them. If they are property then you cannot agress against a parent for engaging in child rape or torture.