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482 sats \ 3 replies \ @faithandcredit 3 Jan \ on: BuT, wHaT aBoUt ThE rOaDs? libertarian
if you owned a road how would you charge people who used it? how would you finance it?
Most likely the road would become free and open to use. And maybe the people who lived in the area paid for it. Maybe they were the ones that owned it. And since they already paid for the road to use it themselves they may as well just let others use it as well?
I definitely think that would be a big part of it. I see two distinct groups who would be willing to take over road management and continue operating them at no expense to drivers: residential neighborhoods and retailers. I just finished a comment about it in an exchange with @ekzyis.
The sunk cost vs low marginal cost point you made is the key insight, I think. Roads are intended to facilitate commerce, they aren't an independent good. That means either there's a collection of people who would be willing to pay for their upkeep to get the advantages or those roads are not worth maintaining. The details are just an entrepreneurial problem.
I do think there will be toll roads, though, and my expectation is that they'd operate on something very much like EZ Pass. Major commuter routes come to mind, where there might just be too many parties to coordinate any sort of shared ownership.
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I for one dont think there will be toll roads (arent those a government invention anyway?). The market will certinaly attempt to route around them if given the oppertunity. No pun intended. For example on the internet, there is no such thing as "toll websites". with the exception of MSM websites? But they are notoriously unpopular. My point is that the network of roads in the absent of government, might not be too disimilar to the network of the internet. Its mostly free and open?
Maybe you paid a "Road service provider" x amount per month. Someone would allos unlimited miles, others would have limits on miles but be cheaper. I dont think its too far fetched to imagine "Road Service Providers" sort of like how an Internet Service Provider.
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That certainly might be right. I was going to point out that people use toll roads right now when there are free alternative routes. However, those alternative routes take much longer and no one's allowed to build a new road right next to the toll road.
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