Тег: Marketplace

There are 2 private railway networks in the Bay Area: BART and Caltrain. To transfer from one to the other, you have to buy another ticket. In Europe, however, a different approach is popular: state ownership and a universal ticket, which turns out to be more convenient. So, what happens—did the “free market” suck it dry?

Anonymous question

To start with, of course, I would like to recommend the articles and recordings of speeches by Farid Khusainov – as it happens, I can boast my own “tame” expert on railway topics. He talks extensively and in detail, including the difference in approaches between the American and the continental model of railway organization. But I will approach this from a completely different angle.

Yes, indeed, the state can theoretically make a certain service so profitable for the consumer that any market solutions simply cannot withstand the competition. For example, why shouldn’t the state transport passengers by rail completely for free? After all, it is not absolutely necessary for the state to make a particular service profitable – it will rob profitable private businesses with taxes and invest the money into a loss-making one.
For instance, in Venezuela, gasoline costs pennies due to state subsidies, and many would like to use such a service, but few would want to move to Venezuela for that reason=)

From what I understood from a cursory analysis of the transport situation in the Bay Area, it’s not two transport companies interacting there, but more than two dozen, and so far the market has only decided in favor of a single payment interface, but not a single ticket. It is possible that some intermediary company, having analyzed the sales statistics of all companies, could introduce a single ticket to the market that works for all or most transport companies, and the money from its price would be distributed between the companies in a proportion agreed upon between them. It is possible that such a product would even be successful. But it is also quite likely that it wouldn’t take off.

To summarize, I want to say that the state’s exit from the economy will undoubtedly make people wealthier overall and technological progress faster overall – but in individual sectors that are privileged under interventionism, deterioration is possible when transitioning to a free market. This is the price of eliminating regulatory distortions.

Why is the opinion that there will be some problems with roads under ancap so popular? Doesn’t the existence of toll roads show that their construction can be profitable?

Anonymous question

Roads are an easily accessible, common-sense example of a public good provided by the state through:

  • taxes
  • laws on land expropriation for road construction
  • uniform traffic rules within the jurisdiction
  • traffic police and other structures performing related functions.

In general, roads are a large, complex, and expensive “something,” yet any car owner can get on the road and drive for free. But if toll roads owned by different parties are introduced, the average car owner immediately envisions countless barriers, queues at them, and similar clumsy interfaces for taking their money. “No way,” thinks the car owner, “taxes are better.”

The fact that building toll roads can be profitable does not prove the advantages of ancap. The advantage of ancap is proven by the fact that the construction of free roads can be profitable.
A road does not lead from void to void. It connects plots of land, thereby increasing their transport accessibility and, consequently, their commercial value. It is precisely to increase the value of their land that owners have a vested interest in building roads to it. Any owner of a summer house in a cottage community can confirm this for you.

The product of a person’s labor is their property. But if it was produced by intellectual labor and the property is intellectual? Why does it not belong to them? After all, they spent strength and time to make it.

Pisya Kamushkin

Anyone can do whatever they want with their own property, but they cannot do whatever they want with someone else’s. I heard a little song from you, “putinhuylolalalalalalalala,” the tune got stuck in my head, and now I sing it too. If you start harassing me to make me stop singing it, or demand that I pay you royalties for singing, I will laugh at you, you senile fool, and walk away, humming the tune. Humming with my own mouth, that is, managing my own property, not yours.

But at the same time, one can imagine many scenarios in which I would still pay you money. You could sell me a ticket to a concert where you sing the song. You could sell me a T-shirt with a dickhead on it. You could suggest that we chip in to write a new song, for example, “hillarytoprisonlolalalalalalalala,” and I might like that idea…

As long as you invent ways for me to voluntarily part with my money to somehow partake in your intellectual property, you are a respected intellectual property owner. As soon as you start looking for ways to forcibly take money from me under the pretext that you thought of something and spent resources on it, you turn from a respected owner into a dangerous asshole.