[mdemare]

But the government pays for the roads too. Isn't that a subsidy? And without trains or subways much more people would need to use cars - where would they be parked? Who would pay for all that parking space? Trains allow people who can't drive (or can't afford to drive) to travel.

And can you imagine the traffic in New York, Paris or London if the "unprofitable" subway networks were shut down? Society has a huge interest in keeping these networks running, even if it's impossible for a private company to start a new railroad and turn a profit.

There are a lot of variables involved here. Don't be too sure you see the whole picture.

[Prrometheus]

Transportation is a good with a large demand. I am certain that, absent the government, quite a bit of transportation would be demanded and provided in the free market. The quantity of roads or rail produced might be less without all the subsidies, but I'm not sure this would be a bad thing. It would certainly be easier on the environment, since transportation tends to be resource-intensive.

The amount of transportation produced in the free market would be equal to the amount that people were willing to pay for, and that seems fair to me. Producing roads that people aren't willing to voluntarily pay for is a social loss. The people paying for the roads would rather use their money for other things. We are taking their consumption away from more highly valued goods and putting it towards lesser valued goods.

[mdemare]

Transportation may be a good, but infrastructure isn't, and there are good reasons why depending on the free market to invest in infrastructure is a bad idea. It is very hard (and wasteful) to charge for roads. Infrastructure forms a natural monopoly (worse even than the telecom industry). There are huge sunk costs. The existence of roads benefits everybody, even those who don't use them, but nobody wants to pay for them.

I like free markets too, but whenever there's something like the Tragedy of the Commons or Moral Hazard involved, free markets lose much of their advantages.

[Prrometheus]

I mentioned this in other comments, but private roads, highways, canals, and railroads (even one of the four great transcontinentals) had a long and successful history in the United States before the rise of public monopolies. Since it is clearly possible to build even very expensive infrastructure by private means, we have to ask if it fair or efficient to do otherwise. Is it okay to tax people in California to pay for highway boondoggles in Massachusetts? Is it in society's best interest for infrastructure to be built by entities that have a history of being behind schedule and over budget? Is it wise to build more highways than the free market would provide in order to have cheap transit when all side effects are considered? I'm not sure.

[gnaritas]

The free market isn't the best solution for every problem. Imagine if firemen worked like American doctors and wouldn't deal with you unless you were properly insured, or police who only helped those who could afford it or had paid their protection dues.

Some things really do benefit the whole herd and and everyone needs to contribute whether they like it or not. I'm all for minimal government where the free market works, but it's not the right solution to every problem.

Profit can't be the only motive for doing things, some things must be done because it's simply the right thing to do and profiting off of it just wouldn't be right.

Society might not be required to feed and cloth you, but it should damn sure protect you from other members of society, and it should step in and do things to prevent the free market from damaging the one world we all have to share, like decent public transportation to reduce the need for everyone to drive and continually pollute the environment.

[Prrometheus]

I've heard those points and that rhetoric before and I am not convinced. It is insufficient to say this, but I think we are approaching this issue with substantially different experience, assumptions, and background knowledge. I don't think I am contributing much to the world by spending a lot of time on a comment in this forum, so I will unfortunately leave it at that right now. If you live in San Diego, how about coffee sometime?

[gnaritas]

If I did, I most certainly would, it's an interesting discussion, but I don't so I can't. I used to be all hardcore libertarian like that, but as I get older I lighten up and see that it's a bit too idealistic and leads to anarchy which doesn't really work well in practice.

Pure libertarianism focuses too much on individual rights without acknowledging the reality that we aren't born into such a world, we're social animals and we're born into large societies that we're forced to conform to which in may ways benefits us all, but hurts us as well.

No one gets rich or wealthy alone, they get it from society and that can't be a one way street. Those people who have money to spend on roads only have it because of society, like it or not, the owe society something back for that.

Libertarians believe government doesn't work so the less there is the better, and this is mostly correct; big government doesn't work and can't because there is no one set of rules that all people will ever agree too, but local government, say city level, must work because the only alternative is lawlessness. That being the case, ridding ourselves of federal influence would allow us to segregate into like minded communities where rules can be established that all agree to. Some cities might want prayer in school, others might not, some want everyone to carry a gone while others want to outlaw guns, and that's as it should be, live and let live by recognizing that 300 million people won't ever agree so don't force them to.

The flaw in our society is not government, it's how big and non local we've let it become.