| > it creates forced riders, a problem very rarely addressed Yes, I think that's the idea. I don't think it's inherently a "problem", though [1]. Lots of good things in society have this same pattern. I pay taxes for the fire department, but have never had a fire myself. Compare to the highly-problematic privatized fire departments of years past. Lots of examples in that vein. A movie quote comes to mind: "When he reached the New World, Cortéz burned his ships. As a result, his men were well-motivated." There is something to be said for the power of a "we're all in it together" mentality, whether forced or not. Maybe that makes me a communist, I don't know (: > At what point does society end and individual rights begin? Great question. I imagine the answer varies by person, by culture and sub-culture, by time, and by many other factors. I wonder if someone has done work in quantifying where to draw that line. For instance, with the fire department example, some private ones do still exist, mostly in rural areas, where there's less risk of a fire from one neighbor endangering the next one. But in more crowded areas, such as cities, the "forced rider" approach is far superior. There're probably some formulas that could describe that trade-off. [1] Aside: I was unfamiliar with the term "forced riders", so I'm going off of the Wikipedia page[2]; not sure if there is some inherent negative association with the term in typical usage. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_rider |