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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Zombie statists: ‘But if there’s no government, who’ll build roads?!’

By David McElroy · April 28, 2012

It’s a bad movie that you might have seen before. It tends to show up whenever an advocate of voluntary cooperation explains how society could operate without state coercion. Right on cue, the zombies from “Night of the Living Statists” rear their heads and mindlessly intone, “But if there’s no government, who will build the roads?!”

The zombies can’t hear your response, so it’s useless to try to give them facts and explain how things could be done in a way that’s better for everyone if roads and other such things were provided as private services rather than as coercive government monopolies. For those who are open to the facts, though, is there any evidence that people can actually cooperate voluntarily for their own interests?

As a matter of fact, there’s quite a bit of evidence of that.

Three years ago, the businesses and residents of the Hawaii island of Kauai were in trouble. The livelihood of the local people depended on tourism, but a state park they relied on to funnel business to them was closed. Flooding several months before had destroyed an access road to Polihale State Park and damaged park facilities.

The state said the repairs would cost $4 million that it didn’t have. So the park was going to be closed that summer — and probably even the next year. This wasn’t acceptable to the business people and the residents, because they needed that park open in order to earn their living. So they got together and decided to do something on their own.

In just eight days, the businesses put their resources together and performed all the necessary repairs — for free. The park re-opened. The businesses survived, because they cooperated to do what was best for all of them, without waiting for someone else to do it for them.

“We can wait around for the state or federal government to make this move, or we can go out and do our part,” said the owner of a local kayak business. “Just like everyone’s sitting around waiting for a stimulus check, we were waiting for this but decided we couldn’t wait anymore.”

This is a great little story, but maybe it only worked because of the small scale. Surely big projects require the federal government to take money from people and pay for projects. Right?

People frequently point to the example of the 19th century railroads as evidence that government loans and other assistance are necessary for such large-scale projects. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads were built with federal subsidies by politically connected businessmen. Doesn’t that prove it’s the only way?

The free market way was shown by a great businessman named James J. Hill. While some of the other major railroads were slapped together in shoddy ways — because government was subsidizing their construction on a per-mile basis, not a long-term basis — he built the Great Northern Railway without a dime of government help.

Hill was obsessed with building a business for the long term. While his competitors slapped together useless miles of track on longer routes, he found shorter routes and built more sturdy rail beds. He invested money in the communities around his railroad’s territory, understanding that his long-term success was directly tied to their success.

As a result, the Great Northern was the only railroad to avoid receivership after the Panic of 1893. The others were built on a shaky foundation by robber barons who just wanted quick profits from the public treasury. (Please read this excellent article by libertarian historian Thomas J. DiLorenzo for many more details.) Hill and his company understood the long-term success provided by the free market. Which is a better model?

Just because you’re accustomed to seeing things done by coercive governments taking money from people by force (or threat of force) doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do those things. It doesn’t even mean it’s the best way to to those things.

Who will build the roads? That question makes no more sense than asking who will grow the food and who will build the cars and who will operate hardware stores. People will voluntarily create arrangements and companies that suit their own needs. If there’s a need for grocery stores, someone will start companies to fill the need. If there’s a need for cars, someone will build and sell them. If there’s a need for roads, someone will build them and sell the service. The providers and the customers will do all those things because they’re in their own interest — not because some coercive, paternalistic government decides for them.

Simply put, government coercion short-circuits the ability of voluntary cooperation to work. In other words, the government you’re counting on to fix the problems is getting in the way. They’re not only failing to solve the problems, but they are the problems.

When I tell people that coercion is wrong and that people have the right to be free and make their own voluntary decisions, they frequently tell me that there are no alternatives. The truth is that voluntary cooperation is a viable alternative, but many people don’t want to see it — because it would mean giving up many of the assumptions they have about how society is structured. It would require them to face the reality that the current system is not only immoral, but it’s unnecessary.

Voluntaryism is the notion that every person is free to make his own choices about how he interacts with others. If anyone tells you that coercion is necessary, he hasn’t looked closely at the evidence. Individual freedom is not only moral, but it’s pragmatic.

Note: Thanks to Lou Gignac for finding the great graphic that sparked this idea, along with providing links to relevant research.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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