Renegade

You guys seem to desire that the streetlight be in the ownership of a collective group. That, to me, is fine--so long as they do not use force to get their way. It is force that makes the difference between a government and a voluntary institution. How about this for an idea to a non-force solution; "The Society for Streetlights"-- a voluntary organization (not a government) which can own and operate the streetlight within a city or region. People who wish to be a part of the decision making process can sign up to be a part of this society. People who wish to support this society can contribute their funds. The group can even run themselves democratically, so long as they don't think try to enforce the groups decisions on people outside of the society. The Rotary, The Legion, The Shriners, The Red Cross, and several more all do charity all the time. All on voluntary funds. And it doesn't have to be a pain (or even a noble deed) to donate money. It can be that you just want to play bingo, and proceeds from every game goes to The Streetlight. And even if such society doesn't exist in your area, there's always a business opportunist ready to step up and fund the streetlight. Why? Because it will give his company a good name--plus you can use the post as advertisement space. Combine that with voluntary donations, then you've got a streetlight in the bag. CW, I consider myself a Libertarian, however I think you are painting a scenario which is a pipe dream. The examples you give are all charities. In most cases what that means is if they don't collect enough (and they rarely ever do) they just distribute less. What if we did the same with public infrastructure and programs? Each program is made up of fixed cost and variable (ongoing) costs. What if we didn't collect enough voluntarily to pay for the fixed cost, would we abandon the program? What if there wasn't enough to pay for "essential" programs like, border, armed forces, or the building of roads? The society you describe would decend to caos pretty quickly. That is why, I propose minimal government and for the programs and infrastructure that the govenment is forced to impose, the allocations of cost according to benefit.

There is really no practical difference between ownership and control. If you were God, unless you were willing to forcibly enforce a system where everyone who wanted a banana could have one for free, what you pronounce is meaningless.

IOW, you envision a world where the school yard bully is king. Not necessarily. Exercising power comes at a cost. There are many situations where the exercise of power is more expensive to the exerciser than the gain. It is in the interest of even the bully to maximizie value by agreeing to an orderly set of rules about the sharing of power and resources.

August, we are saying the same thing. The only difference is that I considering bullying both the threat and the exercise of force to carry out that threat. The fact is we give the government almost unlimited power to raise money through taxes. Where does the line stop between paying for necessary services and unilateral spending? In my view the line is blurry and many times forced taxation=theft. Percieved fairness is a surprisingly important issue to most people. People accept actions which are not in their self interest if they perceive them as being "fair", and are most vocal on issues which are both against their self-interest and percieived as unfair.

The reason why I say measurment is a problem rather than getting an honest answer, is because an honest answer requires some measure of self-reporting. I agree that getting an honest answer is troublesome if not impossible. Diffrentiated pricing is one way to measure marginal value. Airlines used to do this all the time (and some still do). Basically if you booked your seat well enough in advance, or alternatively at the very last minute you paid a lot less than someone booking it only a few days in advance. Why different prices for the same product? Because the pricing diffrentiated the retail traveller, from the business traveller, from the bargain traveller. Each was willing to pay and was charged a different price because the marginal value of the seat was different. Unfortuately this model suffers some shortcomings and can't easily be used in many government initiatives. First, it needs to do approximations in order to group people into segments so the marginal value of the product can be determined. Second, it is not as easy to differentiate customer segements as the example above. The one who owns it is the one who is stong enough and willing enough to exercise ownership and protect it. If the owner is alergic to bananas, he surely will still see the value of the banana and trade it for something of value to the other inhabitant.

Nocrap, please accept my sympathies for the situation you and your daughter are in. Before I address your question let me address my view on the sterilization of the developmentally disabled. 1. I don't think there should be a regulation which perscribes sterilization based upon the condition of the potential parent. The reason I feel this way is that despite how carefully such a law is crafted, there will always be people who are exceptions, and depriving the exception of their parential rights is too high a price to pay. 2. Each case should be assessed individually to determine if sterilization is the best option. Here are some of the factors which should be considered: a. Does the potential parent have a genetic condiiton which may be passed on. If so how severely does the condition impact the offspring. b. Would the offspring have suitable caregivers avaiable? This could be in the form of relatives who are willing to take on the rearing responsiblity or in the form of adoptive parents. c. Is the potential parent willing, able to look after their offspring and do they have the necessary resources to do so? d. Does the potential parent have the ability and power to exercise control on their sexual activity and are they able to properly use contraception? To address your question. It would seem based upon the specifics of your situation that you are making a reasonable request of your daughter by asking for her to be sterilized. It is however a request and she has no obligation to comply. If she does not you should consider her reasons why. Perhaps if she doesn't agree to sterilization, a compromize solution such as Depo Provera is called for.

What about the other 200 who've died up there, are there bodies mummified or whatever? I didn't realize this guy had gone solo, now that was dumb. I don't know if you have read or seen the documentary on the teams which tried to scale Everest in 1996 and ended in tragedy. Many died in the attempt. Rob Hall one of the team leaders was one who died. To this day climbers who reach the summit pass Rob's body. RIP Rob Hall If you haven't seen the IMAX documentary on Everest it is worth watching. The tragedy is heartbreaking. link

What exactly do you mean by "taking money from Alberta"? You seem to think the Alberta government sends a cheque to the Federal government. This is not so. I agree that resource revenues are not the same as salaries. Ottawa taxes salaries but not resource revenues. So I can't understand the whining about how its Aberta's oil and Ottawa should keep its hands off. Equalization is a separate issue from "who's oil is it". Equalization is how some of the money which the federal government collects in tax revenue is redistributed to provincial governments. Personally I'm against equalization, and the current formula is absurd. However if we have no choice but to have equalization, I don't see why any provinces resource revenue should be excluded. To your point that it is a conversion of raw goods into cash which is only done once, it will only be counted once (during the year it is converted). Geoffery look at the logic of your argument. Are the oil companies generating revenue from the oil by pumping it and selling it or are they just converting it from one form to another? If your answer is that they are just converting it, then why does Alberta tax them on that revenue? By your argument they are not generating any new revenue.

You somehow seem to think that the rest of Canada is out to tax Alberta's oil revenues. They are not. Let me ask you something. An oil executive working in Alberta earns, $200,000. Do you agree that the federal government has juristiction to tax that income? Because that income was generated from working in the oil industry, do you consider the income tax paid on that $200000 to be taxing the natural resources of the province?

As I've said, I concede that sometime there is no alternative to the use of government force. Land expropriation for such infrastructure is one of those occasions. My view is that the use of government force should be exceptional and barriers should be put in place to make it difficult for the government. Perhaps land-owners who's land was expropriated shoudl be compensated with a premium value on the land, as not only did they lose the land, they lost their individual right to determine what to do with it. Any shift in political philosophy will cause disruption. I for one am not advocating a wholesale shift. I agree it has to be gradual. But even before that happens, the population needs to accept a mindset shift to make that possible. In the 20th century, the public simply accepted large scale government projects which the government deemed beneficial. The irresponsible spending debacles of the 70s and 80s, drew public awareness to the fact that they could not simply turn a blind eye toward government spending decisions and such decisions had a significant impact on them personally. This made them much more aware of the fiscal cost of such projects, and public attitude has shifted so that there is now a reluctance to take on public debt to finance infrastructure. Expensive projects like the Space exploration program which the US undertook in the 60s and 70s would no doubt undergo a lot more scrutiny today. Governments needing infrastructure will explore newer funding models, such as pay-per-use, as was done for the 407 highway. Despite the number of people who complain, one only has to see the taffic on the highway to know that this model has been successful.

Why are concerned about about individuals being bullied by the majority yet have little no concern about the majority being bullied by a minority with money and/or land? I'm less concerned with it because I don't see such bullying occuring. In our system, the majority have the power. If the rich minority had ultimate power, they would no doubt give themselves a free ride. Tax statistics prove that they don't have a free pass and pay a disproportonate share of the costs of society. RW, maybe you can spell out what specific rights you think that society has which deserve to be respected, and I can try and address that.

MH, there are more options today then when highways were initially built. For example, the 407 highway, while initially built with public funds, those funds were recovered (and more) when the highway was sold. It did not require the forced taxation to build public infrastructure as in the past. There is now a measurement system in place which allocates cost to beneift. While this measurement system would not have been possible in the past, it is today. It is also true that the whole US military industry and miliatary infrastructure was built by the forcible taxation and the use by the government of what they saw as a benefit to the country. Individual citizens were not given an option on if they thought their taxes ought to fund nuclear bombs, and wars in Vietnam or Iraq. I leave it to you to decide if this was really a "benefit" to society as a whole.

I agree the system we have now is very bad a protecting the interests of geographically distributed minorities. However, that is a problem caused by the FPP system we have in this country and could be addressed with a move to a system of proportional representation. At the heart of Libertarianism is the respect for individual rights. I am not convinced that even in a PR system, the economic interest of the minority are protected against bullying by the majority. I would much rather see those protections enshrined in a constitution, much like our other rights are. Then, no matter what electorial system we have, the individual rights are respected.

stamps, I'm unclear on what you mean by "it's our oil". (I'm assuming "our" refers to Alberta's). If by "our oil" you mean that the Albertan provincial exclusively gets to impose royalties on the extraction of the oil, than that is true. The federal government takes no part of those royalties. However, as incomes rise, due to the wealth created by the extraction of the oil, the Federal government DOES indeed have the power to tax income. So indirectly, the Federal government does benefit from the wealth of Albertans. At issue then, is what the Federal govenrnment does with that wealth. Here is where the equalization formula comes into play. I agree that the formula is deeply flawed and what is included or excluded is somewhat arbitrary. However, it is not in Alberta's power to "opt in" or "opt out" as long as Alberta is part of Canada, and has got nothing to do with whether it's "Alberta's oil"

The situation is worse than you describe. In almost every case in Canada it is not the majority which elects the government, it is the largest minority which does so. I did not suggest that the groups were geographic groupings, they could easily be racial, religious, devided along socio-economic or political lines. So I can't agree that a three levels of government can address the issues of a majority or large minority imposing its will on the rest. In the simple example I gave, you state that B and C could form a coalition. What if the percentage was that A was 51% of the population? Is C screwed 100% of the time? The fact is in our Constitution we protect the rights of the individual. This protects the minority from oppressive laws passed by the majority on many issues such as racial discrimmination. The problem is that there is no such protection for the economic interest of the minority. Let's hypothetically say in 15 years all boomers retire and now make up a huge portion of the population. Suppose they vote as a block and can control who assumes power. Can they elect a governmetn which imposes punative taxes upon the employed in order to fund generous retiree health and public pension benefits? Under our system, sure they can.

Absolutely. But it's not so much that cost should be alloocated by benefit but rather the total level of benefit should be determined by how much cost each person would be willing to accept. (This is called a Lindahl equilibrium. Incidentally, I suspect that in the next century or so some smart people are going to devise mechanisms to measure each individual's willingness to pay for such government provided services. A Nobel Prize or two awaits them.) August, it is a facinating proposal. Assuming one could overcome the practical obstacles in finding measurement systems that could implement such a proposal, it would lead to some interesting cost allocations. Let me give an example. Let's say we were considering two people's marginal willingness to pay for the benefit of health insurance. One individual was very rich and could easily afford to cover any medical procedure necessary out of his own funds. The other individual is of modest means and pretty much needs health insurance to insure against ill health and the corresponding loss of income. To the rich individual the health insurance is only worth say $100. To the poor individual, the health insurance is worth considerably more, say $1000. Assuming all other things being equal, your proposal would have each of them pay $100 and $1000 respectively, despite the fact they receive the same benefit. Is that what you intend? Your simple example assumes the blind people were there first, and for some reason you believe that this puts the cost on to the drivers. How about if I say that this a town in the Far North with only drivers, happily driving without traffic lights. Then a blind person shows up. Should the drivers still pay for the light? Or should it be the blind person (who came later)? I could understand your logic if the cars only needed lights to avoid hitting blind people, but that is not the case. The cars need it to avoid hitting blind people and everything else which might be in the roadway, or even to see the roadway clearly. In your scenario above, I would expect that the streetlights would be up in the town in the Far North long before the blind arrived as it would be a necessary part of the infrastructure for operating cars at night. So, yes, the drivers would still have borne the cost. Yes, that is true that from a big picture society only cares that it is installed, but in practical terms unless society adequately address the issue of who bears the cost frequently the streetlight will never get built. I think you have already pointed this out.

If by "civilized" you mean more like a city, I would say that there is far from universal concensus that that is a good thing. Leaving aside the negative conotations of the Unabomber aside, I don't think it's always a good thing that society (ie the governing power) unilaterally prescribes what is "good" for society and then forces the entire population to pay for it. There may be people who have no use for roads, electiricty, and water and prefer to live holed up in their shack in the woods. I'm not one of them, but I don't expect them to pay for my roads or electricity infrastructure. I do admit that there are circumstances when there is no alternative but for the government to unilaterally decide upon an infrastructure, but in my view, when this is done the cost shoudl be allocated to the beneficiaries. You exaggerate. Everyone who overpays for infrastructure and programs would be better off. The minority who underpay would be worse off. If your point is that what is natural is not necessarily "civilized", I say so be it. Let the fastest runner win the race, stop trying to cripple the fastest runner so the slower runners have a shot. Ultimately it isn't about fair. Your definition is different than mine, is different about someone elses. Our system lets the majority screw the minority and there is precious little the minority can do about it. Let's at least stop the pretense of calling it "fair"

I don't see a market system and a democracy to be mutually exclusive. The issue I have with democracy is only some rights are protected. Should an indivudual have economic "rights" and should those be protected. Let me give you an example. Let's say a population exist of 3 different largely homogenous groups. Group "A" is 40 % of the population. Group "B" and Group "C" are each 30% of the population. If the groups vote as a block, Group "A" will get to vote its govenment in 100% of the time. How about if Grouip "A" votes in a government which decides it should only tax Group "B" and "C" to pay for the costs of society? Are the economic rights of Group "B" and "C" protected?

Well, let's take the street light. Do you eat food? Well, delivery drivers need those streetlights to deliver product to markets safely. It keeps costs down. Do you drink water? Well, city maintenance engineers sometimes need those streetlights to perform their job so you and I can have water. Would it not be a more direct correlation of benefit to cost if the user of the infrastructure paid the cost and passed it on? Let's take your example if the delivery driver needed streetlights, the delivery company should share the cost of the streetlights. I would indirectly pay because my share of the cost is included in the cost of food. The more food I consume the more of the streetlight cost I bear. There is no need for me to directly bear the cost out of proportion of the amount I consume. That's true, it is impossible to get a perfect system, but what should be aimed for is as close a correlation as is practically possible. It seems to me, that to 'opt out' of public services would render living conditions 'semi-troglodyte'. I don't see this as being in anyone's benefit, least of all mine. Yet the 'libertarian argument' is to believe that some wealthy benefactor (or the notion that some 'Petey Punchclock' will voluntarily forgo his beer money so that some delivery driver doesn't run over a blind jay-walker in the black of night) would pay for the streetlight out of the goodness of his/her heart. I have my doubts. Certainly that is not my version of libertarianism. Much of the critisism of libertarianism is that is not practical to implement. I would challenge that notion. Let's see an example: The GO train in the GTA charges fares based upon distance travelled and is voluntarily paid. The system is enforced by random inspections and fines are issued for riders without a paid ticket. The system works well and for the most part there is very little fare evasion. (I'll ignore for now the small amount of public funding the system gets) For me this is a model of a libetarian system. Why? 1. The user pays according to benefit (as measured by distance travelled) 2. The system is voluntary in that those who don't want to take the train don't pay. 3. Those who seek to benefit but not bear the cost are stongly and effectively disincented from doing so. It is both efficient, and in my view fair.

I think this discussion about whether a specific individual benefits from a specific type of a public infrastructure is moot. The real issue is what unwritten contract exists between a society and the individuals in that society. In our society we have spelled out a number of rights that an individual has and set up institutions to protect those rights on behalf of individuals. In return for this collective protection, an individual has obligations to the society. These obligations include paying taxes to support social infrastructure that the individual may not have any use for. In other words, the blind man should pay for the street light because the blind man expects his neighbors to respect his property rights and expects society to protect him if his neighbors try to violate those rights. Riverwind, Yes your argument makes sense. The problem is only half the contract is spelled out. What is spelled out is the rights an individual has. What is not spelled out are what his obligations are. Those obligations to pay taxes vary from year to year at the whim of the power in charge. It is not an equal or fair bargain when one side has a defined set of rights but the price the individual pays for those rights vary at the whim of society,

August, you and TFB, are making a case that in many cases it is not possible to administer a system of allocating the cost to the beneficiaries. What I am trying to understand is if you and TFB at least agree with the principle. Let's say hypothetically you can measure the individual beneift of a piece of infrastructure, would you then agree the cost should be allocated according to benefit? For me it is hard to buy the argument that the blind should have to subsidize someone elses (drivers) proper use of the infrastructure because it benefits them by not getting run over. Let's walk through some simplified progression. 1. Before cars, pedestrians (sighted and blind) walked the streets without fear for their lives. 2. Someone invents a car, and some (sighted) pedestrians turn into drivers. 3. So now, the blind pedestrian is forced to pay for infrastructure to minimize his chances of getting killed? Doesn't make sense to me. This an interesting discussion and I hope it will continue in the spirit it is intended.

theloniusfleabag, you are sidestepping the question. You claim that everyone somehow benefits from all infrastructure. Before discussing whether or not this is true, will you agree with the principle that if someone can be shown to not use the infrastructure, that they should be not paying for that infrastructure? I would extend that further and ask, if they beneifit unequally from an infrastructure, should they pay proportionate to the benefit they recieve?

"better" is a subjective term. I'm sure it is better for those who use the infrastructure. Those who are forced to pay for the infrastructure or programs but receive no benefit may be inclined to disagree. Also it really depends upon what you mean by our society is "advanced". As with any change, some would be better off, some would be worse. I agree that power and wealth will naturally accumulate. Personally I don't have an issue with that. Even in nature power accumulates (Darwinism). Unfortunately democratic societies tend to resort to force because it is in the interest of the majority to do so, not because it is "fair".

Should the blind have to pay for street lights they neither use nor want?Bad example. Many blind people benefit from the activities of charities like the CNIB (which gets 30% of its funding from the gov't). Most blind people are not wealthy enough to pay for these services themselves and therefore depend on the charity of others. In such circumstances, a blind person should feel obligated to contribute to common infrastructure like everyone else. Riverwind I would agree that it is a bad example. You justification that a blind person is obligated to pay for common infrastructure is based upon a premise that they are receiving other (charitable) benefits from society. This may or may not be true. The blind person may be independantly wealthy or earning enough income despite their disiability. In any case I will rephrase my question without the context of this particular example It could be argued that they do 'use' it, for it enables drivers to see them better. They get enhanced 'safety measures', because they cannot see a car coming (though they might hear it better than the sighted), but the drivers can better see them. theloniusfleabag, in my view the benefits you describe for that the blind person would get are dubious at best. Is it not completely the driver's responsibilty to avoid hitting pedestrians? How can you claim that this is a benefit that pedestrian should pay for? By your analogy, if a company pollutes the air, I should be obligated to pay for it because the beneift I get is clean air. I will rephrase my question to be more general. Should we expect members of society to pay for infrastructure or programs when they neither beneift from that infrastructure nor want the benefit?

Should the blind have to pay for street lights they neither use nor want?