Can't you already do that?

10/6/2010 2:58:34 PM

Quote :

"In fact, in order to preserve the value of the subscription it would be in their best interest not to do shit so they don't have people stopping paying their $75 a year just to have ad-hoc fire protection when their house is actually on fire."

Actually, this is not a new situation. Ships in distress have had to summon tug boats for a long time, and there is still no tax provided tug-boat service. The Supreme Court has been hearing such cases for two centuries, and the solution they reach has changed, as well.

Here are two solutions they sometimes use: In cases where the service is common, such as towing a ship into port, the fee paid for emergency rescue can be no more than 10 times the going rate for non-emergency rescue. As such, if you can hire the fire department to come out and work for five hours, say a controlled burn of a barn, for $1,000, then the fire department can use the force of law to extract up to $10,000 to put out an unforeseen fire.

However, in instances where no such service exists, such as a tug in the middle of the pacific ocean, the tug owner can slap a lien upon the ship and its contents for no more than 1/2 its assessed worth. The ship owners will accept the solution, because 1/2 a ship is better than no ship. Likewise, the homeowner would like to have 1/2 his house than no house. His insurance would have probably covered this payment. If his house was worth $50,000, then $25,000 in insurance money would have gone to the city's fire department.

All that said, the $75 is too much to charge for this service. The managers of the city in question do not answer to those they are insuring, they are elected by the votes of city voters. As such, these cities are using the high fixed costs of fire protection to extort money from the rest of the county. In effect, the city voters are paying less than the actual costs of their fire protection. In a libertarian world, city residents would be charged slightly more and county residents would be charged less. Or, maybe everyone would be paying less, county residents in particular, as fire departments would not have been organized along political boundaries, instead being operated in a way to most effectively cover the area with the least cost.

10/6/2010 4:08:53 PM

The fire department should have offered to buy his house at 50% of the salvage value, then put the fire out.

10/6/2010 4:45:04 PM

Quote :

"the city voters are paying less than the actual costs of their fire protection"

i don't know how much it actually costs to run a fire department...

wikipedia says the population of Obion County, TN is 32,450. Say that's 10,000 households that pay $75 each. that's only $750k/year to run a fire department. based on my experience with sim city 2000, i'd say $75/year/household is pretty good deal

[Edited on October 6, 2010 at 6:00 PM. Reason : what with all the reticulated splines and all]

10/6/2010 5:59:17 PM

I call BS. SimCity 2000 was a decade ago. There is no WAY those numbers are accurate unless you've adjusted for inflation.

10/6/2010 6:32:36 PM

It’s good to know the optimal solution given the circumstances was for this guy’s house to burn down.

I’m glad to see too that people on their own will generally do the right thing.

And I wonder of certain people in this thread would be so blithe if their house burned down and the fire department did nothing? I’m betting their would be more hell raising than in a horror movie.

10/6/2010 6:49:17 PM

Quote :

"I’m glad to see too that people on their own will generally do the right thing."

What in the hell gave you that crazy idea?

10/6/2010 6:52:35 PM

it’s what libertarians think they believe. People don’t need gov to help the unfortunate, because people will help the unfortunate on their own. Obviously we can trust our fellow man to be responsible, can’t we?

10/6/2010 6:58:14 PM

No, and we can't trust the government to be either.

10/6/2010 7:01:08 PM

You make "the right thing" sound so cut and dry. There are millions of lives out there that you, yourself, could improve. Why aren't you? You could be volunteering at an inner city school, or helping feed the poor, or performing any number of charitable actions. But you're not - you're posting on the Wolf Web, and if I had to guess, I'd say you're not spending the maximum amount of time, effort, and funds to make the world a better place.

10/6/2010 7:10:19 PM

Quote :

"I wonder of certain people in this thread would be so blithe if their house burned down and the fire department did nothing?"

I'm not going to flip my shit if I don't get cable when I don't pay the cable company, I don't high-side when my alarm company doesn't call the cops because I didn't install an alarm and I won't piss my pants because my insurance company doesn't pay to replace the 15 y/o truck when all I carry on it is liability insurance.

I sure as shit would feel like a goddamn moron if my house burned down over $75 that I CHOSE NOT TO PAY and I might be pissed at the world but when it all came down to it . . . it was my fucking fault.


You guys act like the Fire Department exists to spend the money of those who do pay their dues to cover the deliberate irresponsibility of others.

[Edited on October 6, 2010 at 7:14 PM. Reason : .]

10/6/2010 7:12:37 PM

^ you’re being delusional if you don’t think you’d flip your shit if your house burned down. Seriously, take a step away from your keyboard, take a deep breath, remove your Soap Box issue flame suit, and think about what you’re saying. Your house, everything in it that you worked hard for your entire life, your 3 dogs, and your cat all just burned to cinders whilst the people who own the hoses and fire trucks said “tough shit,” you honestly think you would sit back at this point and say “oh well, i guess i deserved it!”

hahahaha

I don’t even know why you think not having cable tv is even remotely comparable to your house burning down… seriously… i expect more from you JCASHFAN.

10/6/2010 7:17:28 PM

Of course I'd flip my shit, of course I'd be angry at the firefighters, of course I'd be emotional . . . that doesn't mean it isn't my fault.


Hell, I only wish I could justify everything by throwing my own personal temper-tantrum. If you're going to ask a firefighter to risk his life to save your property or your pets then the least you can do is pay the $75 they ask every year. According to the news report it took TWO HOURS for the fire to spread from the burn barrels to the house. WTF were the pet's still doing in there?

[Edited on October 6, 2010 at 7:27 PM. Reason : ?]

10/6/2010 7:25:15 PM

^ it’s not about throwing a temper tantrum.

The most rational thing to do, the optimal action for the best outcome, was to put the fire out. A 2 year old can identify.

What’s irrational is people arguing that letting the house burn was a good action. It is not in any way a good action.

10/6/2010 7:28:48 PM

since I'm lazy, and we're arguing in two different threads . . .

Quote :

"^^ you’re generalizing the issue too much. No one has any reason to do anything, but society didn’t evolve this way."

No I'm not. Society evolved upon the concept of mutual reciprocation. We form social groups because it is beneficial for our survival as a society to do so. It is also natural for any social group to gradually exclude free-riders or those who act in a manner contrary to the benefit of the group.

This is as clear-cut a case as it gets. The man who owned the house made a deliberate decision not to opt into a mutually beneficial contract with the society providing the service. When it came time for that service to be provided . . . he didn't get it. This is exactly how societies function.


It would be a travesty if we were talking about someone who couldn't pay the fee because they were ill, disabled, etc. Then I think we could make a case for condemning the actions of the FD, but in this case? Nope.

10/6/2010 7:32:42 PM

Quote :

"The most rational thing to do, the optimal action for the best outcome, was to put the fire out. A 2 year old can identify. What’s irrational is people arguing that letting the house burn was a good action. It is not in any way a good action. "

and

Quote :

"When you take into consideration that people have had fire-fighting squads for literally thousands of years, going back to the greeks and romans, it’s easy to see that we as a people view the issue of a house burning down differently than anything else. Fighting fires isn’t merely a service, its an expectation of living in societies, and has been so for thousands of years. By the nature of fires, individuals can’t really fight fires themselves. It MUST be a task delegated to a group of people. Saying simply that he doesn’t deserve it because he didn’t pay the fee ignores the cultural mores that have developed around firefighting. If it was simply a matter of payment or contract, the homeowner offered to pay whatever costs it took to put the fire out. Considering this, it boils down to a matter of incompetence, laziness, or negligence on the part of the firefighters. They control the scare tools to fight fires, that it’s not feasible for individuals to own, and they refused to use this unique power in a responsible way. "

10/6/2010 7:43:48 PM

Let's quit gaying up two boards . . . CC only from here on out.

10/6/2010 7:53:58 PM

Quote :

"It’s good to know the optimal solution given the circumstances was for this guy’s house to burn down."

If only we lived in a libertarian world, his home would not have burned down.

The thread title is "Libertarianism?" with question-mark for a good reason. In a libertarian world, there is no incentive to let the guys house burn down. In a libertarian world, South Fulton would not have had only one legal firefighting service capable of demanding monthly rents for protection, there would have been three or four competitors. There is no incentive what-so-ever to refuse a thousand dollars to save your house right now, just in case you might have otherwise paid $75 a month to some other fire company.

It is a collective action problem. While the fire companies collectively would love for everyone to pay a monthly fee, in a free market with multiple competitors, the incentives for individual companies run the other way: the extra money from selling monthly protection is divided up amongst all competitors, while every dollar offered by the burning homeowner goes into my pocket. As such, "let everyone else let houses burn, I'll pocket the money" would be mantra of private firefighters. Only government could make it any other way.

10/6/2010 9:03:28 PM

I don't get how the scenario you just described would play out? How does the communication that a house is on fire get transmitted to the firehouses? Who pays for that? How do they decide in seconds/minutes on whether they want to load up and go to this non-payer to see if they can put his house out for a fee? What if more than one arrives, does it then become an auction for the lowest cost? How does the homeowner quickly calculate (as his home burns to the ground) when to stop negotiating and let the firefighters go to work?

This is my favorite thing about Libertarians, you guys will readily concoct any sort of scenario starting at the end and working backwards filling in the gaps as you think would play out under an ideal free market. Along the way, you don't include irrational thinkers, information asymmetry, and just about anything else that a rational person would question regarding your scenario, it...just works. Until it doesn't...at which point you'll happily point out how much worse it is under government anyway.

[Edited on October 6, 2010 at 9:13 PM. Reason : .]

10/6/2010 9:12:30 PM

Would seem to have been alot easier to say:

"sir, if you want us to fight the fire, you will need to pay for the costs of fighting the fire +10% +$75"

Figure 5 people working for 2 hours at $100 an hour = $1000 at most
Plus water/gasoline/wear and tear on the fire truck and equipment = $1000 at most
Thats what $2000 + $200 + 75... $2,275, probably less, make it in monthly installments plans.

And of course let that be notice to everyone in the community that you can either pay $75 a year and get all services the FD offers, or you have to pay the $75 premium(s) you owe plus 110% actual costs.

There you have accomplished NOT getting on the national news and drawing alot of unwanted attention, and not having to worry that people in the neighborhood are gonna stop paying their $75.

10/6/2010 9:24:14 PM

Quote :

"But still, if you have to send them out there anyway for the neighbor's fire, it seems silly and a little sick for them to just stand around and watch the other one burn along with the pets inside it."

This is what is fucking sick about this. They showed up, and just watched it burn. That's cold, heartless, and disgusting.

10/6/2010 9:29:35 PM

^^But what if they WANT to be on the national news? I know I do. One day...

[Edited on October 6, 2010 at 9:47 PM. Reason : ^No one cares about your pets. You can just buy new ones.]

10/6/2010 9:46:35 PM

You're right, they should have put themselves at risk to cover someone who didn't opt into the system in order to save this person's collection of smurf glasses and photos of people they probably don't like that much.

It's not like these were fire impervious automatons who exist solely to put out fires. These are brave guys and gals who rightly expect compensation for their services. That said, only a government bureaucracy could be so stupid as to disallow emergency use of this service for a much higher one time fee. A private company would have had this written into an on-site contract available to anyone who needed and could pay for the service.

10/6/2010 10:52:48 PM

Quote :

"And I wonder of certain people in this thread would be so blithe if their house burned down and the fire department did nothing? I’m betting their would be more hell raising than in a horror movie."

Yes, anyone in that situation would be pissed off. Fortunately for us we're able to look at the situation rationally. What the firefighters did seems cruel, but in the long run it's what is necessary to make the system work.

10/7/2010 1:15:09 AM

Quote :

"This is my favorite thing about Libertarians, you guys will readily concoct any sort of scenario starting at the end and working backwards filling in the gaps as you think would play out under an ideal free market. Along the way, you don't include irrational thinkers, information asymmetry, and just about anything else that a rational person would question regarding your scenario, it...just works."

This is my favorite thing about you. You pick one aspect of any system and proclaim this is insurmountable and therefore the whole system of thought is damned, without bothering to think whether what you have found is a problem at all. You are just so sure that something wrong with it must exist, so even if the solution to what you mention was invented in January, 1878, you cover it up with a dance of personal attacks and sophistry.

"I don't get how the scenario you just described would play out? How does the communication that a house is on fire get transmitted to the firehouses?"
Try calling an operator at the telephone company. If your phone company offers emergency services, which most do in conjunction with the yellow pages for non-911 emergencies such as a ruptured pipe, call that. They will connect you to someone.

"Who pays for that?"
You pay for part of it through your phone bill (they charge a fee for connecting you with an operator) but I suspect most is covered by the various competing companies paying to be listed in the Yellow Pages and put into the call center directory.

"How do they decide in seconds/minutes on whether they want to load up and go to this non-payer to see if they can put his house out for a fee?"
Simple. If someone calls you, then go. Driving out to a job no one needs you at seems to be a common cost of doing business for all sorts of services. The employer is paying them to sit around anyway.

"What if more than one arrives, does it then become an auction for the lowest cost?"
I seriously doubt it. When a pipe burst in my friends house, only to discover the shutoff valve was broken, they called Verizon's emergency line, which took their information and forwarded it to at least two plumbers. Their price for coming out was published beforehand and the operator asked if they cared about the price, they said no. One plumber arrived within 10 minutes and charged more for showing up than he did for fixing the pipe. The operator called back about that point, asked if the first plumber had arrived, they said yes, and she said she would call the other plumber that was on the way to turn back.

"How does the homeowner quickly calculate (as his home burns to the ground) when to stop negotiating and let the firefighters go to work?"
Again, rates are published before hand. Not negotiable. If you even give a hint that you aren't going to pay their emergency fee, then no plumber will come anywhere near your house for several hours.

Come on, these questions had obvious answers. If you bothered to think about it, you could have easily come up with real problems with the libertarian solution. What if the owner is unconscious and trapped inside? What if a neighbor calls on the owners behalf while the owner is out of town? What if the owner is a dick and wants to let it burn, isn't that a threat to his neighbors property? What about the third payer problem? It happened to my friend as his homeowners insurance covered the burst pipe and they knew it would, the damage alone ate the deductible, hence why they told the operator when asked that they didn't care about the price.

10/7/2010 1:51:46 AM

I think libertarianism is a decent philosophy, so long as you don't push it to the anti-gov extreme to the point we can't tackle national issues that require agencies like the EPA, DOD, and CDC etc, b/c (besides economy of scale issues) an oil spill, an infectious disease, and those who would attack us don't stop at state border lines. But I think most sane Libertarians see some room for gov and don't take it so seriously as to do away with want to devolve the EPA into 50 different state agencies, or wipe out the CDC.

As for the fire case in particular. I mentioned this in the chit chat version, haven't really read the TSB version, but why not offer a life time pass (maybe to be paid over time depending on someones financial situation) on the spot that is more expensive than just paying the $75 fee every year, but still gives people an out so that don't have watch as their house and pets burn.

10/7/2010 2:41:59 AM

Here's my problem for assuming this house wouldn't have burned down in an actual Libertarian world...what's stopping this rural area of Tennessee from already having a private fire department to meet their demands for fire protection? It's not like the demand would suddenly change; there would still be places too rural to make it cost effective to protect. Why would there suddenly be multiple fire departments in this po-dunk county that doesn't even have one now?

10/7/2010 8:54:16 AM

As disco pointed out, if private firefighting was invented over 100 years ago, then why hasn't the perfectly efficient system for handling a burning home sprung up in these rural areas? Why didn't this business think of people actually not paying and then having their house catch on fire before and have a plan for it? This isn't a difficult business (indeed, they have 100 years of study for it) and yet the private market didn't work.

Usually, when this type of argument is made you retreat to the "well, government isn't any better". When that is proven wrong you then retreat to "well, I'd rather have the liberty to screw up on my own", which is so far divorced from the original debate that it simply is a waste of time to talk about it.

Quote :

"You pick one aspect of any system and proclaim this is insurmountable and therefore the whole system of thought is damned"

No, my questions come from a standpoint of practicality (as are my politics in general, erring on the side of freedom). Your description of a theoretical market absent the government comes from a standpoint of a nirvana that is proven over and over to not exist. Put another way, your world model seems to be perpetually flawed because economics isn't a hard science but you seem to treat it as such.

Quote :

"You are just so sure that something wrong with it must exist"

A house burned to the ground while people watched. SOMETHING IS WRONG.

Quote :

"Try calling an operator at the telephone company. If your phone company offers emergency services, which most do in conjunction with the yellow pages for non-911 emergencies such as a ruptured pipe, call that. They will connect you to someone. "

Good idea. Let me rifle through the yellow pages looking for private fire fighting services while my house burns around me. Or, do you just call the emergency number and they dispatch one or all private services? Do they give you a run down of who is available in your area, who is closest, who has the best response time, the best success at putting out fires with the least amount of damage? These are all bits of information I need to make the best decision.

Quote :

"Their price for coming out was published beforehand and the operator asked if they cared about the price, they said no."

Right, and we can expect someone that has a burning house to accurately price how much to pay for putting the fire out. If we go with the cheapest provider, what happens? Clearly many neighbors have had their homes burn and they can make recommendations so I'll know which services to steer clear of. Private fire fighting isn't a liquid enough market for really anyone to accurately price.

Quote :

"Again, rates are published before hand. Not negotiable."

Then the entire business plan of private on the call fire fighters for a fee fails. We are already in a situation where someone didn't pay the published fee for service. Again, why weren't these theoretical on-the-spot rates published before hand, why didn't industry have a service/good for an obvious market (people that didn't pay the yearly fee) that existed?

Look, I'll happily agree with you that private markets can likely work in the place where government has monopolized them. I just don't agree that government markets can't work or can't work as good. It's still the same actors. At least if a government service fails I stand a better chance at getting relief where a private company can just claim bankruptcy.


Btw, this is going to come off dickish and I apologize in advance...but with so much business acumen and understanding of markets, why aren't you some sort of wildly successful businessman? Or...are you and you just moonlight on tdub to blow off steam?

10/7/2010 10:09:07 AM

In an area with little or no local government its entirely reasonable to have certain services be paid directly to the service provider to cut down on overhead. In this case they should have put the fire out if he agreed to pay the full cost of service provided for the incident+annual fee. It saves the house and at the same time encourages people to pay the fee instead of waiting for something to happen. Since the full cost for the incident is paid, the people who paid the annual fee aren't out anything. In fact their $75 probably goes a tiny bit further because they aren't paying for that incident.

10/7/2010 10:28:39 AM

Yeah, except all the guy's equity is currently on fire and who has time to run a credit report to know whether he's good for it? Let's keep in mind here that we're not talking about a mere service, it's a life-threatening, high equipment-cost job.

^^
In this case, would government have done it better? Do you really think we should be paying for municipal fire protection in every rural area in this country? The cost would be astronomical and largely wasted since residential fires aren't actually extremely common.

10/7/2010 10:50:16 AM

Quote :

"This is what is fucking sick about this. They showed up, and just watched it burn. That's cold, heartless, and disgusting."

I gotta give burro props whenever he's reasonable

10/7/2010 11:02:06 AM

Quote :

"what's stopping this rural area of Tennessee from already having a private fire department to meet their demands for fire protection? It's not like the demand would suddenly change; there would still be places too rural to make it cost effective to protect. Why would there suddenly be multiple fire departments in this po-dunk county that doesn't even have one now?"

If I offered free fire protection to everyone in the county, but not you, then you would go without. In order for firms to exist, they must survive financially, which means having enough customers. Fires today are fairly rare, so it is unlikely that a private firm could survive on just the non-served of this rural county. In a libertarian world, I suspect fire fighting would still be city centric, as that is where most burnable buildings are located. As such, the question is, would the town of South Fulton have just one fire fighting firm serving it in a libertarian world?

Similarly, firms don't arise out of thin air, the often arise when a community large enough to support a new firm decide they are under-served and an entrepreneur moves in to fill the void, either from scratch or expansion from outside. As it stands, if a large group of people feel under-served, they just pay the $75 fee, because private fire fighting firms do not exist in our world, so no one would think of setting one up. However, if the gas station on the corner raises his prices yet again, or lets the bathrooms go to shit, odds are good that another station will appear on the opposite corner in good order to put things right.

Quote :

"Your description of a theoretical market absent the government comes from a standpoint of a nirvana that is proven over and over to not exist. Put another way, your world model seems to be perpetually flawed because economics isn't a hard science but you seem to treat it as such."

As usual, Potty, to you the subject matter at hand is irrelevant, this is just a pissing contest to you. Instead of saying why this particular argument of mine is flawed, your only position is that I am apparently always wrong, therefore it doesn't matter whether anything I've said here is actually wrong. Why does this and every conversation have to always be about me?

Quote :

"A house burned to the ground while people watched. SOMETHING IS WRONG."

Exactly. We don't live in a libertarian world. Or is your position now that we do live in a libertarian world?

10/7/2010 11:53:27 AM

firefighting should be a public trust

/thread

10/7/2010 11:58:33 AM

If you didn't have a public FD, private ones would certainly arise. The argument that private ones haven't arisen, therefore private ownership of FD is not viable, doesn't hold water. Let's just use this particular situation as an example. South Fulton (or whatever it was called) has their own public FD. They're charging out-of-towners 75 bucks a year. That's gotta be way below the actual market price. There's no way a private FD could cover expenses by charging that much. They'd have to charge at least twice as much, and in that case, everyone would continue to use the public FD. Government monopolies usually win out, because they can get away with charging less. They can also get away with bullshit like this, because there's zero competition.

10/7/2010 12:16:19 PM

Quote :

"A house burned to the ground while people watched. SOMETHING IS WRONG."

Ran out of time on the edit...oh well, here it is anyway!

Keep in mind what we are arguing here. I am arguing that in a libertarian world, his house would have not burned down. I might be wrong, if you'd like we can discuss whether I am wrong. It is possible that without tax payer subsidization, the demand is simply not there to sustain enough fire fighting activity. Maybe not even South Fulton would have a local fire brigade and his house would have burned down all the same while the nearest private fire brigade made the 40 minute trip. I find it unlikely, but it is the only argument I think you have here. You cannot argue this market would be any more dysfunctional than the existing markets for other emergency services such as plumbers or baby-sitters, both markets that offer reasonable service in areas with sufficient demand. Meanwhile, on your side in defense of public fire departments, we know for a fact his house burned down while at least one fire department stood by and watched. You can argue this is rare, I would agree. But you would rather bash libertarianism for perceived past crimes than make any honest contribution.

10/7/2010 12:39:19 PM

Quote :

"because private fire fighting firms do not exist in our world"

This is the opposite of true. Just an example:http://www.heartland.org/publications/budget%20tax/article/18741/Privatized_Fire_District_Keeps_Costs_Low_and_Service_High.html

destroyer was right however that there's obviously no way a private FD could set up to compete with the adjoining municipal FD at the rate that they're posting.

I still see no reason why a private FD would not enforce their coverage and could not get in a situation where they would simply let a building burn down instead of providing a service to an individual that they are certain will never pay. Why would they?

10/7/2010 1:03:28 PM

Private FD departments would not "arise". You simply wouldn't have property development in non-protected areas.

I don't see how a Fire Department could ever be a "profitable" enterprise for the general public. The initial investment is huge; Not just trucks and equipment, but a massive network of pipes and hydrants, which require constant maintainance.

Unless there was already an infrastructure available, or technology has reached the point where it's unnecessary, or the property development had already occured under a public FD.


[Edited on October 7, 2010 at 4:52 PM. Reason : .]

10/7/2010 4:37:18 PM

Quote :

"I don't see how a cable company could ever be a "profitable" enterprise. The initial investment is huge; Not just trucks and equipment, but a massive network of cables and wiring, which require constant maintainance."

10/7/2010 4:51:22 PM

A cable company is not a fire department.

10/7/2010 4:56:52 PM

You're saying a FD is not a viable private enterprise, because the initial investment is too high. Has that been true of other industries with similarly high start up costs?

10/7/2010 5:03:55 PM

Quote :

"I don't see how a Fire Department could ever be a "profitable" enterprise for the general public. The initial investment is huge; Not just trucks and equipment, but a massive network of pipes and hydrants, which require constant maintainance. "

An odd suggestion. Pipes would be installed anyway to provide water. In a libertarian world, there would still be indoor plumbing connected via pipes to a water distribution network. At the same time, an actual fire hydrant is pretty cheap, a thousand dollars or so once the pipes are in the ground. And what land developer would not pay such a pittance to make fire protection possible, not to mention easy. No need for the fire department to install anything. Just have a truck, some guys, and hoses.

10/8/2010 1:49:32 AM

Quote :

"You're saying a FD is not a viable private enterprise, because the initial investment is too high. Has that been true of other industries with similarly high start up costs?"

I can build a thousand miles of strung-together macaroni, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a way for me to profit from it.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think it might work. If there's already a municipal supply, and developers need only pay to install a hydrant, a private fire dept may be solvent. Then again, I'm not sure that a libertarian society would have municipal water.

I still don't like the idea of emergency services being a "for-profit" enterprise. I feel like "the bottom line" would exert a lot more influence on the quality of the service.

[Edited on October 8, 2010 at 10:18 AM. Reason : .]

10/8/2010 10:13:17 AM

Quote :

"Then again, I'm not sure that a libertarian society would have municipal water."

It wouldn't. But land is worthless without a water supply. As such, spending a few thousand dollars installing pipes to turn worthless land into five-thousand dollars an acre land, is a great investment and people will do it. Sure, being a libertarian world, the pipes will be owned and maintained by a private association of the land owners, at least at first, just like power lines and probably internet service. This is because these are arguably natural monopolies, and the only way customers can tolerate a monopoly is if they own it.

10/8/2010 11:18:52 AM

This was a rural area, no? Isn't it a reasonable assumption that this guy had a well and septic and the water for dowsing the flames was brought on the truck?

10/8/2010 3:39:20 PM

Libertarianism.

[Edited on June 20, 2011 at 5:12 PM. Reason : ...]

6/20/2011 5:12:12 PM