This is a tired trope. Above, user "sneak" alludes to the infamous "Who will build the roads?" gambit. Below, users invoke it.
Reasonable people will disagree about their preferences. Some will even find polite ways to agree to disagree about ideology. Consider if the Federal Government nationalized toilet paper production and distribution. Perhaps in a few years, posters on this forum would assume that they could not perform these basic tasks without the state's support.
Just because something is currently a function of the public sector, does not mean that it could not be achieved better by the private sector. The entire thread is filled with hyperbole. The efficacy of either approach is not being discussed. There is very little substance here. Instead there are two to three sentence zingers thrown around. Most of this has been discussed at length by authors who specialize in the field.
>When students are taught about public goods, roads and highways serve as the default example in virtually every economics class. The cliché question every libertarian has encountered—“Who will build the roads?”—is predicated on the idea that without the state, private actors will have no incentive to construct or finance roadways because they will be unable to monetize them (or, at least, unable to do so sufficiently to meet the needs of the community). This assumption is accepted with such a degree of faith that few scholars have seen fit to even question whether and to what degree private roads have been constructed historically.
>But in the early years of the new republic, Americans underwent what some historians have described as a “turnpike craze.” The term “turnpike” specifically refers to roadways constructed and operated privately. Early Americans, wanting to connect their communities to the developing market economy, eagerly subscribed to turnpike corporations for local roads. In fact, turnpike corporations were among the first for-profit corporations in the country, and dramatically widened the population of shareholders at a time when corporate stock was rarely available to the public.
> Just because something is currently a function of the public sector, does not mean that it could not be achieved better by the private sector.
The exact opposite is often true. Just because something could be done by the private sector, doesn't mean that it could not be achieved better by the public sector.
This idea that the invisible hand of the market will keep us all clothed, fed, healthy and housed is a false one. None of that happens without the subsidies afforded to the private sector by the public. And that is in search of profit.
I would disagree with that on principle and in observation.
However you are missing the point. Even if you suggest that it could be done better by the public sector, the mere existence of the public sector program is not evidence that the public sector solution is optimal. An appeal to the status quo may have pragmatic relevance, but it doesn't rationalize public sector solutions as optimal.
We will have to agree to disagree where you assert that we would all be naked, homeless and starving if not for the public sector.
> The term “turnpike” specifically refers to roadways constructed and operated privately.
I don't know about the rest of the comment, but this is definitely not correct. According to the OED, the term "turnpike" as a shortening of "turnpike road" pre-dates the United States, and generally refers to any toll road, not specifically privately operated ones.
Reasonable people will disagree about their preferences. Some will even find polite ways to agree to disagree about ideology. Consider if the Federal Government nationalized toilet paper production and distribution. Perhaps in a few years, posters on this forum would assume that they could not perform these basic tasks without the state's support.
Just because something is currently a function of the public sector, does not mean that it could not be achieved better by the private sector. The entire thread is filled with hyperbole. The efficacy of either approach is not being discussed. There is very little substance here. Instead there are two to three sentence zingers thrown around. Most of this has been discussed at length by authors who specialize in the field.
>When students are taught about public goods, roads and highways serve as the default example in virtually every economics class. The cliché question every libertarian has encountered—“Who will build the roads?”—is predicated on the idea that without the state, private actors will have no incentive to construct or finance roadways because they will be unable to monetize them (or, at least, unable to do so sufficiently to meet the needs of the community). This assumption is accepted with such a degree of faith that few scholars have seen fit to even question whether and to what degree private roads have been constructed historically.
>But in the early years of the new republic, Americans underwent what some historians have described as a “turnpike craze.” The term “turnpike” specifically refers to roadways constructed and operated privately. Early Americans, wanting to connect their communities to the developing market economy, eagerly subscribed to turnpike corporations for local roads. In fact, turnpike corporations were among the first for-profit corporations in the country, and dramatically widened the population of shareholders at a time when corporate stock was rarely available to the public.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/who-will-build-roads-anyone-who...