Any form of anarchism will simply fall prey to human nature. It's the opposite end of the same naivete that says "yeah, past Communist/Military dictatorships have been bad, but our guys are good, they'll get it right," except you're more likely to get a workable system out of tyranny than you are out of anarchy

What we need is some sort of computer dictatorship. Develop a utopian legal system (one which would work assuming benevolent dicision makers at all levels, but fails due to human nature), install it in a mainframe, then give it all the deciding power.

Vote Skynet: 2012

It can, this is why I would never push for an anarchist society. Go back to being a voluntary society and the restoration of proper checks and balances, as well as the reduction of the federal government back to the size it should be (international management and protecting our constitutional rights, that's it). Let the states have their power back. And also restore the separation of church and state.

The Roman government built the roads.  Roman law granted the government "right of way," and the Roman Senate or Emperor would fund the construction of new roads then charge the provincial govenors and mayors to maintain them.  If people were building roads themselves, then the fall of the Roman Empire wouldn't have meant the end of paved roads in Europe for over 1500 years.

$10 per square foot for a rural road, its well above $25 per square foot for an urban area (traffic control, storm drainage, lighting, sidewalk, utilities, etc.), and those are just initial construction costs.  Assuming a two lane road, thats $250 per linear foot for rural road and $625 per linear foot for urban road.  Again, low estimates.

You do the math, multiple the above numbers above by how long the road is from where you live to your school or place of work.  Then tell me that you honestly believe that everybody along the route would pay that amount every 10 to 20 years to keep the road operating.  Thinking back, I grew up on a gravel road (definition: a road not covered with earth) and my Dad and three close neighbors couldn't come to an agreement on paving the road in front of our houses.  One guy backed out on going in on fourths, and no one else wanted to pay extra to cover him.

Er.  Wouldn't that be that there was a lack of demand for paved roads?

The paved roads in the Roman era were created for the foot based Army to travel around.

The reason their wasn't any roads between then and the Age of Industrialzation was because their wasn't a GIANT empire that needed to be maintained by a small centralized force.

Once the Industrial revolution started... people as a whole got a lot richer and more productive and everybody was creating more exportable goods... which meant a lot more travel on roads... which meant... we need paved roads.  Before then, there wasn't enough demand to have paved roads.

Aside from which... the paved roads that popped up during the Industrial revolution were in fact... private toll roads.  The Turnpike Trust system of the UK was a privately run operation.  These showed up due to the local governments inability to maintain the roads the romans gave them.  The parliment would remove control of the local roads from the local parishes and give the rights to a private company.

Ironically they failed because of the government getting more and more involved.

I mean, you literally brought up, the strongest counterpoint to your own arguement Manus. Did you not bother to research paved roads during the Industrial revolution before posting?

I mean, governments did exist between the Roman Empire and the Industrial revolution pretty strong ones at that.

I guess you could argue that people won't have paved roads in areas where there isn't much demand... but that's already happening.  Lots of paved roads around the US and everywhere else are falling apart because local groups don't want to pay the costs needed to maitnain the roads.

You brought up the biggest counter arguement to your own arguement, by referencing the one time when ONLY private companies were capable of making paved roads after constant government failure.  I mean, don't you look up and research this stuff before you put an arguement down on paper?

Regarding private toll roads everywhere, I'd like to see you and ssj12's solution for providing revenue on non-turnpike roads.  Would you put a toll booth on everyone's driveway, or perhaps on every intersection.  That would be great for traffic, as well as the economy, not to mention to cost of supplying staffing or electronic readers everywhere.  Laughable.

This is economics 101 stuff here.  Read up on public goods, free rider, non-excludable and externalities.  I'll help by referencing the simplest economics definitions I can find.

Market Failure

When a market left to itself does not allocate resources efficiently. Interventionist politicians usually allege market failure to justify their interventions. Economists have identified four main sorts or causes of market failure.

• The abuse of MARKET POWER, which can occur whenever a single buyer or seller can exert significant influence over PRICES or OUTPUT (see MONOPOLY and MONOPSONY).

• EXTERNALITIES – when the market does not take into account the impact of an economic activity on outsiders. For example, the market may ignore the costs imposed on outsiders by a firm polluting the environment.

• PUBLIC GOODS, such as national defence. How much defence would be provided if it were left to the market?

• Where there is incomplete or ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION or uncertainty.

Abuse of market power is best tackled through ANTITRUST policy. Externalities can be reduced through REGULATION, a tax or subsidy, or by using property rights to force the market to take into account the WELFARE of all who are affected by an economic activity. The SUPPLY of public goods can be ensured by compelling everybody to pay for them through the tax system.

http://www.economist.com/research/economics/alphabetic.cfm?term=marketfailure#marketfailure

Unless you and ssj12 are single-handidly going to turn the economic world on its head with your impenetrable logic and unmatachable intelligence, I'm going to go on accepting what 99.9% of economists believe and what I've experienced in the real world.

So in otherwords... no you didn't actually do any research and specifically brought up the exact arguement against your own out of ignorance.

I don't want privately funded roads.  I just found it funny that you were ineptly argueing to the point of where you were making the other peoples points for them.

As for "How would we get private non turnpike roads".

There are a few ways you could do it.  I'll start with two quick ones since i'm heading out, don't want private streets and you don't ever seem to do your due diligince of research anyway, making it someone like typing to a brick wall.

The first is the same way the government does it.  The government comes to the people and say "Do you want paved roads" and enough people say yes... they get paved roads.   The same would be true the opposite way, if people want it, they'll pool together and buy them. 

The second way is... just make them all toll roads.  Electronic tolling.

Also, I'm guessing you've never been involved in graduate school.

The first thing you learn in graduate school is to forget everything you used in 101 because 101 classes were always overly broad and often containing outright ficticuious stuff that was just provided for people to grasp and have a working understanding of.

None of it is meant to be used in higher level discussions. 

Since Kasz has taken care of the rest, I do want to point out 99.9% of US economists are idiots who are thinking the quantitative easing is going to save our economy while all it has done since the first 2 trillion dollar dump was devalue the dollar to very low levels and has made prices on everything, oil, milk, bread, etc, skyrocket. If these are the economists you trust and believe in, I fully understand why you can't wrap your head around this.

Im guessing you've never even been involved in post highschool education. Actually thats probably too harsh, however I don't think your style of argument gives grounds for making a statement like that. Maybe you should look first at yourself and  make a structured argument?