Raise the Hammer

A Smith I had to chuckle at your ending - i think you're trying to fool me!

While i agree with your "Government gets paid for taking other people's money, creating zero profits and subsidizing money losing businesses", that's simply not all they do. Unless one thinks a world/ nation/ city without government is practical, even a libertarian should be able to list a number of essential services rendered by government, starting with being a forum to resolve differences, keeping the peace, etc. which implies, guess what....rules! I think we agree though that modernity has created gummerment as a slothful octopus extending its tentacles everywhere as it assumes more and more power - and taxes - as directed by real worldly politicopathic operators manipulating public sentiment to their ends. Charles Adams in his various histories of taxes shows how tax trends only in one direction and with a predictable and unfortunate consequences. So I enjoy and appreciate your posts as a needed counter to that trend. Its just that it bogs down in the detail.

Your zoning comment is interesting in that i hadn't really thought about industrial land being normally cheaper but i suppose it makes sense. Maybe because taxes are higher, much higher which is Hamilton's main problem imo but that's another issue. But, unfortunately for your argument, your economic logic did not prevent that fellow next door starting up a body shop. Fact was, he was laid off because he drank too much and his friends want their cars done on the cheap. He has no capital to set up his own business and is too disorganized anyway so a backyard operation is about all he can handle. His helper is also a drinking buddy so the car banging is replaced by drunken swearing in the evening, to the distress of the family with children on the other side of the operation. Without zoning rules, you will have no peace for years, your blood pressure rises and your golden years become a nightmare.

In your situation, Ayan Rand would take the proceeds of her prodigious book sales and pay the boozer a premium just to get him out.... but then the neighbour on the other side of you, seeing how its done, does something similar - just to get the premium. And the neighbour behind and ......

Without government and rules, you could of course organize a posse, a vigilante squad, a gang, a mob but the results are not usually predictable. Something flammable might be coming your way.

I think you have to agree this is a problem a libertarian without a lot of money cannot wiggle out of, eh? But perhaps there's no such thing as a disadvantaged member of this species!