Who Needs City Government?

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:38:50 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - City governments seem to have only one function, harassing peaceful property owners about the maintenance of what is supposedly private property. Get rid of 'em all, says Neil. Nothing they do that needs to be done couldn't be done better and cheaper, for profit, by private companies. [neil]

The plain truth is that such measures only put off the inevitable. Three decades ago, the Reason magazine crowd demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that both volunteer and commercial fire departments (just as an example) are superior in every respect to what cities provide at the involuntary expense of the Productive Class. It would clearly be better to organize water and sewer service as private corporations than as arms of the city government. And anybody could construct, maintain, and service roads and streets better and more safely.

The same three decades have also shown that self-defense is an individual bodily function, exactly like breathing, eating, making love, or going to the bathroom, that can't be safely or sanely delegated to anybody else. If you try, you end up with a gang of uncontrollable uniformed bullies doing things to your life, liberty, and property--depriving people of the means to defend themselves comes to mind--that you'd hoped to avoid by hiring them in the first place.

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