The thing I find interesting is your combination of free market/personal liberty/personal property positions.
It's the foundation of classic liberalism as the french understood it.
First of all a small aside: The position of the anarchist that I was reading defines the freedom of man in this way.
"Our rights are inalienable. Each person born on the world is heir to all the preceding generations. The whole world is ours by right of birth alone. Duties imposed as obligations or ideals, such as patriotism, duty to the State, worship of God, submission to higher classes or authorities, respect for inherited privileges, are lies"
I cannot think of a more "complete" definition of freedom. They use this definition of freedom to support the notion that any property is theft: "The fact that Mankind cannot enter into his/her natural inheritance means that part of it has been taken from him or her" (more complete argument available at the previously supplied link)
Those people do not have a rationally coherent understanding of property and I disagree with that statement.
I won't spend any more time debating what an article on a poor collection of theories says, only because I have explained clear as day, it does not represent my POV and I cannot be expected to defend or argue every article people find online and think is remotely relevant. I hope you understand this.
What is your definition of personal freedom?
The American Declaration of Independence verbatim, is acceptable enough as to be used as a proxy for my position.
How can things like roads that people use but are not tracked using be paid for if not through taxes (I am not saying taxes is the only way, but I am asking for an alternative)
There are private roads all over the world. Originally, almost all roads were built privately. Private roads operate more efficiently, with more safety, and a for a lower cost than government run roads. That's the market at work.
Do you understand why?
Finally. One of the faults I can find with the "really free" market you are a proponent of, that is to say a market that exists with no barriers to trade, is that the formation of local and distributed monopolies is, to my mind though I will argue it point by point if you disagree, a natural result.
How does a free market in a system with no regulation deal with monopolies and the dangers they pose to free market pricing.
Well, if you have zero barriers to entry, it is impossible to have a monopoly, unless the monopoly firm, is simply better than all possible competitors. The only way they can be the sole player in a market, is if no one else is willing or capable of competing with them, because they have the best price and quality.
With zero barrier to entry, if there is any profitability in competing, people will compete. Even if it is only a 1% profit margin, people will enter into competition.
Natural monopolies, generally are very rare because if there is ANY PROFIT to be had, then someone will attempt to gain a slice of the pie, if only through arbitrage.
Traditionally, the term "monopoly" was known to be a state granted exclusive market privilege. Such as "official supplier of rice to the king". Someone would lobby the King, to be the sole supplier in the region, and the King would outlaw competition in that product. Then the monopoly firm, being free from competitive forces, would jack up prices and give a damn about quality or accountability to a captive consumer audience.
You're still trying to justify regulation, which by definition, reduces competition, and hurts the poorest people the most because they do not have the startup capital, inherited or earned, to engage in their own non-wage slave productive labor.
The minimum wage for example, is legislation which creates unemployment. If the minimum wage could truly create a livable wage, then the government would raise it to $20 an hour to make everyone middle class.
But instead, it creates an artifical floor for labor prices, and doesn't allow the uneducated, old, infirm, retarded, etc to compete for jobs based upon their labor rate. If the minimum wage is $5, and a business owner could use some help, but can only afford to pay $4 in order for that work to be profitable, then he is prevented from seeking an employee.
This hurts business, and this hurts job seekers. What it does do, is protect high wage earners, by reducing the number of workers they have to compete with for their job. It also creates a need for government, because the high wage earners can be taxed to pay for the people who have been prevented from finding employment.
It's a manufactured need for a welfare middle man. And socialists love to keep people poor, because otherwise they would run out of victim groups to serve as a middle man.
Similarly this is what unionism does. It protects 55 year old guys who make 2 times what a young hard working new union member makes, while doing half of the work and loafing on the same job they have been on for 20 years.
I'm not a proponent of "the really free market".
I am a proponent of liberty.
Any time you force other people to curtail their VOLUNTARY, PEACEFUL economic behavior through coercive force, you are fighting
against liberty.
