TDV Week in Review June 2nd, 2013

June 2, 2013 / Redmond W /

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Speed Limits

Sharp-eyed vigilantes might have noticed that our publishing times got pushed back a few hours these past couple of days. In the case of issues with Jeff's contributions this was due to Jeff's insane travel schedule, particularly following the official announcement for Galt's Gulch Chile. In the case of your browner but no less mouthy TDV editor, today's tardiness is for far more mundane reasons. I recently spent my first night in a new, very nice house rental in St Paul, Minnesota as part of my own personal undertaking of the strategy to live rent and mortgage-free as outlined in the pages of TDV Homegrown. The Internet activation at the new house was supposed to be as assured as it was supposed to be brief. It was neither. And since Saint Paul is anything but a 24-hour city, I had to wait till the morning before I could find a place where I could legally sit and use the Internet. So it is that I am up at the crack of dawn on a Sunday to upload these musings to you at my local Caribou Coffee shop. And my musings today are about speed limits.

Now you might think it odd that in the face of increasingly egregious abuses by the thuggish enforcers of the state will (cops), I would bother with such a long-standing ridiculous policy as driving speed limits. But I've had reason to drive around a lot more than usual in the last couple of months. And the absurdity of the speed limit simply overwhelmed me to the point I had to make public note of it.

It has been my observation that the speed limits in my metro region are set at least 15 percent below the speeds that are actually safe to drive, just like they are all over the US. Also every one of the statist sheep who thinks that laws are necessary to enforce safe behavior at gunpoint all drive at least 20 percent over the posted speed limit. This was across the board. If the sign said "30 mph", you could bet money that 40 mph was a perfectly safe speed and the actual speed at which traffic tended to move. If the sign said "55 mph", you could bet your sweet bippy that 65 and often more was the actual safe norm.

Why make a big deal about something like this that everybody already knows? Well, when you're an anarchist who believes that laws are unecessary to order human behavior and just an excuse for the state to collect revenue while training obedience to its violence, you can't help but get annoyed at things like this. The regular and blatant breaking of speed restrictions is an example of the spontaneous order that anarcho-capitalists like yours truly are always crowing about. People drive at the speeds that they judge safe based on circumstances like road width and likelihood of contact with slower moving, fragile bodies like pedestrians and other non-motoring animals.

But how do we keep people from making fatal speeding errors without the threat of kidnapping and extortion that is the law? The free market would have the answer there, too. Privately owned roads would seek to maximize profit by maximizing customer and user satisfaction while minimizing risk. Private owners would surely offer recommendations of truly safe travel speeds because they would have financial incentive to do so. Public policing of public roads, on the other hand, is incentivized toward artificially restricting speeds to increase the opportunity to treat users punitively. Also, free market insurance companies would put pressure on people to self-police their actions since increasingly risky behavior would result in higher premiums. People would stick pretty close to the recommended –not violently enforced– limits while road owners and insurance companies could simply charge more for risky behavior, enough to exert economic pressure to keep close to the truly safe limits. No need for police and guns.

The statist would think that these free market solutions are unworkable. Yet the real world shows that people base their driving speed on their own judgment while ignoring the law anyway. The statist might think that removing the guns of the public police would simply encourage people to drive recklessly, but that just shows the tired and wrong view of human beings as unruly children who need guns pointed at them to act reasonably in the face of economic incentives.

Regards,

Gary Gibson
Editor, The Dollar Vigilante

P.S. If you are inclined to live with a lot more liberty than you would find in a police state in an advanced state of decay (like the US), then check out Galt's Gulch Chile. Leave the ridiculous restrictions behind by clicking here.

Before we get to the Week in Review, we’d like to tell you about what was in this week’s TDV Dispatch, one of our subscriber-only publications that looks for better ways for you to survive the disintegration of the USSA, and updates our subscribers on investment and opportunity. This week I kicked things off with a look at Obama’s commencement speech, inspiringly filled with lies. Jeff Berwick contributed pieces on his experience at the World Resource Investment Conference in Vancouver, a warning not to go “full commie”, and a roundup of important information in “Other News from TEOTMSAWKI and TDV Related Tidbits”. Ed Bugos talked about how stimulus cannot produce growth in his “TDV Portfolio: Review and Outlook”, and TDV Taiwan Group Moderator Simon Robinson had an overview on his new home away from the USSA. Finally, a brief profile of the gone-to-soon Aaron Swartz.

All these incomparable contributions, as well as our monthly Homegrown and Issue, can be subscribed to here. Come see what you’re missing!

Here’s what we wrote about this week…

MONDAY, May 27

Ayn Rand's Vision of Galt's Gulch Has Become a Reality as of Today

Jeff Berwick invites the world to join TDV in Chile at Galt’s Gulch. If you read one thing anywhere this week, this is it.

“After months of hard work by the entire staff at Galt's Gulch Chile (GGC) I am extremely pleased to announce to the world that Ayn Rand's vision in her iconic book, Atlas Shrugged, has become a reality. It is unfortunate that the world has transformed much into what Rand had envisioned and the need for a place like Galt's Gulch has become so urgent. But, since that is today's reality we are very happy to offer the respite from the Western world of oppressive governments to freedom-minded people in which they can build a new, more prosperous community.”

TUESDAY, May 28

The Cost of Driving Like Jeff Berwick in Mexico

The irracible Jim Karger is back with further arguments to join him outside the USSA.

" ‘How much less expensive is it to live in Mexico?’

That is the most common question I receive from friends, family, and TDV readers.

And, it is a question that is impossible to answer in the abstract.

Some capital goods made in the United States and China are actually more expensive here in Mexico. But nearly everything else costs less.

Here in San Miguel de Allende in the high central desert, we are blessed with a lot of vegetables, all grown nearby. Because most of the food we buy is fresh, our overall food bill is about 60% of what the same food would cost in the United States. Others find the difference less, but they are buying boxes of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes and other US packaged foodstuffs which are expensive here.”

THURSDAY, May 29

America: The Center Cannot Hold

Wendy McElroy uses Yeats as a filter to consider the crisis of the destruction of a country from the inside.

" Yeats (1865-1939) wrote ‘The Second Coming’ in 1919 to describe the moral devastation of post-WWI Europe. The “mere anarchy” is not the laissez-faire version of contract and consent between free individuals which produces good will and prosperity. The “mere anarchy” is chaos, a Hobbesian society of all-against-all that comes in the wake of sustained violence. It is a society that guts decency, loots productivity, and rewards the worst within men.

Yeats could be describing America today. Or, at least, the America that might well be tomorrow. The center cannot hold.’”

FRIDAY, May 31

Feedback Friday – May 31st, 2013

In this week’s Feedback Friday: Chile, anarchism, and purchasing bullion. What else?