I think more can be accomplished when people cooperate voluntarily.
There is nothing that says people cannot voluntarily enter into contracts to cooperate on many things often seen as things coercive governments must manage. For example, one can enter into agreements with other property owners in an area that could govern all kinds of things. No one need be forced to do anything, other than keep their agreements.
Freedom is not being free from all commitments and all arrangements. It is merely being from having them imposed upon you by physical force or threat of it.
But some of the things on your list no one would ever agree to. For example, paying someone when they don't have a job, something they have a lot of control over and which simultaneously gives them the means to not have to take a job. We're better off if people learn to save their money. Most can certainly do that.
Likewise, deposit insurance takes away all reason to evaluate where you put your money and has certainly subsidized a lot of reckless banking. I think people who make decisions should bare the risks. People who have nothing to do with it should not be forced to bare such risk.
Other things on your list would continue under a more private system. People would still fund long term research; companies do that now too. Perhaps you've heard of Xerox PARC, HP Labs, IBM and Bell Laboratories.
And if you've got a private highway, you're going to require people know how to drive on it. Why wouldn't you? You lose money when there are accidents. You'll probably even come up with a way to keep drunks off of your road.
The wealth concentration you fear is frequently empowered by the very government you think prevents it. The corporations control the government now.
Who handed the lands and right of ways to the railroads? Who stood by as they lied to farmers to get them to move out there where they only lifeline was the railroad? Who told BP their liability was limited to $75 million? Some might even go as far as saying it is no coincidence that the rise of big business parallels the rise of big government.
And as for being less liberty protecting, I really don't see how a government that fiercely enforces individual rights will not be protecting them.
Just because things have been done a certain way doesn't mean things can't be done in a better way. But I certainly don't expect people to drop the current approaches without having those alternatives being demonstrated as better.
I see things as very incremental. A lot of things have gotten bad because of whole series of less than optimal choices. We can certainly move towards better systems incrementally.
I feel obligated to respond since you put so much time into your response. However, I'm not going to follow this thread further so I'll resist the urge to get in the last word.
I think our debate can be summed up as follows:
I believe that government has a role in fixing/preventing systemic problems, preventing private entities from engaging in harmful social behavior when the market is inadequate to do so, and performing socially important functions that the market does not incentivize. I certainly don't think the government should tackle every conceivable problem - we have a democracy to decide. In practice, I think the costs of the fix is high enough in many cases that it is preferable to live with the problem. (However, this is a practical observation rather than a determination based on principle.)
I think you would say that the government has no authority to meddle in those issues and must rely on coercion to do so, always gets things wrong when it does, the purported benefits of regulation can be achieved by voluntary agreements between private entities, and that "important functions that the market does not incentivize" is an inherent contradiction.
There is nothing that says people cannot voluntarily enter into contracts to cooperate on many things often seen as things coercive governments must manage. For example, one can enter into agreements with other property owners in an area that could govern all kinds of things. No one need be forced to do anything, other than keep their agreements.
Freedom is not being free from all commitments and all arrangements. It is merely being from having them imposed upon you by physical force or threat of it.
But some of the things on your list no one would ever agree to. For example, paying someone when they don't have a job, something they have a lot of control over and which simultaneously gives them the means to not have to take a job. We're better off if people learn to save their money. Most can certainly do that.
Likewise, deposit insurance takes away all reason to evaluate where you put your money and has certainly subsidized a lot of reckless banking. I think people who make decisions should bare the risks. People who have nothing to do with it should not be forced to bare such risk.
Other things on your list would continue under a more private system. People would still fund long term research; companies do that now too. Perhaps you've heard of Xerox PARC, HP Labs, IBM and Bell Laboratories.
And if you've got a private highway, you're going to require people know how to drive on it. Why wouldn't you? You lose money when there are accidents. You'll probably even come up with a way to keep drunks off of your road.
The wealth concentration you fear is frequently empowered by the very government you think prevents it. The corporations control the government now.
Who handed the lands and right of ways to the railroads? Who stood by as they lied to farmers to get them to move out there where they only lifeline was the railroad? Who told BP their liability was limited to $75 million? Some might even go as far as saying it is no coincidence that the rise of big business parallels the rise of big government.
And as for being less liberty protecting, I really don't see how a government that fiercely enforces individual rights will not be protecting them.
Just because things have been done a certain way doesn't mean things can't be done in a better way. But I certainly don't expect people to drop the current approaches without having those alternatives being demonstrated as better.
I see things as very incremental. A lot of things have gotten bad because of whole series of less than optimal choices. We can certainly move towards better systems incrementally.