How I profited from efficient use of resources: and how the state ruined me

The problem

Leaving my subdivision you arrive at a "T" in the road.  You can turn left or right and there are two lanes to turn into which ever direction you choose.  As you approach the intersection you may move into the right lane to turn right, move into the left turn lane to turn left, or scratch your head about the ambiguous middle lane.  Upon a 5 second reflection, you realize that this middle lane can be used to turn either left or right without interfering with traffic (illustrated below).

Every morning this middle lane remains free of traffic.  I choose to use this lane.  Most people are trying to turn right so I often pass 15 cars waiting foolishly to turn right.  Some of these drivers disobey the rules of the road and cross into my lane as they turn.  Horns honk and I've found myself in 1 yelling match with a lady who didn't understand what is meant by staying in one's lane.  This kind of driving is reckless on their part and is against against the law - I know, I've downloaded and read the Texas drivers manual.

We live in a world of socialist roads, and yet I was still able to profit even under this system of compulsory monopoly.  I was an example for all my fellow drivers, showing them how we can better use the roads.  Unfortunately, most of them ignored me, buying into the value of "fairness" and "equality".  If one person has to wait 3 minutes to turn right then we all should!  Furthermore we should honk and yell and hate those 1% that efficiently use the roads, who seek out ways to expedite our commutes, and thus keep congestion down for everyone.  Bah! I say, I'm a libertarian, I'm about maximizing social utility, not making sure we're all equally miserable.

Truly, I felt like an entrepreneur every morning, profiting from others inability to see opportunities in front of them.  At the same time, I was teaching my fellow driver how to better use the roads while reducing the traffic problem.  I was astonished how few followed my lead, after about a year of being an example every morning, I saw only one other person use the middle lane.

WWTMD

Given the congestion, one might ask, What Would The Market Do?  A road company may observe the problem and then hire someone to stand out at the intersection for a few mornings and direct people to the middle lane.  After all, these are commuters i.e. repeat customers, so a few mornings is all it'd take to completely alleviate the problem.  The road company could hire me, but I'd probably end up yelling "come on you idiots, what do you think this lane is here for!?"  I'd then promptly, and appropriately, be fired.

Such a road company would have the goal of keeping costs down, congestion down, and safety up.  The solution would cost no more than a couple hundred dollars, perhaps even less if they just hung a sign that read, "Use the middle lane moron!"

What the state did

After one becomes a libertarian it takes roughly 6.8 minutes before someone asks, "But what about roads!? Herp derp!"  Yes, I'm being purposefully condescending, and disrespectful.  But it's because of what the state did that this kind of treatment is wholly justified.  It is absolutely disgusting and disturbing to witness what the state did to "alleviate" the congestion "problem".  Therefore, I say, anyone who praises the state for roads, must also love buying houses with broken windows.  They will witness the furthest extent of my wrath for their economic ignorance.

The state installed a goddamn stop light!  They spent tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps hundreds of thousands, to install a useless stop light!  This means that now all directions have to stop and wait for 550nm wavelengths to start radiating from the new electronics before drivers can be assured they have state permission to move their vehicle.  Previously, drivers driving along the straight (top of the "T") part of the road drove by without slowing down, further allowing traffic to flow rather than be regulated in a jolty, awkward manner.  Now, each morning and evening, they pray that their commute isn't needlessly slowed by this completely unnecessary contraption of the state.  

But I haven't even come to the most egregious part of the story.  The state, in their infinite wisdom have decided to outlaw turning right from the middle lane on a red light!!  Even though this causes no traffic problems at all, and is done all over the city, we are not allowed to turn right on red from the middle lane at this intersection!  Why couldn't they have hung my sign that read "use the middle lane, moron" and saved the tax payers thousands of dollars!?  Now I sit, on my way to work, and on my way back, at this stupid light, this beacon of government waste.  The community now needs more brakes to stop, more fuel to reaccelerate, and more thumbs to stick up their butts while we wait idling at a red light.  They should just inscribe and hammer and sickle on red to make sure we all know we're under state control and supposedly helpless without them. 

This light typifies the state in every aspect: the waste, the inefficiency, the compulsion, the favoring of socialism over entrepreneurship, and more as I explain below.  Sure, I could write the local authorities and ask them to remove the light, but the capital has already been used up, the light is installed and running.  Just like all new government programs, it is now a permanent fixture of life almost impossible to reverse.  I will have to continue paying for its upkeep, the electricity used to power it, the gas now being wasted sitting at a light.

Will the state lose market share for it's squandering of resources?  It can't, it outlaws competition and mandates payment for its poor management.  At the same time it will vilify those who speak out against it, it'll point to the roads and the Stop Lights all over town and ask, "how would these be provided if it were not for the state?"  Obviously, I could run things better.  Does this mean I should run for office?  Of course not, my skills are far more useful and productive being employed writing software to bring cheaper energy to all of society.  Furthermore, politics rewards those who are good at manipulating others, lying, gaining political favor, not those keen on efficiently employing scarce resources.

Why did the state install a light?  There was a congestion problem.  Inept and reckless drivers, those unwilling to stay in their lane or use the middle lane, are being bailed out by the state.  Just like the reckless banks or poorly managed auto companies, a moral hazard is being promoted by the state.  Drive poorly?  No problem, we'll install a light so you can continue endangering other drivers.  Responsible drivers, those that follow the rules, are being punished and forced to pay for the light and the bad behavior.

This example illustrates everything that's wrong with the state and everything that's right with the market.  I came up with a simple, cost effective solution to help congestion.  I profited from it and the state came along and ruined me.  On a very minor scale I experienced the frustration Joe Stack must have felt before flying his plane into an IRS building.  This monstrosity, the leviathan known as the state destroys all that is good and peaceful and replaces it with machinery that hinders social progress and suppresses human flourishing.  So in summary, fuck the state, fuck our socialist roads, and fuck the moronic drivers that don't know how to turn from a fucking middle lane!

Serving others and our inadequate human brains

I have a few blog topics lined up, but Rob's comment yesterday made me put those aside and address the structure of human society as a result of evolution.  Have we evolved to be socialists or have we evolved to be capitalists?  To be contentious and boastful, which I am allowed to do on my own blog, my opinion is that the more sophisticated of us are able to see what the market is and transcend our ape-like methods of dealing with each other.

I despise the word "progressive" because the thinking is so backwards.  As Bastiat said of Rousseau and his followers, "while they claim themselves as progressive, I find their ideas 20 centuries behind" -The Law, (paraphrased).  There's nothing wrong with helping others, but how do you do so without being taken advantage of and how do you gauge whether your efforts are the optimal way of helping them?

Rob wondered if we evolved to embrace socialism because those who survived were tribal and lived communally.  My argument, which is Walter Block's argument, is that we evolved to understand the importance of working together, but the sophistication of the market alludes many of us.

In a small tribe, the implicit understanding of me taking care of you when you're sick is that you will take care of me when I am sick.  If the tribe were very large you might be able to get out of your obligation of taking care of me when I get sick.  And humans, being the self serving beings that we evolved to be, would find many reasons to skirt our "scout's honor".  The Amish are probably the nearest and largest example of communes that work.  Part of their success is that they limit themselves to a small set of tasks and so these jobs are easy to parse out and keep track of.  What happens with a very large and very complex society tries to live as a commune?  Chaos or tyranny.

Money, not government, enables civilization.  Having a fungible, divisible, and durable good is beautiful.  The demand for services, the number of providers, and the scarcity of goods can now be measured.  Calculation is possible.  If I am sick then I give the doctor money as a promise to take care of him when he is sick.  Money solves the problem of simultaneous wants that plagues barter systems (and craigslist) and it solves our evolutionary need to work together -- if we can recognize it as such.

In a free society, the greatest humanitarians would be those with the most money, the largest houses, the fanciest cars.  Their wealth is a reflection of how much they've helped others, and since market exchanges are a net benefit to both parties, the wealth is only a fraction of the good they've done.  Perhaps the so-called "douchebags" of this world are trying to prove they're humanitarians by wearing $300 ray-bans or $200 jeans.  Perhaps they evolved faster than the rest of us to recognize the meaning of the market but still haven't developed any skills or talents other than being DBs.  Back on topic, I have to add the caveat "in a free society" because of how grotesquely government has skewed the market.  So much of wealth accumulated today is by political means, either as direct payments from the government or through government privileges such as limited corporate liability, IP, protectionism, competition killing regulation, or other favorable legislation.

Here's how I've carried out the belief above in my own friendships.  My socialist friend let me borrow his paint sprayer (mutual friends immediately know who I'm talking about when I say socialist and paint sprayer in the same sentence).  Getting ready to move I knew I wouldn't be able to return the favor.  I had used his property, the sprayer will not last as long as if I had not used it, parts will have to be replaced (eventually), and there was a time when he or anyone else was denied use of it because it was in my possession.  Neither was this the first time he helped me and saved me a bunch of money.  Because I am unable to return a similar service (both because I don't own any tools he'd find useful or have any talents related to manual labor), and because I knew the rental rates of paint sprayers, money was the most obvious way of fulfilling my promise to help him the next time he was in need.  Of course, he being an unselfish friend, said the money was unnecessary and he would have let me use it anyway, but he accepted the money.  Taken to the extreme, say I wanted to borrow the sprayer every other day, even the most sacrificial of us will require some compensation or put an end to the generosity.  In a large and complex society, money is the necessary measure of what we're willing to give and what we can get from others.

Did we evolve to be socialists?  Absolutely not.  Socialism employs violence or the threat of violence to achieve certain ends.  Did we evolve to be market anarchists?  No, because we lived communally and it's hard to grasp the concept of money and how it relates to our tribal communes.  So now what?  We don't have to become a "new man" as Marx requires, we simply have to learn how to use the tool of money as primates learned to use rocks and sticks.  Libertarianism is the only philosophy compatible with the world and human nature.  It takes into account our strengths as well as our faults.