ana024: Stroads to Destatalization | Chuck Marohn Interview Breakdown

We expand on some of the more challenging issues raised during our interview with Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns in episode #ana023.

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View full show notes at anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana024.

Intro

"The thing that we're concerned about is the coercion, not the government per se."

Discussion

• Strong Towns - more pragmatic, less ideological
  • "You don't need to be open-minded when you have all the answers"
  • What actions can you take? Start at Strong Towns.
  • Libertarian approaches tend to strengthen towns and cities
• The Movie Theater Conundrum revisited
  • Minarchism - The belief that the government is inherently, throughly, and incorrigibly incompetent and corrupt, and that the one issue most important to them can only be addressed competently and justly by the government
  • If you want resilient, incremental, bottom-up development, empowering government to pick winners and losers is a bad idea
  • The revocation clause
  • Incentivizing cronyism
  • There's no such thing as "The Will of the People"
  • A majority can vote with their dollars
  • Big box infrastructure subsidies create the incentive to privilege downtowns
  • Whack-a-mole "Ad-hocracy"
  • What would it take to cut the Federal Register in half?
  • A lot of things are going to have to change when we transition to the pony-based economy
  • The hardest thing to do is to repeal a law that has been passed
  • Infrastructure moves quickly from software (legislation) to hardware. Hardware is hard to undo.
  • A legal privilege and an infrastructure are the same thing to libertarians
• Randall O'Toole's private road holdout
  • The morality depends on the road ownership structure and agreed obligations of HOA (Home-Owner's Association) members
  • Unowned roads cause problems
• A more diverse range of solutions
  • HOA's apply the doctrine of private property to a broader area
  • HOA's are no panacea
• De-annexation (AKA secession)
  • Walking out of Memphis
  • Reverting to county services
  • An opportunity to introduce an Opt-in Trust
• Destatalization - the best word we've come up with
  • Leverage the existing government
  • Convert from a state to a buyer's group
  • end taxation, implement use fees
  • end police immunity
  • allow competing judicial/arbitration services
  • Sandy Springs, GA - most services contracted out
• Puritan society - It's coercive, but it's not government
  • It's coercion that concerns us, not government per se
  • The Puritans were the Taliban of their day
  • Social pressures can be more desirable and effective than government force
  • Ostracism, boycotts, bad publicity are all valid within Libertarianism
• Localism
  • Less reliance on Wall Street & Washington
  • Competition between localities incentivizes responsiveness to citizens
  • Laboratories of legislation
  • Medieval adjudicators and Common law convergence
  • "Just a bunch of power hungry morons"
• Growth is not the goal
  • Anti-capitalist opposition to GDP growth targeting
  • Economic growth isn't a problem
  • Trading off growth for stability is the problem
  • Inflationary monetary policy and the boom-bust cycle
  • Austrian Business Cycle Theory in one sentence
  • The Skyscraper Curse
  • The Empire State Building sat vacant during the great depression
• Value per Acre
  • Bubbles can inflate value per acre
  • 'Placemaking" to increase value per acre
  • Small-scale incremental improvements to increase value per acre
  • Push vs. Pull development
  • Push development - if you build it, they will come
  • Pull development - build it only when it's needed
  • The traditional development pattern as "Pull" development
  • Future-proof efficiency vs. long-term resiliency
  • Future-proof efficiency vs. long-term redundancy and flexibility - staged installation
  • Value per Acre / Total Cost of Ownership
  • Overbuilding infrastructure creates an imperative for growth
  • How Placemaking and public transit can cause gentrification
  • Low income neighborhoods need efficient means of transit, not a specific form of transit
  • User fee models align costs with benefits and allow markets to optimize for all users
• Conclusion
  • Leftists who care about the poor shouldn't write off libertarianism
  • Treat government as a last resort, rather than a first response

Links/Resources

• Strong Towns
  • Chuck Marohn / Randall O'Toole Debate and Chuck's response
  • MEMPHIS’S U-TURN: HOW THE CITY IS COMMITTING TO A STRONGER FUTURE podcast interivew with Doug McGovern
• Randall O'Toole
  • A Desire Named Streetcar: How Federal Subsidies Encourage Wasteful Local Transit Systems
  • The Antiplanner blog
• Free Thoughts Podcast - Understanding Common Law (with John Hasnas)
• Dr Mark Thornton - The Skyscraper Curse
• The Whistles Go WOO

Episodes Mentioned

• ana023: Strong Towns for Libertarians | Chuck Marohn Interview
• Public Space Series
• Foundations Series
  • ana003: Ant-architecture | Anarchic Alternatives