Also, not being allowed to coerce someone to appear in court (like the government does today), you could accuse someone of aggressing against you and that person could just not show up at the arbitration hearing. Of course, this would look very bad for him and he would be at risk of hurting his reputation, which could make life very difficult for him. Also, he could choose to appear before the arbitrator chosen by the plaintiff and have the ruling go against him--but he could then take the case to an arbitrator of his choice for a possibly different ruling. If his arbitrator ruled differently, their would probably be a system in place that one or both of them were subscribers to that would automatically take the case to a private appeals court (which of course would also have competitors--I imagine someone like Consumer Reports would rate all these various courts and appeals courts on how effective and fair they were, and they would also just naturally gain reputations in the market based on the fairness of their rulings). Of course, the guilty party could refuse to pay whatever the punishment was declared to be, but again, this would result in some sort of black mark against him in society. In this free market I've described, you could not force anyone to do anything, but market and social pressures would result in a system in which judgements were extremely fair (you wouldn't want to be seen as that arbitrator that had a bias) and in which frivolous lawsuits would be practically non-existent (you would have a range of incentives that would severely punish you if you made false charges). I imagine there would also be far less crime in the first place.

As for loansharks, they're 'criminal' because by definition they use force to extract payment from their debtors. Such folks would be run out of town in short order due to the effectiveness of competing private justice systems. More likely, they would see the financial ruin of such a career choice before ever going into it and choose to do something more productive with their lives.

Got anything else for me?

And I notice that you had neglected to mention military forces and police forces and court systems and prison systems -- I find it curious that a self-proclaimed libertarian should look the other way at governments' tools of coercion.

Furthermore, loansharks are 100% private sector, and "private sector good, public sector bad" would mean that loansharks are good. And what makes loansharks "criminals", anyway?

My point is: you DON'T have the choice of 4 or 5 roads stacked on top of each other. Each place has exactly ONE road. It's not like cars or gasoline or repair, where it is much easier for competing providers to coexist. Even then, if there are not many providers, they may be reluctant to compete with each other too much -- oligopoly is not much of an improvement over monopoly.

Also, look at how businesses are run internally. I think that that's where capitalism groupies get their caricatures of "socialized", "nationalized", and "command-and-control" systems from. They take all the features of business management that they dislike and project those features onto anything that they dislike.

As for roads, they are most certainly not a natural monopoly (despite that common misperception fostered by anti-market economists). Just imagining my own trip from home to work, there are at least 3 major highways I can choose from for the major part of the trip, 3 or 4 routes from the major highway to my office, and 3 or 4 routes from my house to a major highway. My neighborhood itself opens onto to major streets. If all those roads were private, there would be route competition than you see in many private industries today. As far as the road that goes directly to my house, I live in a development governed by a Home Owners Association. In a free market, HOAs would most likely own the roads in their developments and maintain them as part of their duties just as they maintain common areas. They would likely not charge 'tolls' to residents apart from some portion of their annual dues. They would probably form some kind of access agreements with owners of the roads the neighborhood opens onto. There are a vast (and unpredictable) range of possibilities for a market that doesn't yet exist. But as other markets show us, efficient and fair arrangements will tend to crop up due to market pressure.

And I don't claim markets are perfect--because life isn't perfect. Markets are just closer to it (and more obliging of freedom and property rights) than a socialized, nationalized, or command-and-control system.

Also, city roads are a good example of a natural monopoly. It's hard for there to be more than one of them that goes by your house. And shouting "Markets are perfect! Markets are perfect! Markets are perfect!" won't change that.

I recall someone once commenting that if capitalism was a religion, libertarians would be the fundamentalists.

And I agree to some extent that the government should be limited in several ways. It should always be considered a government by the people, for the people. That's what an American democracy is supposed to be, isn't it? I find that much more conducive to happy citizens than no government at all, or a small, governmental police state, with business owners as the ruling class.

And yes, it would certainly be okay for a private road owner to set the rules that people must observe on his road. Of course, there would be a market incentive for him not to impose rules that would drive customers to not use his road.

And imagine, Darren, if all the roads were sold off. Would it then be OK for the road companies to decree that motorcyclists that travel on their roads wear helmets?

(By the way, I'll try to denote myself as "Darren from NC" from now on since I noticed there's another Darren that posts on this blog.)

And RiddleOfSteel, no one is having their rights infringed by not having use of land that was not theirs to begin with. That doesn't even make any sense. Perhaps you mean to say something else?

No, I meant what I wrote. Perhaps it doesn't make sense Darren, because you are basing your assumptions on an incomplete acknowledgment of rights, as evidenced by how you use the phrase "not theirs to begin with" to pick and choose who's rights will be acknowledged. When a person appropriates a piece of land, regardless if that person takes the land by agreeing to compensate the previous person who appropriated it, the rights of others to use that land are infringed - they are not being compensated for loss of use of the land due to the two parties engaging in appropriation. If a person is to infringe on the rights of others there must be compensation, and all rights must be considered. I am wondering, when someone appropriates a piece of land, without agreement with and compensation to those who will no longer have the right to use it, do you condone using the coercive power which you so deride to enforce this rights violation?