Portland, Oregon has public roads and spaces. Antifa has taken over some of these roads and spaces, sometimes temporarily, but in all events for periods that thwart peace-loving Portlanders from using the streets. Antifa’s takeover and control has been going on for over 50 days. We need look no further than the actual situation on the ground to see that antifa is preventing ordinary and justifiable use of these Portland roads and spaces. For example, at one point, an anonymous e-mail was sent around that read “You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely…This is non-negotiable.”
The Portland city and Oregon state politicians have not cleared antifa from the streets. These officeholders, derelict in their duties, haven’t restored ordinary public access and use. They are condoning and even encouraging antifa. It has become all too clear that antifa (and BLM) are tools of the Democratic party, which has sunk to new lows of American cynical political behavior. The Democrats have shown themselves more than willing to wreck cities and the entire economy (using COVID-19 as an excuse), and with the aid of many Republicans.
This behavior shows clearly that the State’s provision of security is anything but satisfactory and that it’s on a steep downward trajectory. With property rights being abused wholesale by the State’s major parties, the alternative of a private-law society becomes ever more attractive and one that needs to be very seriously considered. Such a society has total private property or a close approximation thereto. The rest of this blog examines briefly how to privatize Portland’s streets and public spaces.
If we analyze this situation from a private-law society perspective, what do we come up with? See, for example, Hoppe’s article “The Rationale for Total Privatization”, dated March 14, 2011.
The affected streets in Portland, if privatized, will become owned property. This will lead to mitigation of the conflicts over uses of these streets. The owners will take steps to protect their property. Their incentive to do so will be much stronger than that of Mayor Wheeler and Oregon’s senators and others politicians who are doing nothing. Hoppe writes
“How is it possible that formerly unowned common streets can be privatized without thereby generating conflict with others? The short answer is that this can be done provided only that the appropriation of the street does not infringe on the previously established rights — the easements — of private-property owners to use such streets ‘for free.’ Everyone must remain free to walk the street from house to house, through the woods, and onto the lake, just as before. Everyone retains a right-of-way, and hence no one can claim to be made worse off by the privatization of the street.”
If every prior user with an easement, which includes at least all those who own property abutting on the street and perhaps some other established users, retains his rights to use the street, that is part of a proper privatization solution.
From this perspective, antifa is preventing people from exercizing their established rights. Antifa is seizing the streets and spaces. It is also damaging abutting property. Antifa is communizing the streets, setting up tents and barricades, and so forth. But the streets are not unappropriated. The rights to their use may be cloudy but they are surely not virgin land ready to be homesteaded. By this reasoning, which is the private property perspective, antifa will have to be cleared from the streets in order to achieve a private property solution to the ongoing conflicts over street use.
To create private ownership of the streets, the following procedure might be used. The city solicits letters of intent of ownership interest from Portland taxpayers. The city requests that those with an interest in owning the streets present their proposal for an ownership “vehicle” or company. That proposal must include certain commitments if it comes into existence. One commitment will be to issue marketable shares in the company owning the roads, those shares to be issued to existing taxpayers of Portland. Another commitment is that private property owners along the road and taxpayers maintain their rights to use the roads, but not for free.
The company will establish a Board of Directors and name a tentative set of officers. It must incorporate and follow the standard rules of voting. Its purposes must be laid out. It must produce a prospectus indicating what activities it intends to carry out, a pro forma budget and financial statements, capitalization, and a statement of risks of operation. The initial fees for road use should be included. The company should indicate its purpose, including maintenance, improvements, and the setting of prices. In short, treat the proposals as new issues of common stock.
The city can present to taxpayers the proposals that come in upon this invitation. The taxpayers then can vote to select an owner, a company or even an individual if one person chooses to create a prospectus.
With the company’s shares being publicly traded, mis-management, such as letting the roads deteriorate or charging excessive fees, will always have a market corrective, which is low-priced shares being bought up by potential new owners who appoint new managers. Market sanctions come into operation.
No matter how this privatizing procedure is tweaked, since I’ve only presented a bare outline and better procedures are no doubt possible, one thing is clear if we adopt a framework of privatization. It’s clear that antifa’s occupation of the streets or anyone’s unilateral occupation of public streets and spaces is not a private property solution whatsoever. Indeed, it’s the opposite since it denies appropriate users their appropriate uses. This assumes, of course, what is plainly evident, that antifa doesn’t consist of peace-loving taxpayers and that it does consist of people using illegitimate force to take over the streets.
8:11 am on July 19, 2020
