Are those other, less efficient routes somehow unowned in this continuation of the story? Or are the people along those routes under some kind of enforceable agreement to keep them from doing as Ben did?
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The real question is why anyone would push their property claim to the absurd state where they are destroying their own income, as in the scenario. There are privately owned toll roads and canals that exist right now. Why don't they keep increasing their fees at a rate that asymptotically approaches infinity? Because no one would pay them. The simple fact is that producers are not free to set any price they wish in the market. They are constrained by the willingness of consumers to pay their fees. If it were not so, the price of everything would be infinite.
The OP posits that there is a sort of reverse cartel defection effect at work here, where all the members of the River Transit Guild are induced to defect against a decrease in prices necessary to save their business, but in fact it would be the opposite. Raising the prices at your gatehouse while everyone else lowers theirs doesn't mean that you will make more money, it means that more people will avoid going through your gatehouse.
Well I am new to these discussions and am not an economist so I may be missing something. But this seems again to assume that other routes are available. I'm guessing real-world privately-owned toll roads do not drive their prices up because there are other public routes required by the you-know-what.
In @biophil's scenario, if I understand correctly, we can first suppose that tromping through the (unowned?) jungle instead of the handy river imposes a cost $X. This means people along the river can collectively charge just under $X, right? If any one of those along the river impose a toll that puts the total over $X, then they all lose out; but if the total fees along the river are under $X and one actor lowers their toll by some small amount, that just means another can raise the toll by that small amount and it is still better for the traders to take the river.
Then we suppose that the jungle (and air and sea and underground and ... ) are all owned (is there any reason they wouldn't be in the anarchist utopia?), and I have to say I get confused, so maybe you can help. People along the jungle route realize they can play the same game Ben does. Of course if they charge too much, people will go back to the river - if the river tolls don't add up to be too much. In these kind of rent-seeking scenarios, I take it, each owner may as well charge something, since they are no worse off than when they were letting people through for free if the people decide not to go through at all.
I agree with @discombobulated that the main problem is how to handle private coercion and might making right - and I think @biophil agrees too, in this post. And when it comes to @discombobulated's interesting analogy of world governments, there it seems we are left to settle things by might making right - which I'm inclined to think is unfortunate.
@biophill hit the nail on the head with that post and it is exactly my concern as well. But, since the problem of might makes right already exists between nations, that doesn't make it a great reason to stop thinking of ways to try and make voluntaryism work. Even if we were only able to enjoy a brief period of it before reverting back to coercion, it would still be worth it in my opinion.
For a discussion on the commons in an anarchist society, check out my new discussion on the commons in an anarchist society.
The fable in the OP forgets the fact that since the barge-men were doing well at the time the wall was built, they could have just negotiated with all the land owners in between their two towns and built a canal and the contracts would have priced in reasonable tolls anyway.
Besides this, it is likely that the barge men would also have had the option to buy up all of the actual river property on the way down the river as a consortium and the wall builder would have been given the choice of sell it or make a contract of rental, which would have made him happy and money anyway.
This story is typical of people who think in terms of the commons still existing in an anarchocapitalist society. This cannot happen. It interferes with business, and despite what these anti-capitalists might think, it is the whole purpose of traffic routes to allow traffic through because it fosters trade between people along the path. In as far as money is needed to maintain the route, there has to be some scheme of gathering money from those who benefit from this route. Those who use it to do business with those people pay it anyway through their trade with these stakeholders.
So you favor the abolition of the commons? Fascinating. Everybody else who replied to my post said "well, at least you have to keep the commons." I was about to write a post discussing this. In fact, hang on a sec - I just did. For a discussion on the commons, check out my new discussion on the commons.
Of course, your answer is the right one. Your solution to the coordination problem is to coordinate. To organize, to unionize, to band together to exert the functions of government (though, under a different name). And then pray that it all stays non-violent.
All good points. Perhaps my choice of a river as an exploitable commons was clumsy?
But it's important to understand that your last paragraph is missing my point entirely. Gatehouse operators aren't competitors; their services are not substitutable without additional costs. It's not like a barge operator can say "I will use gates 1, 2, and 4, but 3 is too pricey so I'll just not go through that gate." Maybe 2 and 4 could collaborate to build a portage, and this could be used to control 3's price, but to enforce the cartel price upon 3, 2 and 4 would have to operate the portage at a loss. All of this is avoidable economic inefficiency.
Thanks for humoring me in all this - all this writing is a great way for me to distill my thoughts on the subject.
By the way, I'm seeing if I can get another one of these discussions going. For a discussion on the commons in an anarchist society, check out my new discussion on the commons in an anarchist society.
It doesn't really matter, there are plenty of alternative solutions for them to employ. If people block the river route, then take to land. If they block the land routes, then take to the sea or air. There's always another way of doing something.
The sea and air are unowned? Or are the owners of sea and air under some kind of enforceable agreement to keep them from doing as Ben did?
It doesn't matter if the sea and air are treated as unownable common spaces or if they are owned. The hypothetical proposes that everyone owns every piece of accessible real estate or travel corridor, and they're all determined to cut off their noses to spite their face. This is both wildly implausible and inconsistent with how we know people in these sorts of situations actually behave right now. It's a "just so" story.
If you want to take it to this extreme... Let's say Ben saw Mises building his home in a valley surrounded by mountains with only one entrance and exit. Ben sneakily builds a wall blocking the path thereby imprisoning Mises in the valley. Can Mises do what it takes to escape? Who is justified in their action if there is no government to resolve this conflict of interests (I think that is the point you are trying to make)?
Either way, someone is going to have to make a decision on the matter. Whether you decide to pay and give control to a coercive government to make the determination, or come up with a mutually beneficial agreement on your own, a decision will be reached regardless.
In this example, if Ben wants to be malicious, then Mises would do whatever it would take to survive. Meanwhile, the rest of the community will be seeing how Ben is treating Mises and would decide how they want to respond to it.
Let's say North Korea somehow was able to imprison South Korea. Would we need to create a world government to resolve it?