Watch the video below. I know it’s 15 minutes, but it is quite interesting in its own right, and I believe I can also frame it in a larger philosophical and political context.
In brief…
The English town of Poynton was suffering because its downtown was situated at the intersection of two major trunk roads. Traffic, noise, accidents, danger crossing the road, and inconsiderate drivers were all contributing to a dying downtown area. The townspeople didn’t want to be there anymore, and drivers were irritated at the bottleneck. What once no doubt had helped to build the town (an important crossroads) was now killing it.
The traffic control at the intersection was a red light. But then someone had the brilliant idea of replacing it with a roundel—a circular area in the middle of the intersection. This seemingly small change had a massive effect…
Instead of waiting for the light to change and then going as fast as they could can, drivers now have to wait their turn and then proceed slowly. This makes them have to to consider their fellow drivers, the same way we do in the U.S. at a four-way stop (looking to see who got their first).
Instead of a rigid system in which drivers and pedestrians wait at a light, it creates a constant, slow flow. Drivers go when it is their turn (and don’t have to stop at all if no other car is waiting), but the roundel slows them.
Even more importantly—this constant-flow system makes it so that drivers have to pay attention to pedestrians. Everything got better as a result. The intersection got safer and quieter, and the downtown was revitalized. Watch the video. It’s cute.
This video first came to my attention because libertarians were citing it as evidence that when you reduce the amount of force involved in a situation, people get nicer. Here we have people following not a rule established by government (a red light, enforced by preemptive laws), but natural law—taking turns and watching out for each other. In essence, it is evidence that less governance can work better.
I believe this is largely correct. However, since philosophy is my area of focus, I must go just a little deeper…
The operative principle for most forms of libertarianism is the nonaggression principle: that no one has the authority, right, or license to initiate force against anyone else… and correlatively that protective force is justified if coercive force is first initiated.
There is one problem, however. There are a small number of circumstances in which force may be initiated, but for protective purposes. I identify three such categories in which protective force might be legitimate even if it is initiated:
Substantial threat
A red light is a good example of an attempt to mitigate a substantial threat. If everyone were to just drive through intersections willy nilly, the risk of getting t-boned is very high, and the damage to life, limb, and property may be severe. Red lights are preemptive force—they stop you from moving even if you have done nothing wrong, and they are enforced by laws that will penalize you just for violating the traffic control, even if you have not actually harmed another human. Whether or not this is the best way to do things, it is nonetheless an example of force initiated for protective purposes.
That is why the story of the Poynton roundel is so attractive to libertarians—because it gives an example of how we can remove an initiation of force while still keeping people safe.Immediate threat
A crazy person with a rifle is pointing it towards a plaza filled with people. Technically, he hasn’t shot anyone yet, but if police run out of other options, they will take him out before he harms any innocent parties. He poses an immediate threat.Direct threat
Someone who sends threatening letters to and stalks a particular person might, if their behavior escalates beyond a certain point, be slapped with a restraining order. The direct and specific nature of the threat is deemed to justify a preemptive restriction on certain kinds of movement (within so many feet of the victim) even though the stalker has not himself initiated any actual physical force.
Obviously, for lovers of liberty, opening up any gap in the nonaggression principle feels like dangerous ground. But life is messy, and these issues are real. Even if we exclusively had private roads and private protection agencies, as voluntaryists and anarcho-libertarians want, the road-owners and agencies would still have to address these issues.
So what are your thoughts?
I know polemical and call-to-arms articles are more exciting to read. They’re more fun to write, too! But as lovers of liberty, we must also do the hard work of figuring out questions such as these. So please feel free to share your ideas—especially on ways that we can reduce the amount of force in our lives.
Very interesting example of how more freedom leads to better outcomes in road management. Thanks for sharing this!
Then I have a question for you. Where was Woke invented?