Voluntary Alternatives To Government Services

When you ask people to imagine a world of voluntary human interaction, they often have difficulty imagining what will replace current government services:

• Who will educate the children without government schools?

• Who will care for the sick and the elderly without Medicare and Social Security?

• Who will build the roads?

Most people who grow up in the United States attend government schools. Government schools exist to indoctrinate children to be obedient subjects of the state.

Therefore, government schools aren't likely to cover examples from the past where private, voluntary companies have provided services that governments now provide.

• For example, did you know that the northern most transcontinental railway, Great Northern Railway was built almost entirely with private funds?

• Or that the busiest international border crossing in North America (in terms of trade volume, carrying more than 25% of all merchandise trade between the United States and Canada by value), is Ambassador Bridge, a privately funded toll bridge?

• Or that Narayana Health a private hospital network in India, has cut the price of coronary bypass surgery to $1,583. By contrast, the average cost of bypass surgery in the US in 2020 was $30,000 to $200,000. NH operates 17 hospitals with 6,000 beds, and over 1,300 full-time doctors.

To combat the notion that only coercive government monopolies can provide essential services, I've started to collect examples of businesses and NGO's that provide the same or better service on a voluntary basis as government monopolies.

Additions and corrections welcome! Who do you think should be on this list?