Do We Really Need Municipal Governments?

Do we need a municipal government? Don’t we need a municipal government to provide public transport, maintain our roads and squares, clean our streets and to provide and maintain street and traffic lights? No, actually we don’t need a municipal government for any of that!

Furthermore, we don’t need government at any level; municipal, regional, autonomous or national. Actually, the judiciary is considered a branch of government, and it’s the only branch of government we need to interpret the only two laws a libertarian society would need; Natural law and the Lockean Proviso. Under Natural law, and a judiciary to enforce it, society and the markets would be forced to regulate themselves. In the UK there is a training body for the construction industry called the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), which issues Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) Cards. CITB is a private organisation independent of the UK government, and their CSCS card qualifications aren’t actually mandatory to work in the construction industry, but all construction companies in the UK require their workers to have one as it gives them confidence that their workers are adequately trained in working safely on a construction site and therefore unlikely to land the company in court for whatever reasons. The judiciary will not need a governor or government to select its’ members as they can be appointed through sortition, with their chances being increased according to their level of qualification and/or experience, and can be removed by other members of judiciary and/or the people if found to be misusing their powers. Any additional bottom level of the judicial court can be added, according to the wishes of the people residing in the proposed jurisdiction of the new court.

Back to why we don’t need municipal governments, the running of services normally run by the municipal government could easily be run independently of the government. All public spaces, just like all natural resources, will belong to the communities that reside in their vicinity, under the custody of the state, thus the courts. The running, cleaning and maintenance of the public spaces, which would typically include roads, could be undertaken by ‘roads and streets’ operating companies, which will run as non business (non profit) consumer-owned cooperatives. These operating companies can finance themelves through advertising billboards and by charging for parking, holding events and festivals in squares and parks under their operations, etc,. They will form metropolitan or sub-provincial associations or federations with other ‘roads and streets’ operating companies, these associations will in turn join other associations in forming larger associations and so on and so forth. Municipal buses and their garages can be transferred to purposely founded non-business cooperatives, run by both the workers and by ‘consumer members’ with membership being open to those living in the areas served by these bus companies. These bus operating companies will form metropolitan-wide associations, which will own the bus routes, stops and stations which the member operating companies will serve. These public bus associations can make the rules and regulations to be abided by bus companies, and also by private bus companies and individual taxi bus drivers should they wish to use the routes and facilities of these associations. Likewise to the bus operating companies, all other forms of public transportation will be owned by non-business worker-consumer ‘hybrid’ cooperatives, and all these companies will join with the metropolitan bus association to form a grand ‘Metropolitan public transport association’. All public services will be run by these non-business cooperatives, typically of worker-consumer ‘hybrid’ nature (although private enterprise will be welcome), including the military and emergency services, which can be completely decentralised and localised forces serving communities but, likewise to all other public service entities, members of a larger association, therefore having access to equipment, facilities and intelligence, regardless of the size and funding of the forces, and in turn, lending their personnel for larger scale operations. The courts, military and emergency services will be paid for by taxation.