Road companies seem like a great example of a problematic scenario for anarcho-capitalism:
A hypothetical company called Roads LLC owns a 20km strip of road that goes through a tunnel in a mountain. Due to the geography, all alternative routes require an extra 200km detour. Let's also say, for the sake of argument, that you can't just build another tunnel either, because the mountain would collapse.
Since there are no direct competitors, the company is well-aware of the leverage it has, so it constantly keeps the toll price well above what the maintenance costs are, making huge margins.
So, I assume that your position is that this situation (quite inefficient from the customer's perspective) is better overall than having a government that manages that road, due to all of the other evils you perceive it brings. Even if there was a legitimate mechanism (the democratic process) for changing a particular inefficient government.
I guess my response is that governments seem like they could be efficient in theory, although most are grossly inefficient in practice. In contrast, anarcho-capitalism seems inefficient even in theory.
First, what you forget is that roads are not the only means of transportation. Such a road company would not be able to raise prices indefinitely because customers would either switch to air travel, river transport, or, I don't know, hyperloops, or stop using the road completely. Now what it could do is find the equilibrium price at which customers are still willing to use the road and not switch to a competitor. That might seem like a problem, because the prices would still be higher, but then you have to think back to the time when this project was conceived.
Imagine you are an investor who wants to build that important tunnel. If there is a demand, obviously you wouldn't be the only one. So each of you, investors, would come up with offers for the potential customers for this road. The one who offers the best conditions - for instance, fixed low price for the next 10 years - gets the most customers and proceeds on building that tunnel. If that investor later decides to cheat and raises prices then he would have to deal with law firms of his customers, which would potentially be costly.
So here you see how this potentially difficult situation can be resolved without the need for any government whatsoever.
"n many parts of the world land use patterns mean that building two or more highways in parallel isn't practicable. Kroeger claims, "This would result in an incredibly inefficient use of land resources."[citation needed] When there is only one highway connecting points A and B, the main advantage of privatization, competition, disappears. In absence of regulation a private highway operator is likely to charge an exorbitant monopoly price, resulting in huge profit margins and few benefits for drivers."
A hypothetical company called Roads LLC owns a 20km strip of road that goes through a tunnel in a mountain. Due to the geography, all alternative routes require an extra 200km detour. Let's also say, for the sake of argument, that you can't just build another tunnel either, because the mountain would collapse.
Since there are no direct competitors, the company is well-aware of the leverage it has, so it constantly keeps the toll price well above what the maintenance costs are, making huge margins.
So, I assume that your position is that this situation (quite inefficient from the customer's perspective) is better overall than having a government that manages that road, due to all of the other evils you perceive it brings. Even if there was a legitimate mechanism (the democratic process) for changing a particular inefficient government.
I guess my response is that governments seem like they could be efficient in theory, although most are grossly inefficient in practice. In contrast, anarcho-capitalism seems inefficient even in theory.