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.

• Did you know that the northernmost transcontinental railway, the Great Northern Railway, was built almost entirely with private funds?
• Or that the busiest international border crossing in North America by trade volume – carrying more than 25% of all US-Canada merchandise trade 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 – versus $30,000 to $200,000 in the US – while operating 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, this table collects examples of businesses and NGOs that provide the same or better service on a voluntary basis.

Additions and corrections welcome.