Is it possible to create a country which is completely privatised? Usually, privatisation leads to more efficiently produced services and products.

This is a thought experiment only, not an actual proposal.

Where do our tax dollars go (in no order)?:

• Welfare
• Healthcare
• Education
• Roading, rail
• Government
• Services: police, fire, ambulance.
• Justice
• Defence
• Research
• (more...)

Now assume that individuals paid no tax, but rather paid directly for all services and products.

Roading, Rail

User pays. Toll stations could be used. Petrol taxes could not be used if there was no central administration.

To prevent entrapment and monopolism, there needs to be competition. Perhaps if each city was responsible for its own roading, the marketplace competition could be that people would move to another city if prices got too high or services too low. Alternatively, roading could compete (somewhat) with rail.

Healthcare

In some countries, health insurance is compulsory. Those without health insurance are living with high risk: any operations they might need aren't going to happen unless they have the funds for it.

Education, childcare

Schools could be privatised. Education needs to be mandatory. If parents needed to pay for their own children's education at private school rates, childless people would be at a huge financial advantage and parents with children would be at a huge financial disadvantage.

Somehow, children could pay for their own education. Perhaps some sort of long-term student loan could be invented that a child, when fully educated, must repay. This would leave young people with an incredible financial burden when they enter the workforce (which would be offset by the fact that they don't need to pay taxes). It would also mean that parents are responsible for deciding how much debt (and quality of education) their child will have when education is finished.

If the legal system was privatised, would there be an incentive to ensure all children obtained good educations?

Welfare

Unsure. In a completely privatised country, the poorer will become more poor.

One idea that deviates from the principle of full privatisation is that the government could provide very basic jobs, guaranteed to anybody that needs one and paid just enough to live on. This could replace the unemployment benefit and minimum wage (because people would not work for a business for less money than the guaranteed government jobs).

Research

Some research is self-funding. Much of research is not.

Unsure. The benefits of "pure research" are large but the benefits are rarely matched by profit made by a research institute.

Fire

At some places in history, the fire department was privatised. If you did not have the fire department symbol on your house showing that you've paid membership, they would not put the fire out and your house would burn down.

Police

Now this gets interesting! Privatised police are akin to a hired mercenary squad. Perhaps if a suburb or city is privatised, they could have their own police?

(think about this one some more).

Justice

Another very interesting idea. If a city is privatised, it could have it's own laws specific to its own residents. The marketplace competition would be that people would leave if they are unhappy with the laws passed in their own city.

We'd be going back to feudilism and mini-states. If a city was owned by a corporation, and that corporation makes the legal system, bad things might happen. People might be prevented from leaving that city, leading to, for example, slavery.

What does this mean once a person leaves a mini-state? Would that mean they have entered a lawless area?

Defence

Like Police and Justice.