If at any point in time a different group can force you to pay them money for the privilege of living on a plot of land, then you don't own that land.
Instead, the group that is charging you rent is the one who owns the land. And this true even if they call that "rent" by a different name, such as "property taxes".
Using the examples you give, Walt Disney does not own that land, as a different entity could raise rent in them at any point in time.
> The history of states is just people and organizations joining forces into larger legal organizations.
It doesn't matter. If this super organization has the ability to charge rents on all of the group under it, then the super organization is the one who owns the land. The smaller organizations do not.
Your original argument was about libertarianism and how cities are like landlords that compete against each other.
That idea is ridiculous. This is not compatible with libertarianism, and is a bad analogy.
This is because it is not even close to a free market.
A free market would be one where people actually can truly purchase land and compete. But that's not possible. At the end of the day the land is not owned by you, it is owned by the super owner.
That's all. It is not actually compatible with libertarianism or anarchism, because there was never any choice involved in this.
Nobody can truly decide to pick up and leave, and form their own competing government. You can call this good or bad, just please don't pretend like this is a market.
This is why governments do indeed deserve special thrathing, criticism, and to be specifically singled out, where as private groups do not.
Private groups are just smaller. Cities are larger and have more things going on.
I can go live in this building or that. I can go live in this city or that.
Can I buy an apartment in a building and own it 100% without the building having any say?
What if the building is a condo? I own the apartment, in a sense. I bought it. But I still have to abide by the rules of the building. Does this make apartment housing not a market?
You’d have to define the term “free market” before others can independently verify whether something is a “free market” or not.
It seems to me that if you rigorously defined your terms and entertained direct analogies between what privately administered jurisdictions and publicly administered ones, you’d find there isn’t anything uniquely special about a democratic city government vs disneyworld’s management.
Sure. A free market for this kind of stuff would be the ability to purchase land without anyone in the entire world being able to raise the rent on you, or take it away after the fact.
No matter if this "rent" is called taxes or not.
The entity that has the ability to take away your land, or raise the rents at any time, is the group that actually owns that land.
Governments deserve special criticism because they make what I laid out to be impossible. Disney world is not the party to blame for why people can't own land. That blame goes to the government.
It is because of this idea, that it is impossible to ever truly own land, that governments do deserve special criticism.
So yes, that is what is special/different between a private group and governments. If I discovered an island, owned by no one, or bought an island, governments would still be able to raise the rent on me, but Disney world wouldn't be able to.
The group that has the ability to raise rents on you is the true owner of whatever land you are on. And it is only governments that have that power, ultimately.
I answered that question in literally my first paragraph.
A free market for this would be defined as when everyone has to ability to actually own land, without anyone else in the world being able to charge additional rent on it.
So you buy land, and you own it. And no one can decide to charge you more rent for this, would be the definition of a free market.
Governments do not have this property of being a free market because they can change their mind and charge you money for it later. Therefore they are the ones who own the land and it is not a free market.
A free market would be defined as when you owe zero rent to anyone in the world, no matter if the rent is called taxes or not, and you actually own the land.
Instead, the group that is charging you rent is the one who owns the land. And this true even if they call that "rent" by a different name, such as "property taxes".
Using the examples you give, Walt Disney does not own that land, as a different entity could raise rent in them at any point in time.
> The history of states is just people and organizations joining forces into larger legal organizations.
It doesn't matter. If this super organization has the ability to charge rents on all of the group under it, then the super organization is the one who owns the land. The smaller organizations do not.