Collecting and accounting for payment is overhead. If something is "free", then that overhead can be reduced or eliminated. On the other hand the basic purpose of charging for anything is to allocate limited resources, so the task is how to match supply and demand.
But saying it is "grossly inefficient" not to charge for something makes no sense to me. That's not the issue at all.
The thing that is grossly inefficient is the manner in which services are paid for when it involves doing it indirectly via tax authorities. The overhead can't be eliminated when it is done that way - it requires a contingent of administrators and petty bureaucrats.
Presumably you support per-mile metering on public roads then?
It's said that it's a net benefice for everyone:
- people move more, because it's free
- shop sells more because more people
- less cost induced by individual transport (less car on road = less damages, less pollution..)
Although...just to nit pick a little. If you mean less road damage then keep in mind that road damage is proportional to the 4th power of vehicle weight. So buses cause enormously more road damage than cars.
People who claim to like markets tend these days to subscribe to a quasi-religious faith that markets are maintained by some ethereal force rather than human institutions. Free markets are an absolutely vital and fundamental aspect of the wealth and power of the developed world, but they cannot exist in their highest form apart from the centralized machinery that enables people to trust each other and easily buy and sell. If anarcho-libertarians were to break that down, perhaps society could still function at some level, but it would be vastly poorer until everything was rebuilt in some other form.
