The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Congestion and Road Pricing 81
Sometimes the banning of automobiles is urged because of an
alleged animosity between “people” and “automobiles.” Wilfred
Owen writes in this regard:
In an age of urbanization and motorization, the way people live
and the way they move have become increasingly incompatible.
. . In an automotive age, cities have become the negation of
communities—a setting for machines instead of people. . . . Economic
and social progress should not be impaired by an unnecessary
discord between living and moving. . . . In all the world’s
major cities, from Bogota to Bangkok to Boston, the conflict
between the city and the car is at a point of impending crisis. 50
And, in the opinion of The Economist, “the need to limit the
intrusion (of automobiles) into the places where people move,
live and work” is “irrefutable.” 51
This alleged conflict between “people” and “automobiles” is
entirely manufactured, unbelievable, and impossible to parody
sufficiently. Were a Martian to learn of the widely portrayed “life
and death struggle” between them, he would have to be excused
for supposing that these are two different kinds of creatures,
vying for an inhabitation of the earth which could be granted to
third point, simplicity, fairness, cheapness and enforceability, there seems
little to choose between the two systems. A price system will undoubtedly
be cheaper, but, at least in the minds of most of the public, a permit system
will be far simpler to understand. Enforceability will depend entirely upon
the efforts made by the authority whose job it is to uphold the law-given
equal public acceptance; and on fairness, we are convinced that any mutually
agreeable contract between two consenting adults is “fair.”
Nevertheless, we can go along with Roth to the extent of saying that we,
too, might predict that under private enterprise the market might well lead
the road owners, as if “by an invisible hand,” to choose prices over permits.
But we refuse to enter into the assumptions implicitly held by Roth: that the
government will of necessity have to make the choice, and that the economists’
job is to advise it on the “best” procedures.
50Owen, The Accessible City, pp. 1, 4.
51 The Economist, 30 November 1963, p. 912.