The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

138 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
we must never let reality be falsified in order to fit the niceties
of mathematics. In fact, production [and, similarly, benefits
from the actions of others or of oneself] is a series of discrete
alternatives, as all human action is discrete, and cannot be
smoothly continuous, i.e., move in infinitely small steps from
one . . . level to another. 52
Strictly speaking, either a gain is noticeable to the presumed beneficiary,
or it is not part of his realm of human action at all. If a
person makes no notice of something, then for him it is not an
element that can affect his choices. And if it cannot enter into his
economic decision making, it is irrelevant.
An implicit justification for government activity here is that,
while the benefits to any one person in a group are indefinitely
small, once their benefits are added up they become substantial.
This may work, under some assumptions, in physics and other
natural sciences. But in economics, where human action is the
touchstone, it is nonsense to posit that a phenomenon which is of
no benefit to any one individual can be of substantial importance
to a group of such individuals. If no one person can be shown to
gain from these “diffuse benefits,” it cannot be claimed that the
whole group somehow gains.
ONE MAN’S MEAT IS ANOTHER’S POISON
Let us consider now a shortcoming, previously alluded to, in
the public-good view: that tastes differ and that what may be
viewed as a benefit by one person may be seen as something to
be avoided by another. Samuelson replies to this objection as follows:
Even though a public good is being compared with a private
good, the indifference curves are drawn with the usual convexity
to the origin. This assumption could be relaxed without
hurting the theory. Indeed, we could recognize the possible case
where one man’s circus is another man’s poison, by permitting
52 Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, p. 643.