The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

216 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
present chapter since private highways would potentially play
an integral role in its determination.
Since this immigration debate is entirely an intra-libertarian
one, 2 all sides would agree to stipulate that, at least ideally, government
would play no role in the ownership and management
of roads. We, then, assume this to be the case, arguendo.
What is this immigration debate? The anti-immigration side
maintains that free immigration amounts to trespass, or forced
integration. 3 Since all property, not just roads, would be owned in
the free society by private individuals, any immigration must of
necessity cross these private property rights boundaries. As such,
without the willing consent of the owner, free immigration
amounts to trespass, or forced integration, nothing any advocate
of free enterprise could be expected to support. This is to be
sharply distinguished from the free movement of goods, money,
and capital across national boundaries. In these latter cases, there
is mutual agreement between the buyer and the seller, the consumer
and producer, the lender and the borrower, the saver and
the investor. 4 Goods, money and capital cross borders only under
such circumstances of mutual agreement. In contrast, immigration
is not an instance of such two-part voluntariness. Rather, the
immigrant, as it were, plunks himself down in the foreign country,
with no permission required of any other second-party private
property owner.
What is the position of the free immigration side of this
debate? First, it starts off by conceding the absolute truth of what
has just been said. If all property is privately owned, there is no
scope, whatsoever, for immigration of this sort. However, and
2This, of course, is not to deny that non-libertarians, too, discuss and
debate the matter; it is only to assert that in these pages, we shall confine
ourselves to the one taking place only amongst libertarians.
3See on anti-immigration, Hoppe, Democracy—The God That Failed, and
Gordon, “The Invisible Hoppe.”
4But, see, William Barnett II and Walter Block, “Saving and Investing,”
New Perspectives on Political Economy 3, no. 2 (2007).