The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

224 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
But, did you ever stand around, trying to read a book, cheek
by jowl with almost two dozen people, confined, sardine-like, to
a space of about ten feet by ten feet? It was no picnic for me, and
I’m a relatively young pup of only six decades; there were also
some really old people on that line. This was cruel and unusual
punishment for them.
Why couldn’t they give us numbers in order of arrival, and
let us sit while we waited? For that matter, why does serving
each “customer” take so long? And, if it really does, why not hire
a few more clerks, or more efficient ones? Better yet, why not
simplify the process? Are the opportunity costs of time of New
Orleanians really that close to zero? Are we cattle? If they treated
prisoners as badly as that, they would riot.
But the real problem is not with any of these considerations.
It is, rather, that there is simply no competition for the provision
of licensing and registry services. If there were an alternative (or
two) available, I and at least several of my queue-mates would
have patronized a competitor with alacrity.
The difficulty is, we have embraced the old Soviet system of
economics in our so-called “public” sector. In the bad old
U.S.S.R., there were long waiting lines for just about everything.
In the land of the free and the home of the brave, we have sovietized
such things as the Motor Vehicle Bureau, the Post Office,
and a myriad of other government bureaucracies.
It is time, it is long past time, to privatize these last vestiges
of socialism, and allow the winds of free enterprise to blow away
these cob-webs of inefficiency. The reason we have reasonably
good pizza, toilet paper and shoes, etc.—and don’t have to wait
hours for them—is because there is competition in these industries.
Those entrepreneurs who cannot cut it are forced to change
the error of their ways through our marvelous profit-and-loss
system. If they cannot, they are forced into bankruptcy, and others,
more able, are eager to take their places. Adam Smith’s
“invisible hand” assures quality service wherever competition
reigns.