The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

248 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
or embarrassment for the theory? Not to those13 who maintain
that the success of One Big Firm is no threat as long as it arises
from, and depends solely upon, market forces.
In one sense, privatizing roads is like attempting to unscramble
an egg; it is very, very complicated, because what we are trying
to do in effect is bring about a situation today which would
have ensued had streets always been private. Our goal is to
determine how this market would have functioned in the past,
and then to set up a situation, now, as close to what would have
been, in this imaginary, contrary-to-fact conditional.
The problem is that this is essentially an entrepreneurial, or
managerial, not an economic or praxeological, task. For economists,
it is impossible to anticipate the market. Suppose, for
example, that the shoe industry had always been run under
13 William Anderson, Walter Block, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Ilana Mercer,
Leon Snyman, and Christopher Westley, “The Microsoft Corporation in
Collision with Antitrust Law,” Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies
26, no. 1 (Winter, 2001): 287–302; Dominick Armentano, The Myths of
Antitrust (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1972); idem, Antitrust and
Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure (New York: Wiley, 1982); idem,
Antitrust Policy: The Case for Repeal (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1991);
Don Armstrong, Competition vs. Monopoly (Vancouver, B.C.: Fraser Institute,
1982); Walter Block, “Coase and Demsetz on Private Property Rights,” Journal
of Libertarian Studies 1, no. 2 (Spring, 1977): 111–15; idem, Amending the
Combines Investigation Act (Vancouver, B.C.: Fraser Institute, 1982); idem,
“Total Repeal of Anti-trust Legislation: A Critique of Bork, Brozen and Posner,”
Review of Austrian Economics 8 (1994), no. 1: 35–70; Donald J.
Boudreaux and Thomas J. DiLorenzo, “The Protectionist Roots of
Antitrust,” Review of Austrian Economics 6, no. 2 (1992): 81–96; Thomas J.
DiLorenzo, “The Myth of Natural Monopoly,” Review of Austrian Economics
9, no. 2 (1996): 43–58; Jack High, “Bork’s Paradox: Static vs. Dynamic Efficiency
in Antitrust Analysis,” Contemporary Policy Issues 3 (1984–1985):
21–34; Fred McChesney, “Antitrust and Regulation: Chicago’s Contradictory
Views,” Cato Journal 10 (1991); Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market:
Government and the Economy (Menlo Park, Calif.: Institute for Humane Studies,
1970); William F. Shugart II, “Don’t Revise the Clayton Act, Scrap It!,”
Cato Journal 6 (1987): 925; Fred L. Smith, Jr., “Why Not Abolish Antitrust?,”
Regulation (January–February 1983): 23.