The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

10 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
inconceivable, for there we all were sitting around a table in the
bishop’s basement talking about it. It had been done. It might—
heaven forefend—be done again. The talk necessarily shifted
from possibility to desirability, to what lawyers call the merits
of the case.
Like the St. Andrews students, Americans show a disposition to
accept our government’s customary functions as necessarily
the exclusive province of government; when city hall has
always done something, it is difficult to imagine anyone else
doing it.
When an activity is being undertaken for the first time, the
operation of the Telstar communications satellite, for instance,
people keenly feel and sharply debate their option for public or
private ownership. Discussion of the costs and advantages of
each alternative accompanies the final choice. But once the
choice is made and a little time passes, an aura of inevitability
envelops the status quo, and consciousness of any alternative
seeps away with time.
Today, most Americans probably feel the telegraph naturally
belongs within the private sphere, and few doubt the Post
Office should naturally be a public monopoly. “Naturally,”
however, in such a context means only that’s-the-way-it’s-beenfor-as-long-as-we-can-remember,
an Americanized version of
Pope’s declaration that “Whatever is is right.” Yet few could
think of a convincing a priori rationale for distinguishing the
postal from the telegraphic mode of communication. At least
one Postmaster General could not: in 1845 his Annual Report
prophesied intolerable competition from the telegraph and suggested
it might appropriately be committed to the government.
At that early stage in its history, the telegraph might conceivably
have become a government monopoly for the same reasons
the Post Office already was, but the mere passage of time
has obliterated any consideration of whether they were good
reasons or bad reasons. 11
11 William C. Wooldridge, Uncle Sam, The Monopoly Man (New Rochelle,
N.Y.: Arlington House, 1970), pp. 7–9.