The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

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Transition to Private Roads 287 But this objection, too, is without merit. First of all, it is by no means true that road bureaucrats act homogeneously. There is, after all, such a thing as booty or plunder seeking. 6 That is, typically, the rich and/or the well organized, which are typically the same thing, are able to direct more than a proportionate share of public resources to areas in which they reside, or have business interests. Thus, what the critics fear in the case of the transition of roads to private ownership is already a concomitant of the present, statist system. Second, there is a difficulty in how the objection is necessarily posed. It relies on the coherence of “management acting homogeneously.” Does this imply equal expenditure on the part of all road owners? Hardly, since money can be well or poorly spent. Even on the assumption of equal quality of spending money, whatever that means, in turn, there is still the question of whether the “equality” is to be normalized for value of the road, or its length, or length multiplied by number of lanes and their width, etc. Also, how do we incorporate the differences between winding roads and straight ones? Those that are well banked, and those that are not? The concept of “quality” has in most cases a difficult, subjective element to it, which makes comparison difficult, and the present case is certainly no exception to this rule. Does it consist of filling in potholes, reducing the roughness of the road, the dangers for motorists who use it, the speed with which one can travel, the congestion levels? If this objection must be couched in such ambiguous phraseology, it loses much of its power. The point is, in markets, all of these hard to pin down considerations are amalgamated in one fell swoop into one statistic: profit. But this is impossible in the absence of market institutions. Third, one can only properly own physical property, not the value thereof. 7 The latter is determined by potentially thousands of buyers and sellers, any of whom could become the marginal purchaser or vendor, who actually determines price and hence 7 Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Walter Block, “Property and Exploitation,” International Journal of Value-Based Management 15, no. 3 (2002): 225–36.
288 The Privatization of Roads and Highways property value. If a man truly owned the value of his property, as opposed to a bundle of rights pertaining to its physical inviolability, then one could forbid all of these other economic actors (including that man himself) from independent decision making, lest any of them, horrors, act in such a way, by purchasing or failing to purchase, for example, a complement or substitute. To take another instance: under the doctrine of sanctity of property values, not physical property, society would have the right to forbid blacks from making real estate purchases in previously white neighborhoods, on the assumption they drive down property values, a manifest injustice and rights violation against them. Fourth, there is a market remedy, readily available, to any individual who is unduly worried about the impact of the management style of the new private road firm on the value of his real estate holdings: take a position in this very company; buy shares in it; kick out the inept manager, and install your own team. This is thus hardly a serious objection to the transition to a private road industry. Fifth, there is nothing unique about roads in this regard. The “problem” of a firm affecting the property values of its neighbors is hardly limited to the case of streets. Rather, it is ubiquitous. If the bakery next door to my butcher shop does a land-office business, some of his customers are bound to find their way onto my own premises. If, in contrast, he can’t cook his way out of a paper bag, there will be fewer customers of his I can snare to my own benefit. And vice versa. Does this means that once the government nationalizes bakeries and butcher shops, this negative externality argument would prevent the denationalization of these industries? Not a bit of it. Coercion. Next, we consider the objection that the homeowner is required to accept a contract with the new road owner. The difficulty here, and the force of the objection, is not that the contract may not be a fair, just or appropriate one. And, as we have seen above, this legal agreement would attempt to incorporate into it protections for the property holder against blockades.
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The Privatization of Roads and High
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This book is dedicated to my fellow
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vi The Privatization of Roads and H
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viii The Privatization of Roads and
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x The Privatization of Roads and Hi
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Acknowledgments Iwould like to than
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Introduction Most people who read t
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Introduction xvii dealing with obje
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1 Free-Market Transportation: Denat
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Free-Market Transportation: Denatio
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48 The Privatization of Roads and H
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3 Public Goods and Externalities: T
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Public Goods and Externalities: The
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Part II Applications
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6 Road Socialism * What are the bes
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Road Socialism 185 of the state app
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Road Socialism 187 It is in order t
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Road Socialism 189 indicates that v
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Road Socialism 191 vehicle inspecti
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Road Socialism 193 that “The domi
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Road Socialism 195 imaginative and
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Road Socialism 197 2. Perhaps the p
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Road Socialism 199 bouncer, to each
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7 Compromising the Uncompromisable:
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Compromising the Uncompromisable: S
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8 Roads and the Immigration Issue T
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Roads and the Immigration Issue 217
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9 The Motor Vehicle Bureau Newly ar
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The Motor Vehicle Bureau 225 In the
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10 Privatize Public Highways * Acro
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Privatize Public Highways 231 Thoma
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11 Homesteading City Streets: An Ex
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Homesteading City Streets: An Exerc
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Page 310: Part IV Critiques
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Who is Responsible for Traffic Deat
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20 Aiding and Abetting Road Sociali
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Aiding and Abetting Road Socialism
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Part V Conclusion
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APPENDIX I Annual U.S. Street & Hig
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Appendices 423 It cannot be denied
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