The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

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Roads, Bridges, Sunlight, and
Private Property Rights *
Suppose there to be a system of private roads and highways.
1 Suppose, further, that a single firm were to own a
highway stretching from Boston to Los Angeles. One objection
to such a state of affairs is that it would effectively cut off the
northern and southern parts of the United States from one
*This chapter first appeared as Walter Block and Matthew Block, “Roads,
Bridges, Sunlight and Private Property Rights,” Journal des Economistes et des
Etudes Humaines 7, no. 2/3 (June–September 1996): 351–62.
1 For a defense, elucidation, explication of this contention, both on logical
and historical grounds, see Walter Block, “Free Market Transportation:
Denationalizing the Roads,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 3, no. 2 (Summer,
1979): 209–38; idem, Zoning: Its Costs and Relevance for the 1980s (Vancouver,
B.C.: Fraser Institute, 1980): 299–330; idem, “Theories of Highway Safety,”
Transportation Research Record 912 (1983): 7–10; idem, “Public Goods and
Externalities: The Case of Roads,” The Journal of Libertarian Studies 7, no. 1
(Spring, 1983): 1–34; Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty (New York:
Macmillan, 1973); and William C. Woolridge, Uncle Sam, The Monopoly Man
(New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1970). This literature contends with
dozens of objections to the system, but not the one discussed in the present
paper.
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