The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

312 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
If you look back at the chain of title of almost any existing
piece of land, you will find that some time in the past there was
a forcible disposition of a previous owner, and you are buying
the title which descends from that forcible disposition. This is
particularly obvious in the case of the United States. It should be
pointed out that, in general, the Indian tribes that we displaced
had a few generations earlier displaced other Indian tribes.
Locke, the actual originator of the argument that you get title
by mixing your labor with unowned land wrote the constitution
for the colony of South Carolina, which displaced a number of
Indians. It was also a slave colony, although apparently Locke
didn’t approve of that.
But to return to the road problem, perhaps it is easiest to
understand if we consider the situation when the railroads were
introduced. They would all be built on a long thin piece of land,
hence, the railroad charters usually had restrictions on the full
title to it. The state governments took over the previous rules for
canal and railroads. Basically, there was a general permission for
anybody to build another railroad across an existing railroad,
normally by condemning a right of way sometimes as a sort of
price on the permission to build the railroad. Of course, roads
and canals have the same privileges.
The extension of this rule to other forms of transportation
including pedestrian traffic is obvious. When pipelines and then
later electric, high-tension lines came in, they were also given the
same privileges. Ultimately, a new and improved technology for
moving coal, slurry pipelines, was invented which wasn’t mentioned
in existing legislation. The proponents went to Congress
to see if they could get the current laws amended. There then followed
a vast battle of lobbyists which, unfortunately, the railroads
won so that we have no slurry pipelines. No one seems to
have tried building a very high bridge or drilling a tunnel under
existing railroads, although most pipelines are built underground.
The Blocks’ position is one which I run into occasionally from
what I call the real, private ownership enthusiasts. They just