The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Roads, Bridges, Sunlight, and Private Property: Reply to Tullock 317
the notion of private, capitalistic highways we offered in Block
and Block. 5 I say “presumably,” since this is the usual pattern.
When someone criticizes your view, and you reply, you usually
4 It seems harsh, even to me, to characterize Gordon Tullock, who has
done more work than most economists to defend the institution of private
and free enterprise, as a “socialist.” However, the shoe seems to fit, at least
in this one case. After all, he does advocate that only government, and not
the marketplace, should be allowed to own and manage highways. Were he
to have done so for practically any other good or service (e.g., steel, the Post
Office, autos, etc.) there would be no question but that this was socialism.
Why then in this case does it appear so harsh to characterize these views in
this manner? Perhaps it has to do with the widespread and deeply
ingrained feeling of inevitability of state roadways, and the utter impossibility
of any private alternatives. Good antidotes to this view include Block,
“Free Market Transportation: Denationalizing the Roads;” Murray N. Rothbard,
For a New Liberty (New York: Macmillan, 1973); William C. Woolridge,
Uncle Sam, The Monopoly Man (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1970);
Gerald Gunderson, “Privatization and the 19th-Century Turnpike,” Cato
Journal 9, no. 1 (Spring/Summer, 1989): 191–200; Dan Klein, “The Voluntary
Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America,”
Economic Inquiry (October 1990): 788-812; Dan Klein, John Majewski, and
Christopher Baer, “Economy, Community and the Law: The Turnpike
Movement in New York, 1797–1845,” Journal of Economic History (March
1993): 106–22; idem, “From Trunk to Branch: Toll Roads in New York,
1800–1860,” Essays in Economic and Business History 11 (1993): 191–209; Dan
Klein and G.J. Fielding, “Private Toll Roads: Learning From the Nineteenth
Century,” Transportation Quarterly (July 1992): 321–41; idem, “How to Franchise
Highways,” Journal of Transport Economics and Policy (May 1993):
113–30; idem, “High Occupancy/Toll Lanes: Phasing in Congestion Pricing
a Lane at a Time,” Policy Study 170 (November 1993); Gabriel Roth, A Self-
Financing Road System (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1966); Gabriel
Roth, Paying for Roads: The Economics of Traffic Congestion (Middlesex, U.K.:
Penguin, 1967); idem, The Private Provision of Public Services in Developing
Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Madson Pirie, Privatization
in Theory and Practice (London: Adam Smith Institute, 1986); Robert W.
Poole, Jr., Private Tollways: Resolving Gridlock in Southern California (Los
Angeles: Reason Foundation, 1988); idem, Privatizing Wisconsin’s Interstate
Highways (Los Angeles: Reason Foundation, 1996), Policy Study 203 (April).
5Block and Block, “Roads, Bridges, Sunlight and Private Property
Rights.”