The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

334 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
dollars. If we can extrapolate from this phenomena to highway
fatalities, and translate directly from cost savings into lives
saved, then, employing the “two to one” rule we arrive at the
result that under private control, deaths will be cut in half, from
40,000 to 20,000.
What is the evidence for this “two to one” claim? Khursheed
and erding5 state:
Scottsdale (Arizona) saves forty-seven percent in costs by contracting
out for fire protection services. In other words, if Scottsdale
had chosen to have the public sector provide its fire protection,
production costs would have close to doubled. 6
Is there any reason to believe that private/public advantages
would be even more pronounced in street and highway management
than in the more pedestrian goods and services such as running
a bus line or delivering the mail? There is, there is. The former
is tremendously more complicated than the latter. It is
sometimes said “X is too complicated to be left to the marketplace.”
In point of fact, the very opposite is the case. If there is a
simple function, such as, perhaps, running a lemonade stand,
something that any halfway competent seven year old child
could accomplish, then, maybe, the state apparatus could acquit
itself not too badly in the provision of this beverage. 7 In other
words, if nationalize or municipalize we must for a given number
of items, then it would undoubtedly be best to give over to
the bureaucrats such simple and unimportant items such as
lemonade, rubber bands, paper clips and their ilk, reserving
5 Aayisha F. Khursheed and Thomas E. erding, “Organizing Government
Supply: The Role of Bureaucracy,” in Fred Thompson and Mark T. Green,
eds., Handbook of Public Finance (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1998): 46–47.
6See on this also R. Ahlbrandt, “Fire Protection,” Public Choice (1973).
7Although the question would surely arise, “Would you buy lemonade
from the government?”