The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Road Privatization: Rejoinder to Mohring 377
those in the lower deciles of the income distribution in most
other nations, but even of their middle classes. Thus, the implication
is that if you want to help the poor, the best way to accomplish
this task is not to undermine the capitalist system with government
subsidies, but rather to rely on free enterprise to help the
poor, as it has always and everywhere done.
On similar grounds, when tariffs are reduced as a step toward
an economically freer society, it is incompatible with this initiative
to award funds for retraining superfluous employees no
longer working in their fields of comparative advantage, or to
give out businesses subsidies. Investment, whether in physical or
human capital, brings rewards in its train when done correctly,
e.g., in the interests of the consumers. When there is misallocation
of either of these types of resources, the free-market ethic
implies that those responsible bear the costs, and not be able to
shift them onto the general public through extra taxes and subsidies
or “scholarships.”
These subsidies or “scholarships” have to come from somewhere;
presumably, they will be based on coercive tax levies.
Mohring is on record as castigating “robber barons,” the railroad
owners who benefited from nineteenth century eminent domain
powers. 48 But in advocating subsidies or “scholarships” for the
poor who will have to pay more for road usage under pricing, he
himself is taking on the role of “robber baron.”
48 Mohring, “Congested Roads,“ p. 162.