Sooo SAD!!!

Asphalt Resurfacing

The privatization of public infrastructure including the transportation system will inevitably lead to the establishment of two distinct races on the planet Earth:

The elite (the ones with the money, good taste for fancy clothes, vintage exotic vine and classical music), and the rest – the so-called working blue-collar class, which will solidify the societal divide by creating an overt Fascist state, as opposed to covert Oligarchy being observed in all the countries of the modern day…

The Libertarian School of Thought neglects the simple idea that everyone has certain inalienable property rights at birth: we have to be entitled to something by our mere existence, otherwise we are all slaves of the ruthless and cunning, don’t you see that?!

Mr. Tucker, you can’t take everything from ordinary people, and then label them as “useless eaters” if they cannot keep up with you exotic and refined demands towards life.

The tragedy of human condition is that we all have the same basic physical needs, but not all of us are equally talented, willing or capable. But by no means this means that you can take everything you can from us. The next logical step in you proposal is to tax the air we breathe and water we drink.

I have to give one thing to the author, though – at least he is being open and honest in his explicitly elitist views… So sad…

Delays due to accidents could be greatly reduced if the wrecks were simply pushed off the roadway after bodies were removed and let the insurance companies settle for the damages instead of the State Patrol blocking the freeways for hours. Post sign at the on ramps, “enter at your own risk.”

From personal experience driving around the US, drivers are much more polite on toll roads.

Magnus

Really? Who, exactly?

Prove your assertion, or withdraw it.

I’m done with getting hounded on this tangent.

@Enjoy Every Sandwich

Thank you.

Modern tolling systems keep an accurate record of where people travel. Great for private roads, but an intrusive state could demand access to the data.

How is competition going to be in the system? I probably need to read the book for this, but I don’t see how it can be done at this late date. I also wonder how a single company won’t end up with all the routes as well. Those with access to the cheap money could easily buy out the competition and create a monopoly.

The obvious conclusion I suppose is that private roads cannot be implemented without the elimination of the central bank, the intrusive state, and so on. That is, they are part of the package and if separated could result in a more miserable system than we have today.

Given that I consider myself a Misesian (who prefers limited government, not anarchy) I hope the good people on mises.org will not dismiss my opinion as “statism”.

Anyway, I have very strong doubts about universal private roads.

To clear all the strawmen out of the way, of course private enterprise can build roads, of course they are not too expensive and of course there is no technical problem in chargin the tolls.

The problem that I see is that in the view of almost every landowner, the road is a monopoly – for most pieces of land there is only one roadside,
so whoever own a road (almost any road) has a monopoly over all people who own property on that road.

The road-owner would gain almost unlimited power over them, he would become a de-facto monarch who could literally besiege the landowners and control their lives.

Rothbard writes in one of his books that some protective clauses can be put into the contracts that guarantee access.
But he never specifies how that guarantee would look like.
Even if the contract would specify something like “the roadowner is only allowed to block access for no more than 2 weeks per year”, this would still give the roadowner lots of room to influence land prices and much more.
Also, how should such a contract prevent price hikes?

From the point of view of the roadowner, a income-based system would be optimal to maximize profits.
(Actually I think that every monopoly will try to do “selective pricing” as it is the optimal system for a monopoly)

So even if the roadowner is completely rational (which most people are not – the roadowner can destroy anybody on his road in case of a quarrel) we would merely replace the income-tax with an income-based toll.

Also, a well functioning political system (which the USA is certainly not) allows property owners influence in the management of public goods, while there is absolutely no influence over the road-owner.
The only way to “take my business elsewhere” is to abandon my home, which is not even remotely acceptable in my view.
(And by the way, even when I relocate I would have to use the road.)

RdC

Sovy, I won’t pretend to know what exactly you mean by that, although I can understand why many posters have reacted the way they did. It definitely can be interpreted as saying that those who believe in the free market do so as a matter of faith, not reason.

It may be that I’m just cynical and crabby but I take something different from your sentence (again, probably not what you meant to say): the State has so thoroughly messed up the transportation infrastructure that I don’t know if anything can straighten it out. Where I live pretty much everything has been built in response to the State’s distortions and I’m just not sure how we can get from where we are now to something that actually makes sense.

I will say that the free market offers the best chance of success. State planning has failed and more of it is surely not the answer. Just faith? Maybe. But freedom is more deserving of my faith than the State. The State had my faith once; they blew it. It’s over.

Really? Who, exactly?

Prove your assertion, or withdraw it.

locals add to road safety by erecting shrines where loved ones have died. plenty of crosses say “go slow” more effectively than any road sign, and at no cost to the traveling public.

as others have said, maximizing absolute road quality is not the goal; hitler built great autobahns.

Inquisitor

No, rather you insinuated support for the market is a matter of faith.

I didn’t say that support for the market is a matter of faith. There are some people who do support free markets on faith alone though.

No, rather you insinuated support for the market is a matter of faith. I’d have to say it’s support for the state that is faith-based…

Of course, ironically, it is coming via gov mail on gov roads so I hope it arrives in one piece.

This is one of the great sticking points for us free-market sorts when talking to the others. Through no fault of their own it is nearly impossible to imagine a totally private roads system.

I know it can work and I have trouble with what it would look like.

Even if we had a free society and the roads still sucked or got worse, that would be preferable to what we have now.

What would hilarious would be making the changeover with all the agony and caterwauling that would entail just to have flying cars become widespread and make the issue mostly moot.

Inquisitor

Yes, you did. Why don’t you actually buy and read the book and evaluate it rather than pulling assertions out of your ass about why others support free markets?

My comment wasn’t directed against professor Block. I did buy his book though.

But the air ticket example is incorrect. You say the first ticket ($300) plus the second ticket ($350) means the road congestion cost you $750.

It only cost you $350, you would have had to spend $300 on the original ticket anyway.

Yes, you did. Why don’t you actually buy and read the book and evaluate it rather than pulling assertions out of your ass about why others support free markets?

Prove it.

Chp 5, Chp 19…

No biggie though..