Monday, July 23, 2012

Murray Rothbard on Private Roads

5 comments:

  1. It's funny, because "who will build the roads" should be the least of the questions regarding privatizing public goods. I mean, we have plenty of historical experience with private roads -- much of the road networks of rural Spain, including paved highways, was built privately. I'm sure it's similar in rural United States.

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  2. A LOT of rural and suburban roads in Pennsylvania are named "___PIKE", short for "turnpike". Private roads where you paid the man to lift his "pike" and let you enter. The Pennsylvania Turnpike, the country's first "super highway" was privately built, I believe.
    I lived on a network of private roads in California. We had to close the roads to outside traffic for a day occasionally to preserve the status of "not a public right-of-way".

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  3. Recall that almost every road in the US is built by a private firm that has been hired by the state via competitive bidding. That's how I came about rebuilding I-90 through northern PA.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_roddis/3518487963/in/set-72157600948975202

    Even if the state still controls main arteries, why shouldn't new subdivision roads be built AND MAINTAINED by the subdivision builder? The developer and/or a neighborhood association could CONTROL access to the neighborhood by controlling access to the neighborhood streets. But that would be racist. It's so much better to let black people live in Detroit or Chicago than live in safety in private neighborhoods with private roads with controlled access.

    Note what the statists have done to the culture on this issue. The main solution to the problem of crime and drugs is treated hysterically as the most horrific problem in the galaxy.

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  4. Hey, it looks like Murray predicted the EasyPass! Seriously, though, I think roads are one of the best examples of why everything should be privatized and this is one of my favorite issues to argue. Nothing illustrates government incompetence more than traffic jams.

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  5. In 1984, the government privatized the phone system. 28 years later we have talking smart phones that browse the Internet, play music and games, and have maps. Maybe if they stopped subsidizing the roads, alternative forms of transportation could develop. Right now your tax dollars are going to pay for roads in other states that you never drive on. There's a tremendous amount of waste. The market works for everything else. Roads are no exception. We're just used to the State handling it.

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