General

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

Sage — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:04:55 GMT

MatthewWilliam:

As an aside, when is Block's book coming out this year? I'm looking forward to it. Will it be up online?

This page says:

Block also intends to publish 11 new books in the next two years, “Libertarian Autobiographies,” “The Privatization of Roads and Highways,” “Building Blocks of Liberty,” “The Economics of Discrimination,” “The Problem With Social Costs: Coase, Pigou and the Austrian School,” “Legalize Blackmail,” “Philosophy of Law,” “Austrian Economics,” “Private Property Rights,” “Free Market Environmentalism” and “Judaism, Economics and Politics.”

I guess it should be pretty soon.

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

Sage — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:18:07 GMT

GilesStratton:

It's the same calculation problem that is problematic in every area of socialism. The state can merely externalize the costs involved with roads, if people are losing their lives on the roads they have no option but to continue using the roads, perhaps the best they can do is to lobby the state to improve the quality of the roads, wasting yet more scarce resources.

On the other hand, if people valued safety in terms of roads when they were privatized, then they would stop patronizing those roads and use other roads, the companies would suffer a loss and either go bankrupt or be bought out by means of the market for corporate control, road owners would have to try to make their roads as safe as possible accordingly.

Exactly. Competition is more efficient than monopoly.

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

MatthewWilliam — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:02:11 GMT

As an aside, when is Block's book coming out this year? I'm looking forward to it. Will it be up online?

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

nirgrahamUK — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:07:26 GMT

its not that private road advocates naively state that 'privatizing roads would save 40,000 people a year'

its that over time.. public provision of road services has led to annual death tolls of above that number, and this should motivate a search for better road services. and private roads is the superior solution.

http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_2/3_2_7.pdf

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

Jason — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:35:32 GMT

arkana1:
And I know the free market would come up with some clever solutions not yet thought of, but for arguments sake you will lose everyone the minute you say "privatizing roads would save 40,000 people per year" with no other explanation.

I guess the best way to put it, is that "public" property kills. There are other ways that public roads kill. Like for instance, public roads giving gangs and such access into neighborhoods. Because they are "public", neighborhoods and the like cannot keep the crime element away from there community.

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

hayekianxyz — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:09:32 GMT

It's the same calculation problem that is problematic in every area of socialism. The state can merely externalize the costs involved with roads, if people are losing their lives on the roads they have no option but to continue using the roads, perhaps the best they can do is to lobby the state to improve the quality of the roads, wasting yet more scarce resources.

On the other hand, if people valued safety in terms of roads when they were privatized, then they would stop patronizing those roads and use other roads, the companies would suffer a loss and either go bankrupt or be bought out by means of the market for corporate control, road owners would have to try to make their roads as safe as possible accordingly.

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

Stranger — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:59:23 GMT

How many lives do the private airlines lose each year compared to the public roads?

Re: Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

Eric — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:58:18 GMT

I've never seen that statement, maybe lives refers to good lives, people who dont have to pay those extra taxes, but I dont know.

Making roads safer? How will privatization help?

arkana1 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:54:31 GMT

Forgive me if this has been addressed. My search of the forums proved futile.

I've heard recently from some Libertarians, via a Mises.org podcast or a FEE podcast, that privatizing the roads would save 40,000 peoples live per year. How do they figure?

Just curious. I've become well versed in free markets, Austrian economics, and Libertarian thinking but I can't figure this one out.

And I know the free market would come up with some clever solutions not yet thought of, but for arguments sake you will lose everyone the minute you say "privatizing roads would save 40,000 people per year" with no other explanation.

Thanks! Look forward to hearing your thoughts.