Privatizing all goods and services will satisfy consumers far more effectively than allowing their management to remain in the hands of the state, under socialist provision. If we have learned one thing from the fall of the economic system of the U.S.S.R., it is that.

This chapter considers, and rejects, four arguments against the privatization of roads, and in favor of our present system of road socialism. They are: (1) Eminent domain is cheap, efficient, and necessary, but only government can avail itself of the “benefits.” (2) Roads are not perfectly competitive, but rather, necessarily, are characterized by monopolistic elements, which only the state can address.

Let us posit that the full privatization of all roads, streets, avenues, thoroughfares, highways, and byways is the proper goal of public policy.

Suppose there to be a system of private roads and highways.2

The paper by the two Blocks2 refers several times to m

On September 1, 1992 at the Mont Pèlerin Society meeting in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Gordon Tullock approached my young son (then, aged fourteen) and I in the hallway. He had a bone to pick with me.

Let us posit, if only for argument’s sake,1 that the cause of road fatalities is governmental mismanagement, and not the usual litany of explanations (e.g., speeding, drunk driving, vehicle malfunction, driver error, bad weather, etc.) Some 40,000 people lose their lives each year on U.S.

Although I shall be criticizing you, even severely, please do not take this amiss. I mean your organization no harm. Quite the contrary. My two children, in their early twenties, are both new drivers.

The thought many people will have when first confronted with the notion that roads, highways and streets ought to be privatized is likely that yes, it might be a good idea for the government to contract out to business firms some minor tasks: perhaps salting or bulldozing in snow conditions, maybe cleaning, possibly even pot hole repair or paving.