[412] in libertarians
Re: Road Privitization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (solman@MIT.EDU)
Tue Nov 15 06:26:04 1994
From: solman@MIT.EDU
To: "Paul D. Eccles" <pde@sd.inri.com>
Cc: libertarians@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 14 Nov 1994 12:10:02 PST."
<199411142010.AA01823@zymurgy>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 06:16:02 EST
> It's hard for me to imagine if all the roads in the US were privitized, that
> we would be better off. What more incentive would a private comapany have
> in maintaining the road? Could each company make their own rules to drive
> on their roads?
Maintaining the roads is not the only measure of their performance. Other
dimensions include the profitability of the roads and the rules of the roads.
The government almost completelly lacks the incentive to improve the latter
two measures and has generally done a poor job of maintaining the roads.
Privatization would:
A) make the roads profitable instead of the enourmous monetary sink
they are today.
B) Allow the creation of a wide variety of rules. Drivers have
different needs and therefore different points of optimal
balance between the rules of the road and safety. Some people
need to be very safe and some people need to get places very fast.
C) By driving, people damage the property of their neighbors via
the pollutants they spew into the environment. Unfortunatelly,
there presently exists no economical method by which drivers
can be charged via the damage they do. Roads are large enough
units of business to make the collection of damages efficient.
The roads can then turn around and use electronic payment systems
to accurately bill the drivers.
Cheers,
Jason W. Solinsky
