Street Smart: Competition, Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Roads
edited by Gabriel Roth
The main obstacle to private road services rests with political classes reluctant to give up their lucrative sources of power, wealth and influence through current government road monopolies. However, those seeking responsive road services determined by the free interplay of consumers and private suppliers will find Street Smart making a powerful and authoritative case for the need for change and provides essential understanding of the complex issues involved.
The Mythology of Holdout as a Justification for Eminent Domain and Public Provision of Roads
Bruce Benson
Free Market Transportation: Denationalizing the Roads
Walter Block
Roads Without the State
Peter Samuel
The Public Sector, II: Streets and Roads
For a New Liberty, Murray Rothbard
Government Highways: Unsafe at Any Speed
Richard Barbarick
New Directions in Road Privatization
Laurent Carnis
"If we examine, with attention, into the composition and constitution of man, the diversity of talents in different men for reciprocally accommodating the wants of each other, his propensity to society, and consequently to preserve the advantages resulting from it, we shall easily discover that a great part of what is called government is mere imposition.
Government is no further necessary than to supply the few cases to which society and civilization are not conveniently competent; and instances are not wanting to show that everything which government can usefully add thereto, has been performed by the common consent of society, without government...
The more perfect civilization is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself; but so contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that the expenses of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish. It is but few general laws that civilized life requires, and those of such common usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or not, the effect will be nearly the same. If we consider what the principles are that first condense man into society, and what the motives that regulate their mutual intercourse afterwards, we shall find, by the time we arrive at what is called government, that nearly the whole of the business is performed by the natural operation of the parts upon each other...
All the great laws of society are the laws of nature. Those of trade and commerce, whether with respect to the intercourse of individuals or of nations, are laws of mutual and reciprocal interest. They are followed and obeyed because it is the interest of the parties so to do, and not on account of any formal laws their governments may impose orinterpose...
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind."
Thomas Paine
My thoughts: Private roads would be cheaper, safer, and more efficient. Without a paradigm shift in favor of market solutions to government problems it will never occur.
No comments:
Post a Comment