Let the Roads be Privatized!

There's an interesting article at Samizdata.net, which unfortunately appears to take the standard Minarchist line that if the state is necessary for but one thing, then that one thing is the strategic ownership of roads. It's a shame that a supposedly libertarian web site should hold such a view, even when examining the mess of state-based road congestion charging, but until Austrian ideology manages to infiltrate this particular Minarchist stronghold, I'm sure this sad state of affairs will continue.

However, if you think it even possible, God forbid, that the roads can be privatized, but your argumentation for this position needs bolstering, Professor Block of Loyola University has helped me unearth a few articles on road privatization and how congestion charging can work under a privatized road system. Most of the links are PDFs:

• Congestion and Road Pricing
  
• Overcoming Difficulties in Road Privatization
  
• Free Market Transportation: Denationalizing the Roads
  
• Compromising the Uncompromisable: Speed Limits, Parades, Cigarettes
  
• Road Socialism
  
• Public Goods and Externalities: The Case of Roads
  
• Theories of Highway Safety

Private roads are not only possible. In a future libertarian society, if such a thing ever comes to pass, they are essential.

If you prefer reading old-fashioned paper, rather than wading through electronic PDFs, Professor Block will also be shortly publishing a new 300 page book on the subject, which I'm sure will contain a summation of all his work on road privatization:

Privatize Roads and Highways. Now!
(Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press)

Check out his web site for more details.

Enjoy!