Radical Road Reconstruction

Over the past couple of years I have had a nasty habit of an exponentially growing reading list. The nastiness is my inability to keep up with it. Walter "Moderate" Block's treatise on road production, The Privatization of the Roads &Highways, was a treat to check off. An initial glimpse at the title caused my heart to leap. Do I dare? Public private partnerships? Or the whole shebang? Gasp*

His arguments cover concerns of real-world application, and those reserved to the obscure theoretical analyses found in fortified ivory towers.What would private road production mean for the consumer? Answered. What if private road production leads to the U.S. being dissected by a tyrannical road owner? Answered.

The depth of scholarship found within this text is admirable, and to be expected of a top Austrian school economist. This relentlessness in exploring arguments is a legacy of Rothbard. Block illustrates, via direct quotation, the economic revelation of the inadequacies of State run food, steel, and other services provided by the U.S.S.R. Economics is supposed to be a valueless science, but the numbers speak for themselves. Block is a master of metaphor. He relates the economic analysis of State run enterprises in other industries to that of State run roads. The results are devastating. The advocate of State run roads turns out to be nothing more than a road socialist. An invader of private property. A coercive monopolist. A guilty murderer.

There is no shortage of scholarship on roads either. He sifts through the works of regular State proponents, and even finds libertarian opponents. The other arguments are made impotent in the face of Block's onslaught of criticisms. The Privatization of the Roads &Highways is an ode to voluntary exchange. Specifically, the peaceful provision of turnpikes, highways, and bridges. Block is by no means just an Austrian. He is a self-styled Austrolibertarian. Block explains the world through Austrian Economics, and advocates action via libertarianism (liberalism). Students of political science will recognize this distinction between descriptive, and normative claims. A descriptive claim he makes, 30,000 human lives a year are attributable to the State invasion of road production (paraphrased by moi). A normative claim he makes, this loss of human life is an atrocity that should be remedied by privatizing all roads & highways (paraphrased by moi).

With the breadth of works Block covers, he inserts essays from his past. This means there is quite a bit overlap, or rehashing of the same arguments. This is fine. The underlying thesis is that there is a root problem with the road system of the statist quo. Trimming around the edges of this system is not enough. Radical change is the right remedy. Liberate the roads, free the road consumers, and halt the soviet-style State invasion of road production. Choose liberalism.

Post Scriptum:

I have given a rave review of Block's work, but it is not without any reservations. Any economist worth their salt knows that Soviet dissolution resulted from the inability of commissars to determine prices with profits and losses. Writers I have read from Reason know this. They are worth their salt. Robert Poole receives most of Block's bludgeoning words for less radical libertarian alternatives. I have caught Poole, on record, as wanting to deregulate the airline system. This is pretty libertarian. Nevertheless, Block finds Poole's suggestions on increasing State efficiency in road provision as anathema to libertarianism. He does not parse words, nor will I in my response.

Dear Doctor Block,
You criticize Robert Poole for making State run roads more efficient. You grant that his measures may save a few lives, but deride his efforts as immoral nonetheless. There is an inconsistency in your argumentation. You promote efficiency in troop reduction here, efficiency of the State budget here and  efficiency in dispute resolution production here. It is outside the bounds of reason (pun intended) to ask an austrolibertarian to refrain from giving advice on intermediary steps of change for the State to adhere to.

Austrolibertarians have, will, and should continue telling the State to reduce its military, cut foreign aid, and end the drug war. The same applies to road production, or any other field of production invaded by the State. To say otherwise means that austrolibertarians can only give advice to the effect of privatize everything. Should we have 30,000 surge troops in Afghanistan or pull them back? Privatize security production. Is it appropriate to cut foreign aid to countries that do not support our foreign adventures or to cut all foreign aid? Privatize charity production. Should we legalize marihuana alone or all drugs? Gasp* Privatize dispute resolution production. Privatize everything encompasses the final step of every advice austrolibertarians should give to the State. However, there are varying intermediary steps.

Your dogged assessment of Poole is a dog that bites you in the arse. Hey, they are descendants of wolves.

Traffic Direction
Poole has very strong opinions on the one way vs. two way street controversy, heavily favoring the former. His reasons are only peripheral to our present concerns, so I will not rehearse them here.
Suppose governments ran restaurants and there was a vociferous debate over whether the tablecloths should be red or green, made out of cloth or plastic, or should exist at all. Posit, further that a group, call it Treason, ardently favored one or the other of these alternatives, it matters not which. What could we deduce from this one fact? My claim is that we could infer that this group, whatever else it was, was not a libertarian one. 

This makes you not a libertarian for wasting your time with redness or greenness in dispute resolution, charity, and security.

What would we say if a different group, call it Treason, was advising the USSR on its steel factory? This, too, could conceivably save a few lives. How about saving lives by urging softer whips on the slave plantation? Or fewer executions in the concentration camps? Are we being unduly harsh? I think not. In all these cases, some few lives are saved by supporting those responsible for the deaths in the first place.

Here you are trying to be funny. I apologize, succeeding in being funny. Language is to be taken seriously, and you err in your usage of the word support. I would urge for softer whips, and fewer executions. This is advocacy of human lives, not of the oppressors of these human lives. Charitable work is the best metaphor I can posit. I have given my time and resources to charities that help human lives today. Against Malaria and City Year help kids today. Implementation of free markets, or giving money to Mises.org, is the radical remedy we need for systemic change tomorrow. Your thinking means that we should let struggling kids die to the Statist system today, so that we keep the State maximally inefficient. Our monies should be contributed to Mises.org, and only Mises.org, in order to save the world in the future.This is unacceptable. I will give my extra income and efforts to supporting both today and the future. Both current victims of the State, and potential victims of the State. Admit the inconsistency, and publish a response.

At the end of the day Reason's work is positive to illustrate the power of market forces. If their writers espouse a disgust for your solution, they should be rebuked. Full privatization of the roads & highways is the only complete remedy. Reason's work aids free enterprise. However, fiddling around with minutia, should as you say, be left to the entrepreneurs. Thank you for your consideration.

Thy humble intellectual disciple,
Henok Elias
Enoch Elijah
Peacemonger