Do We Need Government to Build Highways?

Not long ago your humble blogger was sampling the entertainment on Youtube and came across an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. Real Time is a show on HBO, a discussion group led by Mr. Maher which features celebrities, politicians, journalists and such giving their opinions on issues. On this particular episode Congressman Barney Frank was one of the guests, and P.J. O’Rourke, one of Real Time’s “Real Correspondents” was brought on part way through. Barney Frank is a very liberal Congressman and P.J. O’Rourke is a lukewarm, half-defender of Free Market Capitalism.

Bill Maher started a debate by taking P.J. to task for a statement he had made, namely, “My money does not make you poorer.” Mr. Maher immediately disagreed, but no real delving into the topic was achieved because after a mere handful of seconds spent talking over each other Barney Frank quickly changed the subject by saying that we need government, because without it we wouldn’t have the highway system which we now enjoy. Or at least tolerate. Before the conversation precipitously careened into another area – this time the rise of the middle class in America and the putative reason for it being Federal Housing loans and such – P.J. O’Rourke confessed that Barney Frank was right and that they were in agreement about the highways.

The answer to Maher’s and O’Rourke’s original dispute is an easy one: money honestly earned does not make anyone else poorer – quite the opposite, in fact – but money stolen, through government for example, does indeed make the rest of us poorer. This issue could be examined in more depth, but my real purpose here is to analyze Barney Frank’s comment, which prematurely ended discussion on whether the pie, as George Bush has said, could be made higher, and which quickly brought the meek and imperfectly libertarian P.J. O’Rourke to heel.

Since we are accustomed to government control of the roads; since most of us are educated in government schools and are indoctrinated in pro-government propaganda; since government influence has been creeping into the private schools; since many of the teachers in private schools have government-influenced education; since ‘progressive’ statism has been the dominant public ethos for over a century now, I suppose it is no surprise that most people view government control of the roads not only as normal and proper, but also as the only way roads could be made. It is, however, disappointing to watch a man, who professes to speak for libertarians, cave in and concede the point to statists, especially when, on this particular topic, it is rather easy to demonstrate how wrong they are.

Any such argument as Congressman Frank made argues against the proofs of history itself. The first roads and highways in American history were privately constructed. New England had an extensive system of highways before government got involved, most built by companies dedicated exclusively to roadway construction. Many other roads were built by land speculators who wanted to increase the value of their holdings and were given to public use with no charge. Often examples like these are countered with something vague and irrelevant, like, “Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Things are different now.” When pressed for details, such as why the calendar date affects the market’s ability to provide roads or what specific differences of today would render private actors incapable of providing what they proved themselves very capable of providing before government took over the operation, statists usually falter, occasionally mumbling some unconvincing excuse about greater population density.

A little reflection on the nature of their argument reveals how silly it is. Does the statist argue that private actors lack the capability to create paved highways? This obviously cannot be the case, because even now roads are made by private companies; government is limited to supplying the funding and maintenance. The statist cannot make the case that roads would not be useful or that we would not want roads, because this forms the foundation of his argument: roads are necessary and only government can build them. Nor can the statist make any claim that, in a free market, people would not be at liberty to make the roads should they decide to. The very definition of a free market means that people are free to make what they are able with their justly owned property. The statist argument thus boils down to this: that in a free market people would have the capacity to build roads, would have the desire to build roads and would be free to build roads, but would not. Moreover, the statist’s solution to this quandary is to take some of these people who won’t build roads, make them government officials, and now roads will get built. The humble blogger shall assume that this argument can be left to fall of its own weight.

But in a free market who would actually get around to building the roads? An excellent question. Who would build the roads? Is there anyone with both the capital to build roads as well as the incentive? Let’s ask it another way: is there any company whose product is worth more with roads and therefore has something to gain by building them? Is there any company whose product is only worth something when there are roads to DRIVE on?

Ultimately, we can’t know exactly how, in a free market, roads would be built, by which processes and in which proportions until roads are left to the free market. Ford Motor Company, dissatisfied with the rate at which the government was building highways, once wanted to take over the business of building US highways, but the government would not allow it. I’m guessing they figured their cars were worth more with roads to drive them on. There might also be road companies who do nothing else; indeed there are privately operated and maintained highways right now (John Stossel documented one near Los Angeles which, because they charged the right price at the right time, never had traffic jams, thus reducing transit time from one end to the other by forty-five minutes. This highway has staff which monitor the road at all times and instantly send help to cars which break down as well as provide a free gallon of gas to cars which run out so that they can get to the nearest gas station. Basically, it’s the difference between the service you get at the BMV and the service you get at Disney World). Smaller roads would probably be maintained by cooperation between the businesses which want to attract customers, or by neighborhood associations such as already maintain lawns and pools in private developments right now.

Maybe someone will come up with other ideas, but the point is that the free market can do it, and it is disappointing to see P.J. O’Rourke thus cavorting with statists. While some economists mistakenly claim that there are public goods which only government can provide, they do so on grounds of non-rivalry and non-excludability, two aspects which roads do not have. The fact is, there is nothing that government does today which both needs doing and hasn’t been done at some time by private interests, even law enforcement and arbitration. Claiming that only government can provide roads is not just absurd on a priori grounds, it is proven wrong by history.

It is also the case, as is always the case in these matters, that with private provision of highways resources would be better allocated. Rather than building roads just to build them, for political reasons, generally after construction companies have lobbied for it, roads would be built where the public expressed a true need for them, this expression taking the form of willingness to pay to use the roads. Most likely, urban sprawl would be reduced, the population density of cities would grow which would make public transportation (which should also be privately provided) more feasible, and therefore pollution would also be reduced.

Upon reflecting on these considerations, the statist, if he is honest, must admit that his opposition to private highways is born of custom and ideology, not of logic. But how is he to reflect upon these considerations if the very people who should be expounding on them and educating him, putative libertarians like P.J. O’Rourke, either lack the guts or the sense to stand up for the free market?