Taking Politics Out of Transportation: Economist Bruce Benson on Private Roads 

I'm a Libertarian. When I take the World's Smallest Political Quiz, I score 100% for my libertarian political positions. And yet, I can't imagine how privatizing roads would work. It seems to me that competition couldn't work its marvelous magic because the space for building roads would be limited.

I took a class with this guy one semester, great professor

I'd pay extra for a road with no speed limits every time!

I would love to see a private road developed between two points, let's say seven miles apart, that's like a race-track. So you have apex and exit curbs, no speed limits, no intersections, one-way travel (of course there'd be two of these entirely separated). It'd be awesome for anyone with a performance car. For safety, the rule of "no passing on the right" could be enforced. In fact, this is precisely how the famous Nordschleife in Germany is set up most of the time. It's just a toll road.

I also believe roads should be privatized, but I have a hard time figure out how would you pay for it? - You don't want to stop everytime you take a swing and pay. Can someone recommend a great book on this subject?

Central planning in transportation infrastructure, energy, and land use has been an utter disaster economically, which not enough people have an understanding of. Subsidization and regulation of the transportation sectors have only corrupted the market and made everything less efficient and less affordable.

Mr. Benson has been educated beyond his intelligence.

@djussila The way it is now, people naturally choose the route that is quickest and most efficient for them. That is the best way to have all the roads balanced at peak efficiency, when efficiency is the only consideration. Charging higher tolls somewhere will just cause traffic jams somewhere else.

@free2question In the second case, I think a gasoline tax only discourages a person from driving; it doesn't dictate how or when they will drive. So, once a person has gas, he/she is willing to use any road without reservation at any time. Since people all basically think the same way, we all use the same road at the same time. A private road would likely charge more the more traffic there is. So, some people would start to leave earlier, find another route, or just pick a job closer to home.

I like Prof. Benson's ideas!

A great example is Japanise railways. They build the railways and then own rental units around the railways, and use that income to lower fare prices.

Roads and law enforcement are about the only two things that the government should be running.

Only because you've been conditioned to the current system of your daily life. Had it always been privatized, it would be as normal as the abundance of choices in the Technology world.

@Beljora And to support my point more, if WW2 got us out of the depression, Eisenhower's interstate system kept us from slipping back into another. It was the single greatest booster of the economy that the US has done since laissez faire, the rail road and the Erie Canal. And I'm certain if private roads were to work out on a national scale, private investors would have built them before Eisenhower.

Congestion wouldn't even be a problem if we didn't cram all these giant towers into a 5 square mile area. Allow the companies to build their towers anywhere they want, and most would not build them downtown. Then you'd have people going all kinds of different directions during 'rush hours' at 7AM and 5PM.

another point is that many toll roads will not have fees, but rather, perhaps have billboards and advertisements on the road

@silvercelli, you already have private shelter, private food, private haircuts, private education - why not private roads? Roads cost money no matter if they're public or private. If they're private - the road users pay, which encourages people to car pool, take buses, trains etc. If they're public - everyone pays via taxes regardless of use, which causes waste, neglect and traffic congestion as it's 'free' to use.

We had private roads during the 1800s through the turnpike industry. They were extremely cheap & unrestrictive. If road companies make costs too high for driving on their road/s, then people go to alternatives. If they can't because there are no alternatives, then there'll be less business, investment, & consumers in those districts. Less people would move there, there'd be less tourism, & more would leave. With higher toll costs & stricter rules means businesses that stay will have a harder & more costly time doing business. Meaning relatively higher prices, worse quality goods/services, lower wages, less/worse benefits, etc. It's like a mini government, has all the consequences of one, but it can't force you to do anything. Even if they buy all the roads around you, & cripple your community, they can only do that for so long in a free market. Those malicious few will lose money, & thereby their ability to hurt anyone. In a free market, they'd be profit driven towards long-term profits instead of short term through low time preference, to sufficiently fulfill their fiduciary duties, provide consistent wages & benefits for their constituents, & to earn more value overall (as a prosperous society is a more profitable for everyone, including them, given time). Being open, safe, & cheap is more profitable long term than tolling their population into oblivion. How can the road industry earn money, especially with any purchasing power, if the people that traverse on their roads don't even have a job? They have every incentive to lower costs & cooperate with other road companies. Since, if others make it harder to get on their roads, it'll lower profit for everyone in both real & numerical terms given time. There'll also be *contractual agreements* to ensure roads stay open. Many would make money from stuff like advertising such as billboards instead of tolls. Many would have *price contracts* to assure & attract businesses/customers with stable prices. Something that's illegal because of antitrust laws. The districts that assure the people that their areas are the best place to live win over the rest. Various companies will even buy shares of the road industry, & manage it such that people can get to their businesses as fast & efficiently as possible. A good portion of the profits made by the road industry will then be distributed amongst contributing members of society. These public utilities compete with other countries as well, not just other domestic districts. They want to attract more people from all around the world, as that means more profit, & the way to do that is to provide what they demand. Costs would naturally drop lower than foreign nations. Not just toll fees, but prices across the board since there's less taxation/inflation to finance inefficient, bloated, state-run road agencies. The only way to earn a real profit is to have purchasing power. The only way to have purchasing power is to have productivity. The districts that allow more freedom, are safe, have the shortest routes to demanded destinations, & are cheap would not only increase numerical revenue, but would allow for greater *real* revenue. It's within the private road industry's self interest to knock down barriers to entry. They'll merge & cooperate with others to sufficiently do so. They're mutually beneficial for everyone. Through sound finance the proper allocation & construction of these roads would be swiftly dealt with. Then there's the issue of properly allocating space. It's better for society that those who are demanded by the public get granted priority over others. Through price rationing, those who are contributing members of society can get to their destinations faster, thereby allowing them to be more productive. Meaning cheaper & better stuff everywhere for less. Also, to incentivize productivity throughout the economy, you must allow people to get what they demand. Many demand faster travel. By allowing them to buy that luxury with money, many will work to get it. Government roads in the states have left us with the world's worst traffic jams, an unbelievable death toll, roads going places nobody demands, & a bloated price on all of society with no alternatives. It's a one size fits all monopoly. The public delusion that something as simple as concrete on the ground can't be managed by private entities is prime testimony to how deep the state has manipulated us all.

@free2question The argument isn't about politicians building roads directly to their house. The point being made is that they take taxpayer money for infrastructure projects that benefit their district or state. Sometimes routing a highway to serve that area, making the whole route less direct.

I don;t get it. He makes a argument that private roads exist, but makes only a weak argument as to why private roads are better then public roads. Political influence is not enough of a reason. And he leaves out a big problem. How does private companies purchase land to create new roads without government use of emanate domain? I think this guy should stay were he is, between the ivory towers and leave the real world to the rest of us.

@Beljora I feel I should explain that last sentence because it kind of goes against common sense: Say a gas company decides to sell gas at $10(for a full tank) and finds they can get 100 people to buy at that price. They get $1000, then have upkeep of $900 for the station. So $100 profit. Now the government puts a 20% tax on, so it's now: $12($10+20%) and 80(100-20%) people will buy at that price. $2 go to government and $10 stay with the company... 80*$10=$800, $100 less than the $900 upkeep.

@scrappmutt2 The point is to decrease the cost as much as possible. Milton Friedman postulated that anything the government does costs an average of 2x as much as when the free market does it. If land is going to be scarce for a private company, then it already is for the government. If the private company can overcharge for necessities, then the government already is. The government doesn't work outside the laws of physics. It's just more ineffecient, because it cannot fail.

the problem is consumption, driving contributes to the problem. Roads, private public or otherwise are not the solution

@scrappmutt2 "if WW2 got us out of the depression" It didn't actually private investment and spending didn't recover until after WWII and indeed the economy didn't recover until Roosevelt didn't.

Why wouldn't what happened with Montana happen if a private company was building 90? I would love speed limits to go away, it's such a waste of police time and energy sitting there for hours at a time waiting for someone to speed past. Speeding makes up something like 3% of all accidents across the nation. It's really isn't as big of a danger as people might think. I also would love a special license. I don't like my driving skill lumped with an 80 year old granny driver when I'm 1/3 of her age.

@Beljora And what i am saying is this does happen now. Its where we get the term "highway robbery"

@B190489 Just like the transcontinental railroad. Yes, the govt funded efforts "succeed" first, but that success was built on immense waste, fraud, and inefficiency, and they all had to be bailed out at one time or another. James Hill built the Great Northern transcontinental railroad privately, profitably, and never went bankrupt, unlike EVERY govt funded railroad. So what if it took him 5 years longer, he did it for a small fraction of the cost!

I'm a mostly libtertarian guy, but the roads thing is too far IMO.. I live on a private road, and it's in the worst shape you've ever seen, we spend way too much money on tires and alignments as a result, the issue is no one of us can afford to pave it on our own, we tried to pool together to get it done and we have worthless, useless people who live at the bottom who just want no part in helping and we certainly are not going to break out own bank accounts to give them the benefit for free

@B190489 To clarify: I'm talking specifically of physical force. Of those things you've mentioned, only forcing 'the humans' to respect authority falls under the category of physical force.

@djthereplay - Then that needs to be changed. Just because people are not granted the option to use private alternatives to a government good and are forced to use and pay for it does not make that the best way for providing that good. An example is the postal service monopoly on mail delivery. I find it ironic that you insist government does NOT control everything invasively, yet you also use the fact that it DOES as proof that government is somehow the only way to provide that good.

@Beljora I'm talking about the gas stations on said roads, not nec. gas prices. It's sort of like movie theaters and popcorn prices. Imagine a long private toll road. You get on it cheap, but the only services available for you on the road are provided by the road owner at a highly inflated rate just like popcorn in the theater. Aside from traffic jams, and some poorly designed exits, I havn't had a problem with American public roads, so why fix what isn't really broke?

He makes a persuasive argument, i must admit.

@MilwaukeeF40C I don't care if it's a "right", there are some things that the majority of people in a state agree upon to let the government tax us for and provide, roads are one of those things, for good reason.

@B190489 "How do you want to avoid killings without force?" Let's see if you can grasp this: Killing is the use of force to take a life. If the use of force is wrong for everyone, then killing is wrong for everyone by definition. The state is the institution with the legal monopoly on the "legitimate" use of force. Abolish that monopoly, the state is abolished. If people want a service, they will pay for it voluntarily.

I'm not so sure about this. When you think about it, there's only one best way to get from point A to point B. Only one person can own that road. It's not like another firm can come in and build a second "most efficient road". So it's by nature, a non-competitive industry.

I disagree that privatization of roads would take the politics out of them. Private companies would seek political influence to win contracts or be provided access in the public domain areas. Why, today we see private firms leveraging political clout to take private property to develop them into something else. When it comes to money, everything is political. Otherwise, nice vid.

look at how bad government takes care of our infrastructure. if you actually think about it private roads are very possible. business such as Walmart would build roads so people could come to their stores they certainly wouldn't charge people because their goal is to get people to come shopping. it is highways that would charge people and they would have competition if they charged too much people would just opt for flying or train companies would start building rail lines across the country.

You see i dont have a problem with toll roads existing. i have a problem with: 1 the price they charge for the condition they are in and 2 the accessibility of them (traffic) compared to the rest of the northeast, I have it good here in MA (with the exception of getting charged to exit the airport) On the same breath i believe that if you are charged (tolled) to use a highway, road or major route. you would be able to drive as you please and as fast as you like, providing conditions and safety

Interesting. One thing this makes me wonder about is gov't sovereign immunity. With public roads if an auto accident results from the gov'ts failure to repair/maintain the road, replace/post hazard signs, etc then the gov't can't be sued. I think in Ohio, they just pay your PD Ded if your car is damaged. Wouldn't a larger private road system open up the private owners to potential litigation? Wouldn't that deter them from wanting to own the roads?

Uhh... those specialized roads do mostly exist. They are called trains. They are worthless in terms of moving people.

This guy should really listen to himself. A private system would be more efficient than a government one? Can someone explain to me how a private business can build a freeway through a major metropolis without resorting to eminent domain?

@Beljora I want to point out, I live in a small town where there is one beautiful apartment building in the middle of town you can basically see from anywhere in the town, because it's so large. I, and most people here, love the building; it's not a blight in the least. As a private company, they never would have been allowed to build it new, but it so happens it used to be a public utility building that they bought up and renovated.

@Dissidentsdissent Of course not. By using the road, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions of the owner.

I would rather pay American citizens for the use of their roads than I would some foreign corporation. Bravo! What a splendid thing!

@Beljora The company would realize it has to increase its prices astronomically to get the same profit again. So they figure out that 50(100-50%) people will buy at $24($20+50%). They'd get $20 per person, $20*50 will get them the $1000 they wanted again.

@wimscheers He is saying lets get the feds out and Demand in. If individuals have the money they build their own. If a group of businesses sees a profit in doing so they build their own. If a community of some sees benefit, they build a road. They can be managed however the owners choose including letting no one else use them. These are the same trade offs that people have to make with everything else, why not roads?

@B190489 "To kill is a ILLEGAL force." Police and other govt agents kill every day, legally. Please, make up your mind. Either it's legal, or it's not. Under your system, it's perfectly legal to kill if you're a govt agent, which contradicts your assertion that killing is an illegal use of force. Hypocrite.

america has the best road system in the world and it help america become the greatest country in the world. why would we want to change the system so some one could make money yeah that will make it better , lets invest in whats already the best.

@Banc2008 thats part of the point is that they WOULDNT be able to just steal land like government does.

@scrappmutt2 In other words, if the movie theater is charging you for necessities, you wouldn't go as often and the normal supply/demand curve takes effect. Unlike, as I think you're suggesting, if you got into the movie theater only to 'discover' they're overcharging for necessities working outside the supply/demand curve.

I'm sorry, i just can't get on board with overall private roads. Ever get on a toll road and visit a gas station? prices are always jacked up way too high. Ever live in a city that has no real street regulations for home builders? roads are always narrow and rarely include sidewalks. I understand that there may be efficiencies in privitization, but i'm siding with roads being in the public domain. Vegas is a bad example to quote, because the streets there are very well organized by the county

@Beljora I think the only way to make it feasable is through tech. Everyone has a GPS that reports the streets they are on. For every quarter mile or so you drive on a street, you are autocharged a cent or so which goes to the street owner. Owners would then be incentivized to maintain their streets and keep it traffic free. But that plan may intrude into privacy rights, and would still take cooperation in public (common protocols), which is a good role for gov. Otherwise, i don't think it works

@TheSupremeSkeptic Duh, people will build the roads. People will provide defense. People will provide schools, courts and prisons. They are all services and products, and it is only people who ever provided them. Your assumption is that the institution called government is required to shove guns in our face to pay for certain services we all want and would pay for. Schools in Los Angeles cost taxpayers $30,000 per student per year. Could you or I drop that cost and still profit? SURE!

"roads and POLICE"... O.o! Private roads makes 100% sense and I agree is logic (can not be 100% private, some locations would not be rentable, and they need the road). But police NO WAY!, what next, private armys..ups, actually is what you use most in war. :-(

@B190489: "why the hell are you thinking that a road is more efficient if it would be private?" From empirical date. In my country, in which a major private highway road greatly improved traffic and recently a new private tunnel road was built which will cut the time between destinations from 45 minutes to about 5. Also, private businesses have a better incentive to maintain their roads and keep a good traffic. Simple economics, which are obviously beyond your grasp

the roads are monopolys now, and they suck ass.

@scrappmutt2 Gas prices are high because of high taxation... Compared to the rest of the world, our gas actually seems cheap because of our relatively low gas tax. Taxes have a multiplying affect on price, because a 20% increase in price from taxes means less buyers, means the seller has to raise the price to make a profit.

@Beljora I can agree with Friedman, but i'm not willing to go so far in freemarket as to be Anarcho-Capitalist. I do believe that there are some positive roles for Gov, road making being one. Despite the inefficient costs, I don't feel like I or anyone is being robbed on behalf of streets, many other things, of course. In the case of the Interstate, some towns would not exist without their being built, and it is unlikely that a private venture would of taken the risk to build the interstate

Congestion is caused by the piss poor capacity of cars. So, many more people should be moved by rail.

I like Reason's posts a lot, but this one confuses me. Generally roads are things that the government does well. A private firm could make money on toll roads, but I doubt they would be preferable to parallel "free" roads. That I-90 goes up into Montana isn't that surprising. It can't exactly go through Yellowstone. It's not like Gerrymandering. Not a whole lot of politics there. More misses than hits in this vid.

@B190489 So government does not have a monopoly on pretty much all roads? If there is one thing we've learned empirically, it is that government wastes resources because it uses coercion to steal, then redistributes according to political, not economical reasoning, and lastly, consumes a big portion of collection resources itself.

@fitobcnfito What because the public armies have been working out so well? The fact that the military is funded by compulsory payments is the reason for aggressive war. Armies that have to justify their expenses would never for instance be able to invade Iraq. A private army would find it very hard to make aggressive war pay.

Can you sure people who leave potholes that fuck up your car on these private roads?

roads are not something Id like to see privatized.

@newperve Yeah, that's why i put "if" there. It's a debatable topic i still fight with myself on.

@scrappmutt2 I guess we'll just have to disagree on that... I live in a small town and if there wasn't an access road going out to the highway I know I wouldn't just sit on my hands thinking "Oh, it sucks so much that there's no way for me to get anywhere..." Roads will form, because they are demanded. Not to mention we're already at a point where the roads are built, and we're just deciding who should maintain them.

@newperve "Free access" has nothing to do with money, it's about freedom to travel. How do you possibly think it would be a good thing to ban people from driving where they want to go? You also believe the lie that somebody is getting something for free. We all pay gas tax, and we all pay property tax. That is how our public roads are funded.

@TheSupremeSkeptic You’re talking about anarchists... Libertarians believe in a small federal government system where it only controls Defense, Law Enforcement, Foreign Policy and maters of state (such as currency). In areas such as: Roads, Schools, Health Care, Agriculture, Housing and so on. The federal government has not place, because constitutionally they are not allowed, and every time they interfere with the free market system things get worse.

@B190489: Still, business have a much better incentives to maintain roads. And besides, the real question should be, why should people have their wealth extorted at the point of a gun to pay for roads they don't drive on? Also, by what measures do you compare which highway system is better? I don't know about the highway in your country, but if a private business can do it just as well, if not better, I don't see a reason to have the gov to continue extorting people's wealth for it.

First time I've seen someone try to float the idea that we're not paying for our roads via our gas tax. I think it's kind of an absurd point. If the tax pays for the upkeep of the roads, then mission accomplished. If the tax does that and still doesn't change behavior, then obviously the cost of maintaining roads isn't high enough that it SHOULD change our behavior.

@ZombiedustXXX I have personally been to Germany, (mainland) China & Japan they all have insane bullet trains & the people who live in these countries can't say enough good things about them. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." - Mark Twain

@richardcadbury govt would give a DEED to the private company...at that point the govt no longer owns it.

@B190489 "THE STATE HAS A MONOPOLY OF LEGAL, LEGAL, LEGAL, FORCES!" Do you understand what that means? I don't think so. Having the monopoly on the legitimate initiation of force means that a govt can do, legitimately, what it is illegitimate for a private person or group to do. Here's a short list. Govt, private: Taxation, robbery; Eminent Domain, robbery; Civil forfeiture, robbery; Conscription, slavery; Arrest, kidnapping; Search, trespassing and theft; Collateral damage, murder.

@jkessler410 Drivable roads are not a right, they are something that the users should pay the cost. Early improved roads like the Lincoln Highway were projects by private organizations. It was bicyclists who first demanded subsidized roads, and companies like Ford joined in to stimulate car sales. The idea of roads as an entitlement is not libertarian, because of the high maintenance cost and the fact that they subsidized inefficient growth patterns and harmed market based transportation.

@B190489 "For me not paying taxes is theft." Then go ahead and pay. If you use force to take from someone else, that's theft.

@msudave54 "Generally roads are things that the government does well." Well? 400,000 (four hundred THOUSAND) people have died on govt roads since 2000 in the US alone! How can that possibly be called done "well"?

@B190489 The reason why you don't pay the toll is not because you vote (or don't) but because someone else was coerced to pay it for you! Prices are not arbitrary as you communists think. Prices are set by supply and demand. If a private road owner hikes prices, he will lose customers. Private roads were, are possible and more efficient than statist roads.

@scrappmutt2 Toll road prices are jacked up, because they're owned by the city. The city makes a huge profit off the toll roads, then diverts the money to non-road projects. Meaning both crappy roads and high prices.

@B190489 "Without force we don't have a stable funding." No. Without force, govt doesn't have funding, because no one wants it. What people actually want gets funded voluntarily, without force.

@JohnColt A system which is already naturally balanced according to resistance to flow will surely not be improved by artificially coercing the flow with influences not directly caused by traffic. Any fluid technician knows that the way to increase flow along any given artery is to increase the size of it. Installing an orifice (tolls) to divert flow away from one path increases the pressure in the entire system. Increasing the size of a major artery will lower the pressure of the system.

@free2question No of course the top stock holders wouldn't be tempted to divert the road because it's their money. Gasoline tax discourages driving on all roads, not just ones likely to be congested, so it's an inefficient way to discourage congestion.

@B190489 Hatred against jews and blacks is racism because jews and blacks are a race! Social darwinism isn't constricted to racism. But that doesn't matter because libertarians are not social darwinists! You have to bring forth some evidence for your claim else it cannot be taken seriously!

You know what will have even less congestion and even MORE efficiency? Trains.

@BabelOn4infinity not it's not, it's actually a paradise of peace, culture & progress.

@ralphinator2 If your implying that socialized medicine is somehow cheaper to the consumer than private health care your not looking at the big picture. Ask any Canadian how much he or she pays in taxes. They make up for the cost in different ways by taxing more on goods and services. A lot of that tax then goes to health care system. Health care in other countries isn't "free" or "discounted". Everyone picks up the tab. Even those who are poor.

@ralphinator free market competition will drive prices low while quality rises

@ralphinator2 What is good about USING SOMEBODY ELSE'S PROPERTY to go where you want to go? If you're right and we all paid for the roads (did we buy them at market rate or eminent domain them?) then what is your problem with private roads? If you're already paying, why is it important to you that we pay via one method rather than another? You don't pay for the use of the roads, you pay for the use of the gas, which means you're not paying for what you use re congestion.

@B190489 This isn't the reality, taxes aren't low relative to any kind of historical precedent. The problem of government roads rests in the problem of state production, without a pricing system to direct the allocation of resources money to build the roads is spent inefficiently. The outcome is an inflated highway system, roads that would never be build by a private firm are thrown up at a loss and roads that need to be widened remained narrow because their is no profit in widening them.

@TheSupremeSkeptic Did you not listen? He says the government would provide a deed to the company and then once the private company takes over, the profit/loss system that roads would be operating under would improve these roads tremendously. As for education, no Libertarian is against public schools run by the STATES, just not the Federal government...i.e. most libertarians want to ban the Dept. of Education. As for the prisons and courts...you clearly lack an understanding of libertarianism

@JohnColt There are 300,000,000 (Three hundred million) people in the United States. The post office was enshrined by the founders. You are embarrassing libertarians.

@Violent2aShadow I'm sure you're aware that eminent domain is a tool that the government wields, not private business alone. Now, to answer you're question: I want to build a road through your land. There are numerous ways to do this, nut I'm sure the primary way a business would go about it is to offer you a nice monetary reward for you property. Sale or lease. Do you consent?

@djussila That's bullshit. Charging a toll on highways would only decrease congestion on the highway, but increase it on all of the "free" roads. Drivers can already pick their routes, according to what will be fastest or easiest, instead of what their economic status is.

@JohnColt 40,000 out of 300,000,000. And most of those are related to driver error, not the road itself. Look, I'm not saying government is answer. If there is a strong case for private roads, this vid didn't make it. Just random hypothetical ideas don't really connect. Government can do some things well. This is why the founders put the post office in the constitution. What government does and how it does it is up to an informed citizenry.

@JohnColt "private roads are better and cheaper"? Really? How are they cheaper? I suppose you think private health care is cheaper, too.

@B190489 You'll have to excuse my economic ignorance but I wasn't really going after the monopoly description at the time. Let me change my imitation to better describe your example, it is a little more ridiculous, "Private companies wouldn't let other private companies compete with them." I am not sure how they will manage this without state mandate. Why doesn't a landscape full of roads each from another company make sense? Especially if the roads are full of cars.

@remaxjon We are all getting the benefit of drivable roads, the point is, if you have crappy , lazy, worthless neighbors, they won't do their part to help upkeep your road.. it is kind of nice that they are forced to through taxes. I'm libertarian on so many levels, but businesses are not going to send snow plows out to clear roads in your neighborhood, only near their shops.

@B190489 "Why you arw against force? Without force we don't have a stable funding."(sic) This is what I mean. We just begin at too much of a divide. It's one thing to argue with moderates, but arguing with a socialist is just a waste of time. You will use force again and again until people are perfectly the way the majority want them. This supresses individuality. It supresses art. It surpresses genius. I don't want to live in that world.

@B190489 3. Why are we arguing about this? I'm not a racist and libertarians generally are NOT racist. 4. Saying that libertarians are Nazis, WITH the assumption that libertarians have anything incommon with the Nazis, is like saying that because both sets, A and B, include every element of the set C, A and B are the same. You are forgetting all the possible elements that can be different between A and B.

hmm privately run roads and motorways sounds like an expansion of government to me.

@StateExempt Maybe because you do not insist that it costs our government money that our goverment prints and presses which we all share as Americans to provide the proper materials needed to do that good . With the Postal Service Monopoly, Some Politicians are making postal workers overpay to keep the benefits of their job to a level where it brings them down. Difference, Investing in infrastructure and safer roads, good. Sucking money out of postal workers, bad. - Dwight