PRIVATIZE THE ROADS by Walter Block
6 min readSep 16, 2019
Privatize the Roads
Walter Block
I f the government demanded the sacrifice of 50,000 citizens
each year, an outraged public would revolt. If a religious
sect planned to immolate 523,335 in the next decade, it
would be toppled. If a Manson-type cult murdered 790 peo-
ple to celebrate Memorial Day, the press would demand the
greatest manhunt in this country’s history.
If we learned of a disease that killed 2,077 children under
the age of five each year, or a nursing home that allowed
7,346 elderly people to die each year, no stone would be left
unturned to combat the enemy.
If private enterprise were responsible for this butchery, a
cataclysmic reaction would ensue: Congressmen would ap-
point investigative panels, the Justice Department would seek
out antitrust violations, corporate executives would be jailed,
and there would be growing cries for nationalization.
In fact, the government is indeed responsible for a real-life
slaughter of these exact proportions: the toll taken on our
nation’s roadways. Whether at the local, state, regional, or
national level, it is government that builds, runs, manages,
administers, repairs, and plans the road network.
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267
While many blame alcohol and excessive speed as causes
of highway accidents, they ignore the more fundamental rea-
son of government ownership and control. Ignoring this is
like blaming a snafu in a restaurant on the fact that a poorly
maintained oven went out, or that the waiter fell on a greasy
floor with a loaded tray. Of course the proximate causes of
customer dissatisfaction are uncooked meat or food in their
laps. Yet how can these factors be blamed by themselves,
while the role of the restaurant’s management is ignored?
It is the restaurant manager’s job to insure that the ovens
are performing satisfactorily, and that the floors are properly
maintained. If he fails, the blame rests on his shoulders, not
on the ovens or floors. We hold responsible for the murder,
the finger on the trigger, not the bullet. If unsafe conditions
prevail in a private, multi-story parking lot, or in a shopping
mall, the entrepreneur in question is held accountable.
Why then is there apathy to the continuing atrocity of
government roads? Why is there no public outcry? Probably
because most people do not see any alternative to government
ownership. Just as no one “opposes” or “protests” a volcano,
which is believed to be beyond the control of man, there are
few who oppose governmental roadway control. But it is my
contention that to virtually eliminate highway deaths we
need to put ownership and control of roads into private
hands, and let the entire service be guided by the free market.
The notion of a fully private market in roads, streets, and
highways is likely to be rejected out of hand because people
feel that government road management is inevitable. Gov-
ernments have always owned roads, so any other system is
unthinkable.
But there is nothing unique about transportation: the
economic principles we accept as a matter of course in practi-
cally every other arena of human experience apply here too.
As always, the advantage enjoyed by the market is the auto-
matic reward and penalty system imposed by profits and
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THE FREE MARKET READER
losses. When customers are pleased, they continue patronizing
those merchants who have served them well. Businesses that
succeed in satisfying consumers earn a profit, while entrepre-
neurs who fail to satisfy them are soon driven to bankruptcy.
The market process governs the production of the bulk of
our consumer goods and capital equipment. This same proc-
ess that brings us fountain pens, frisbees, and fishsticks can
also bring us roads.
Why would a company or individual want to build a road
or buy an already existing one? For the same reason as in any
other business: to earn a profit. The necessary funds would
be raised in a similar manner: by floating and issuance of
stock, by borrowing, or from past savings of the owner. The
risks would be the same: attracting customers and pros-
pering, or failing to do so and going bankrupt. Just as private
enterprise rarely gives burgers away for free, use of road space
would require payment. A road enterprise would face virtu-
ally all of the same problems shared by other businesses:
attracting a labor force, subcontracting, keeping customers
satisfied, meeting the price of competitors, innovating, bor-
rowing money, expanding, etc.
The road entrepreneur would have to try to contain con-
gestion, reduce traffic accidents, and plan and design new fa-
cilities in coordination with already existing highways, as
well as in conjunction with the plans of others for new ex-
pansion. He would also take over the jobs the government
does now like (sometimes) filling potholes, installing road
signs and guard rails, maintaining lane markings, repairing
traffic signals, and so on for the myriad of “road furniture”
that keeps traffic moving.
Under the present system, a road manager has nothing to
lose if an accident happens and several people are killed on a
government turnpike. A civil servant draws his annual salary
regardless of the accident toll piled up on his domain. But if
he were a private owner and he had to compete with other
PRIVATIZATION VS. GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP
269
road owners, sovereign consumers who care about safety
would not patronize his road, and thus the owner would lose
money and go bankrupt.
A common objection to private roads is the specter of
having to halt every few feet and toss a coin into a tollbox.
This simply would not occur on the market. Imagine acorn-
mercial golf course operating on a similar procedure: forcing
the golfers to wait in line at every hole, or demanding pay-
ment every time they took a swipe at the ball. Such an enter-
prise would very rapidly lose customers and go broke. Private
roads would create economies of scale, where it would pay
entrepreneurs to buy the toll collections rights from the mil-
lions of holders, in order to rationalize the system into one in
which fewer toll gates blocked the roads.
One scenario would follow the shopping center model: a
single owner or builder would buy a section of territory and
build roads and houses. Just as many shopping center build-
ers maintain control over parking lots, malls, and other com-
mon areas, the entrepreneur would continue the operation of
common areas such as the roads, sidewalks, etc. Tolls for resi-
dents, guests, and deliveries might be pegged at low levels, or
be entirely lacking, as in modern shopping centers.
Consider a road on which traffic must continuously be
moving. If it’s owned by one person or company, who either
built it or bought the rights of passage from the previous
owners, it would be foolish for him to install dozens of toll-
gates per mile. There now exists inexpensive electrical devices
which can register the car or truck passing by any fixed point
on the road. As the vehicle passes the check point, an
electrical impulse can be transmitted to a computer that can
produce one monthly bill for all roads use, and even mail it
out automatically. Road payments could be facilitated in as
unobtrusive a manner as utility bills are now.
It is impossible to predict the exact shape of an industry
that does not exist. I am in no position to set up the blueprint
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THE FREE MARKET READER
for a future private market in transport. I cannot tell how
many road owners there will be, what kind of rules of the
road they will set up, how much it will cost per mile, etc. I
can say that a competitive market process would lead high-
way entrepreneurs to seek newer and better ways of provid-
ing services to their customers.
Now we come back to the question of safety. Government
road managers are doing a terrible job. Consider what tran-
spires when safety is questioned in other forms of transporta-
tion to see a corollary. When an airline experiences an accident,
passengers think twice before flying that airline and typically
it loses customers. Airlines with excellent safety records have
discovered that the public is aware of safety and make choices
based upon it. An “exploding Pinto” wouldn’t stay on a pri-
vate road long, nor would reckless drivers and potholes.
I don’t know all the details of how a future free-market
road system might work. But I do know that “there has to be
a better way.” And it is the free market.