Roads and Infrastructure

Can roads be privatized? Let's look to places like Sweden and Finland, and see the positive results. Some think Nordic countries such as Sweden and Finland as socialist due to their extensive welfare system, yet they're have lower business taxes, and the vast majority of roads in Sweden and Finland are operated by the private sector and maintained by local communities. It costs less, works better, like was the case in the U.S. before FDR got the Fed involved. ℹ️ Info           ~ Aristotle Sabouni Created: 2022-03-13

In the U.S. it also helps to remember that the vast majority of roads were created before the federal government got involved in national highways, and they worked just fine... often better, and definitely much cheaper and with more local control and less waste. People that love big government can never reconcile this reality with their imagined world where Government makes things better.

Examining Sweden and Finland’s public-private road model may give us insight into how private roads can operate in the United States.

In 2001, a Swedish government-commissioned evaluation found PRAs could run their roads at about half the cost as for the national roads -- and that's in a tiny country with almost complete homogeny. In the U.S. the results are likely to be far, far better. So the idea that without the government, who would pay for the roads? The people would, only it would cost a fraction as much, and be better managed.

There's also a lot of research done on many ways to finance roads in America that would be better: (1) Lottery (2) Consumption Tax (3) Voluntary Tax (4) Usage fees (5) Cooperatives (what the Scandanavians use) (6) Land sales. You don't need an income or gas taxes, though the latter works too.

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Mass Transit If an idea has to be subsidized, it's probably not a good (economically viable) idea that will offer mass benefit.

Libertarian Libertarian/Classical Liberalism, is just the belief that liberty should be the core principle of their philosophy.

Scandinavian Miracle Rubes believe that Scandanavian countries upped their Social Programs and it had no impacts on their economy or culture.

Tags: Mass Transit  Libertarian  Scandinavian Miracle