Toll Roads: The Libertarian Way?
At first I was a bit amused at this article in the San Jose- Mercury News on plans for additional tolls being levied on folks not only entering San Francisco, but leaving.
I'd often thought, while driving past the northbound lane toll booths on the Golden Gate Bridge, it would make more sense to charge tolls for leaving rather than entering. Hey, I don't want to go to San Francisco in the first place. Shouldn't you charge for what people want to do- like leaving?
Then I got to thinking and, all kidding aside, the idea of setting up more and more toll booths, where people often have no choice but to pass through, is kind of scary. They could put them just about anywhere and make all kinds of money and you wouldn't have any choice but to pay whatever toll they felt like asking for, unless you just stayed home!
About the only thing remotely funny about these kinds of ideas is you'll hear some libertarians suggest we privatize all the roads and fund them through...you guessed it: toll fees!
posted by Fred Mangels @ 10:28 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I predict: full car scans, including naked body imaging, at toll booths within a decade.
Good point, and maybe even permanent drunk driving checkpoints? Think of the possibilities for the brave new world.
This comment has been removed by the author.
beautifully written and so inspiring, i thought this was a really great post to read. i'll check back for new posts by you!
Sort of off topic here,but I thought you'd like this news,Fred.
"CNN - Ron Paul to chair House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy".
Toll roads and toll gates were the mark of legal highway robbery for centuries. Toll gates in effect are the driving force of the capitalist system. The capitalist system makes a small minority of men and women rich by their position as toll gate keepers on any mass item the majority of people need to function or be entertained in our world, e.g. Bill Gates becomes super rich because he controls the gates on computer windows functioning, e.g. Oprah becomes super rich because millions view her and advertisers ride her popularity, e.g. Michael Jordan becomes super rich because he draws super crowds. Why do we let the system function this way? It ends up costing all of us a hell of a lot of money we don't have. I haven't been able to afford going to any Reggae concerts or any music concert for decades because they're priced beyond my means, beyond the means of most of us except teens and young adults without household bills to pay.
It was nice in the '60's when you could go to a park and hear really good music by bands just playing for the sure pleasure of it. Now they play for lining the pockets of music producers and venue owners charging what the traffic will bear and given the kids skewering the admission scale upwards, the traffic pays through the nose.
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