This great article is spot on, but you need to develop this topic further in future articles.

The fact is that were it not for the power of eminent domain combined with the power of the federal government to put into place Soviet-style plans whose costs and unintended consequences cascade and amplify down through decades, we would not now be stuck with 5.7 million miles of highway we cannot afford to maintain and that not only does not justify itself economically, but has generated hundreds of thousands of square miles of auto dependent Sprawl development that will prove unmanageable and unlivable over the coming decades as fossil fuel supplies continue down the depletion curve.

We would never have had the massively expensive interstate highway system if the government had not had the power to use force to seize the land and the funds necessary to build this coast-to-coast white elephant. If the user had had to pay, mile for mile, not only would we have fewer highways, but our dense, compact older cities would still be healthy, our transit companies and railroads would still be operating profitably, and we would be far less dependent on oil imports and might not have substantially depleted domestic supplies. There is nothing that promotes conservation and the most productive use of resources like having to pay the cost of what you get out of your own pocket.

The same could be said of other wasteful, overscaled systems built by the federal government at the expense of the taxpayers, such as the fantastic Colorado River plumbing system. It was paid for by the dense, wealth-producing cities of the east and midwest, whose denizens were forced to subsidize their own destruction as the desert cities, which were livable only because of the huge dams built at taxpayer expense, which made it possible to build cities containing millions of people in the most forbidding climate in the country. Now we are stuck with a huge system we will be unable to afford to maintain, and which is not even meeting current needs.

I often wonder just how different the physical and economic landscapes would be if our country had been ruled by Free Market principles. It’s impossible to say, but it’s safe to assert that in a context where people must pay for what they get and are not permitted to impose their risks and costs on others, that they will conserve more and waste less, and in general put available resources to the best possible use… which is not destroying our best cities and best property to build massive systems that generate more costs than benefits and lock us all into atrociously uneconomical life ways.

-Paul Wharton

I could recast that statement to fit a variety of other issues. Such as: “We shun our central cities, even their parks, at night and curse the crime wave, never imagining that cities might be safer if ordinary citizens and lawful residents were trusted to use deadly force, if necessary, in defense of themselves or their friends and neighbors.” Or: “We submit meekly to actual or virtual strip searches, in whole or in part, and divide our curses between inept security officials or a faceless enemy that makes the airlanes dangerous, never imagining that the air lines might be able to keep themselves safe by arming their own flight and cabin crews.” Or: “We stand in line at crowded and ineptly managed Divisions of Motor Vehicles and curse the wait, never imagining that alternatives that involve personal autonomy and self-responsibility and -reliance not only exist but might run faster and safer.”