Credit: Ron Paul Forums
The question “who will build the roads” has always been a strawman.... Dragodos SA built the express lanes for I-595 in Ft. Lauderdale in exchange for the Toll Concessions for the express lanes...... but they had to agree to improve the free lanes as well. Ie because of public pressure and their desire to make money it was a win-win but without this particular State protecting the poor from being raped by the private Corp (guaranteeing free lanes) the whole road would be a toll road.
I have not yet gotten my head squarely in gear to accept the Anarchist Capitalist concept that the initiation of force should not be used to acquire land for the pubic benefit of public works projects.
Likewise the Private Company needed to use the Power of eminent domain to take the land to widen the road in certain spots where hold outs wanted millions instead of fair market value....
The point to this diatribe is to show how the State protects the poor from the elite as well as protects the elite from the poor in separate but connected issues.
Some people complain that the State should not be able to restrict the profits a land owner can make by holding out for maximum payment rather than fair market value.
And some people complain that the public at large deserves no free lanes; that negotiating and giving in to create free lanes is selling out extortion.
1. The road is profitable even with providing free lanes otherwise it would not have been privately financed built and owned.
2. You’re correlating the act of withholding the transfer of property rights to build or expand a road with the “cost of doing business”. While this concept is technically accurate, it could push a project out of budget and off the profitability scale per the market research.... The circumstance is common but is the most aggravating thing known to road builders. So the eminent domain process actually saves the hold-out’s life; In a world with no rulers, because the road will get built where commercial interests are both pushing for its arteries to be expanded as well as the jolt to the economy the project will bring in jobs and wages; because not everyone can be the Anarchist Titans of Business they perceive themselves to be.