Roads and Infrastructure

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Many view the United States as a free market capitalist state and Nordic countries such as Sweden and Finland as socialist due to their extensive welfare system. Yet, in the United States, most roads, highways, and other transportation infrastructure are publicly owned and operated. Meanwhile, the vast majority of roads in Sweden and Finland are operated by the private sector and maintained by local communities. The Norwegian model works better and costs half as much. 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.


Examining Sweden and Finland’s public-private road model may give us insight into how private roads can operate in the United States. [1]

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. [2]

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📚 References