Selfishness Lecture Notes 7-20 New Ruskin College

 
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07-20-2004
Technical Correction Number 5:
Vehicle Transponders and Market Allocation of Highways and Roads.
 
The most common misunderstanding is that the tolls or usage charges are necessarily designed to discourage use.  This misunderstanding occurs because the most publicized use of this technology has been to limit traffic in London’s city center.  Here the charges were designed to discourage or limit traffic.  However, this need not be the case for normal use.
 
The charges can be made to vary with the value of the use.  A lane of highway in an urban area is more valuable than a lane of highway in Nebraska.  (No offense Nebraska.)  At rush hour many motorists may have wished for another lane, in there direction, however the cost of providing the extra lane in their urban area would be higher than providing another lane on a highway in Nebraska.  The value of a highway varies with location and time of use and the user is fairly charged for these variables. 
 
However, as simple gas tax is paid at a constant rate depending on the gas mileage of the user’s vehicle.  Whereas the tax charged by metering the transponder can be apportioned to the value consumed or conferred on the user.  Even if the transponder metered “use tax” only replaced the gas tax the consumer would be benefited by having the tax assessed, based on the value derived. . . . .
 
In all of these areas there is a prejudice against the market.  Yet, without market forces exercising their influence there is no way of overcoming the selfishness that is naturally the human condition.  The elite, secure in their privileged positions are perhaps no more selfish than the rest of us, yet removed from the exigencies of circumstance, they exercise the veto over all proposal for change, in all of these areas, and freed from having to suffer the consequences of their veto, they exercise power without responsibility.    Selfishness    
 
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