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private preserves, the cost of which has been partially foisted upon the public.
Telephone, postal, and highway systems are all networks, and none of them is free. Access to the telephone network is
limited by time charges on each call. These rates are relatively small and could be reduced without changing the nature
of the system. Use of the telephone system is not in the least limited by what is transmitted, although it is best used
by those who can speak coherent sentences in the language of the other party-an ability universally possessed by
those who wish to use the network. Postage is usually cheap. Use of the postal system is slightly limited by the price
of pen and paper, and somewhat more by the ability to write. Still, when someone who does not know how to write has
a relative or friend to whom he can dictate a letter, the postal system is at his service, as it is if he wants to ship a
recorded tape.
The highway system does not similarly become available to someone who merely learns to drive. The telephone and
postal networks exist to serve those who wish to use them, while the highway system mainly serves as an accessory
to the private automobile. The former are true public utilities, whereas the latter is a public service to the owners of cars,
trucks, and buses. Public utilities exist for the sake of communication among men; highways, like other institutions of
the right, exist for the sake of a product. Auto manufacturers, we have already observed, produce simultaneously both
cars and the demand for cars. They also produce the demand for multilane highways, bridges, and oilfields. The private
car is the focus of a cluster of right-wing institutions. The high cost of each element is dictated by elaboration of the
basic product, and to sell the basic product is to hook society on the entire package.
To plan a highway system as a true public utility would discriminate against those for whom velocity and individualized
comfort are the primary transportation values, in favor of those who value fluidity and destination. It is the difference
between a far-flung network with maximum access for travelers and one which offers only privileged access to restricted
areas.
Transferring a modern institution to the developing nations provides the acid test of its quality. In very poor countries
roads are usually just good enough to permit transit by special, high-axle trucks loaded with groceries, livestock, or
people. This kind of country should use its limited resources to build a spiderweb of trails extending to every region and
should restrict imports to two or three different models of highly durable vehicles which can manage all trails at low
speed. This would simplify maintenance and the stocking of spare parts, permit the operation of these vehicles around
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the clock, and provide maximum fluidity and choice of destination to all citizens. This would require the engineering of
all-purpose vehicles with the simplicity of the Model T, making use of the most modern alloys to guarantee durability,
with a built-in speed limit of not more than fifteen miles per hour, and strong enough to run on the roughest terrain. Such
vehicles are not on the market because there is no demand for them. As a matter of fact, such a demand would have to
be cultivated, quite possibly under the protection of strict legislation. At present, whenever such a demand is even
slightly felt, it is quickly snuffed out by counterpublicity aimed at universal sales of the machines which currently extract
from U.S. taxpayers the money needed for building superhighways.
In order to "improve" transportation, all countries-even the poorest-now plan highway systems designed for the
passenger cars and high-speed trailers which fit the velocity-conscious minority of producers and consumers in the elite
classes. This approach is frequently rationalized as a saving of the most precious resource of a poor country: the time
of the doctor, the school inspector, or the public administrator. These men, of course, serve almost exclusively the
same people who have, or hope one day to have, a car. Local taxes and scarce international exchange are wasted on
false public utilities. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]