James E. Miller: The
recent collapse of a small commuter bridge in Washington has brought
back memories of Minnesota. Back in August of 2007, the I-35W
Mississippi bridge connecting the Downtown East and Marcy-Holmes
neighborhoods plummeted to the river below like a Chinese-made sofa.
Thirteen individuals lost their lives while 145 escaped with injury. The
suddenness of the debacle was met with the blunt response system of the
state. That is, politicians in Minnesota and elsewhere went before the
public to decry the deteriorating condition of government infrastructure
across the country. A flurry of taxpayer money dedicated to overhauling
the nation’s bridges followed. Five years after millions in tax dollars
were fleeced, allocated, and distributed to this new urgency, less than
two dozen of the state’s 172 “structurally deficient” bridges have been
made whole.
The total failure to provide safe infrastructure,
especially in the aftermath of a tragedy, would be comical if it were
not so representative of the ineptness of state action. If there is one
thing government officials are good at, it’s going forth with failed plans
while convincing themselves, and voters, that this time will be
different.
Following the Interstate 5 bridge collapse in Washington, the
same calls to action are being issued in spite of a non-failure in the bridge design itself. Former yes-man and advisor to the President David Axelrod attempted to blame
Republicans in Congress for a reluctance to spend on infrastructure
investment – as if the second half of the statist party coin ever
harbored a desire to tame the District’s portly appetite for wasting tax
revenue. Axelrod, being a professional opportunist, was not going to
let a good crisis go to political waste; a tactic he undoubtedly learned
from his White House comrade in debauchery Rahm Emanuel.
Proponents of sprawling public work projects such as
bridges have been apt to cite to latest scorecard from the American
Society of Civilian Engineers – a report which always happens to portray
the country’s infrastructure as nearing a communist-like collapse. The
latest inspection
in 2012 revealed the U.S. is home to least 150,000 structurally
deficient bridges. In the few years I have followed the ASCE’s annual
checkup, I have yet to see bright and optimistic grading. The diagnosis
consistently falls somewhere between neglectful euthanasia and
deliberate homicide. The string of bridge collapses plays right into the
hand of the century old association. It’s never a point of suspicion
for liberals that the professional body’s membership, who are
predominantly employed constructing or fixing government infrastructure,
would have a vested interest in wringing more money from susceptible
politicians. The ASCE’s siren call is filled with everything repugnant
to the Progressive mindset: profit motive, corruption, undermining of
public trust. That’s all dismissed with contemplation of tangible
benefits provided by government funding.
Talk of public infrastructure projects ignites the thoughts
of state apologists who dedicate their career to advancing a creeping
despotism. The effect on the rest of the public is much lesser. Bridges,
roads, sewer systems, and the like are accepted functions of the state.
But therein lies the rub: little praise is given for an expected
service. The foundational elements of civilized and commercial society
remain hidden, in a sense, to greater recognizability. In other words,
we expect our toilets to remove waste and electricity to come with the
flick of a switch. Except in the absence of function, attention is
diverted elsewhere. The core component of democracy that` makes it
workable political philosophy is wrong – voters are not considerate or
far-thinking. They demand instant gratification. That helps explain why
politicians, in their capacity as crowd charmers, dedicate little time
and even fewer resources to keeping government infrastructure in
pristine shape. As former New York City mayor Ed Koch liked to say,
“It’s hard to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new sewer line.”
Even with the less-than-glorifying esteem that comes with
respooling electrical wire, the state maintains an iron-tight grip on
commercial infrastructure for a reason. Monopoly control equates to
societal power – nothing more or less. The free, voluntary transactions
of individuals is without a doubt the best means to ensure an efficient
use of resources. Ports, roadways, drainage systems, and bridges have
all been provided for by the private economy. In government form, they
provide a benefit; one which comes at the expense of an undetermined
number of wrongs. As essayist Frank Chodorov wrote, “If we get anything for the taxes we pay it is not because we want it; it is forced on us.”
It can’t be said for sure if the I-35W Mississippi bridge
was left in private hands, maintenance and upkeep would have been
performed more regularly. I would wager my money on the profit spell,
acting as a driving force to preserve quality. The theory of
collectivism relies on the unsteady moral conscience of leadership.
Capitalism rests only on the material desire for more. The former
requiring more virtue than the latter, it would be wiser to put one’s
faith in that which does not demand the all-knowing hubris of central
planners.
In any service, the government has achieved the perfect
deal. When a private entity fails at meeting consumer desire (or its
negligence results in death), a drop in income and market share follows.
When the faultiness of a state product is revealed, more money is
requested to atone for the deficiency. Success for failure is a perverse
incentive – all the more fitting for the government’s wheelhouse of
inconsistencies such as “destroy to save” or “fascism to save the free
market.”
Being the state iconoclast that I am, I find myself split
between admiration for industrial feats and loathing for the dank,
unscrupulous actions which cemented the wonder on fertile ground. It can
be captivating to gaze upon a bridge spanning the length of a
tumultuous river – a demonstration of man’s capacity to overcome the
Earth’s obstacles and create his own future. Witnessing mammoths of
concrete, steel, and calculated texture is humbling. The intricacies of
meticulously crafted metal enveloped among stalactitic, concrete
protrusions make for a web of human engineering that cannot begin to be
understood by the layman. The knowledge necessary to erect such a
structure has been kept and passed down for centuries. Its dissemination
is a human achievement ranking among the great architectural
undertakings.
The bridge is really a connector of civilization. Without
it, the flourishing of the division of labor would be heavily
constrained. The wilderness in remote parts of the Earth would remain
untamed. It is certainly true that industrial structures that cultivate
mobility have been used for campaigns of aggression and invasion, namely
by militaries. But I have never been a fan of laying blame on
technological innovation for enrapturing the destructive tendencies of
man. Responsibility flows from human free will. The objects created by
the employment of mind and labor are incapable of volition, and thus
outside the bounds of being moral agents.
Indispensability is all the more reason to remove the
state’s unprofitable hand from infrastructure investment such as bridge
building. Enough economists have brought attention to the inability of
government bureaucrats to utilize pricing signals in an effective
manner. Public works projects often serve to enrich well-connected
interest groups, with actual serviceability being a secondary concern.
Here’s hoping to the quick rehabilitating of the Interstate 5 bridge in
Washington, and to the broadspread realization of the perversion
government has on such endeavors.
James E. Miller is editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada.Source
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