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Since we’re being uncharacteristically friendly to libertarians tonight:
What’s a policy that sounds libertarian but would have a big distributist effect?
Answer: funding highways and other infrastructure with weight and distance tolls for freight rather than tax dollars.
What’s a policy that sounds libertarian but would have a big distributist effect?
Answer: funding highways and other infrastructure with weight and distance tolls for freight rather than tax dollars.
Why do this?
Well, publicly funded interstates are mostly free to use, so you get more value from them the more you use them.
That means we effectively subsidize businesses that depend on long-distance supply chains, like big box stores and a lot of other big corporations.
Well, publicly funded interstates are mostly free to use, so you get more value from them the more you use them.
That means we effectively subsidize businesses that depend on long-distance supply chains, like big box stores and a lot of other big corporations.
If you funded infrastructure with tolls, you would force the users that put more demands on the system to internalize more of the costs. That would level the playing field for more locally-based businesses.
As a bonus, it would be good for the environment, too.
As a bonus, it would be good for the environment, too.
