Thursday, November 16, 1989

Roads are public responsibility.

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration has identified Alaska as the state with the highest percentage of interstate highway miles deemed “deficient.” The cause of this deficiency is a radical free-market ideology called privatization, currently being promoted by Arthur B. Laffer Associates.

Privatization is the political implementation of austerity; the sale, neglect, or abandonment of government enterprises to protect the profit generation of international financial institutions. The sale or private management of industries established by government can, under correct financial and regulatory conditions, be part of the normal process of technological advancement. This is not privatization. Privatization is used to justify the decapitalization or asset-stripping of public facilities.

Arthur B. Laffer Associates claim in their book on “Promoting Economic Growth in Alaska” that highway construction …could very well be provided by the private sector.” This is the same old British ideology, now called privatization, that has gotten our entire nation in this highway mess to begin with.

There is a proper American system division of labor between government and private industry, but Laffer’s book reads like a hit-list against many of the founding economic principles of the United States. Government provides the science policy and financing for highway construction, private contractors build them.

If Alaskans continue to implement Laffer’s privatization policies, the Alaska highway system will become more deficient than many Third World nations.

Charles E. Duncan