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Surely, two thousand years of engineering progress could not have nullified this commonsense observation!

Yet, while engineering has progressed, government has not. This is crucial to note, since it is the government of the City of Chicago that wields absolute control over its roads. The government creates them and has the responsibility for maintaining them, but it also has a few construction companies in its constituency. In a welfare state, where the parties supporting a politician's campaign can expect a slice of the economic "pie" in return, maintaining the ability to distribute the taxpayers' wealth to any favored special interest lobby, and retaining a veneer of legitimacy while doing so, is critical for any politician who seeks to remain in office. Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago, a hereditary political dynast, surely knows this all too well. Hiring a contractor to build roads once and for all, roads that are deliberately designed to be firm to the point of virtual invincibility, which is more than possible with modern technology, only allows the mayor to favor his friends (I repeat, cronies) in the construction business with a redistribution of wealth once. But intentionally designing roads to fail each year and require repair furnishes unceasing work opportunities for the contractors, to be paid from the taxpayers' wallets!

"But that is fiscally irresponsible!" any intelligent man would exclaim. And so it is. The mayor would likely not purchase a chair for his office/throne room that breaks down and must be repaired each year, for it would be his wealth that would be diverted to the rebuilding effort. Yet, like the typical statist, he can afford to be generous with other people's, i.e. everyone else's, money, and employ a potentially infinite pool of it to guarantee himself support from his pet construction companies each and every time. Vesting such power in the hands of government is tantamount to legalizing theft, on the condition that the thieves win public favor each year by handing out "free" clothing to the populace. The next year, the clothing would become torn apart at its shoddy seams, and the populace would need to tolerate the thieves for another year, for only they would be allowed to give the people clothing!

A gulf of contrast exists between this veiled theft of a status quo and the conditions of a private market in roads. Consider this: if you were a road entrepreneur, whose foremost concern is not "public service" (I repeat, re-election),

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