faux privatization

Being an anarchocapitalist means never having to be sorry. It's a label that you can safely use without having to side with the emotional baggage of either leftist egalitarianism or conservative corporatism.

It means one can defend Wal*Mart or other industry titans qua private business, without having to pacify the leftist voices which scream privilege and who are opposed to faceless, monolithic business per se, and for no other reason. Of course, it means that one will excoriate private business with equal vigor when it actively uses the help of the legitimated criminals who control the state monopoly of violence, to further monopolize their business interests.

With that short introduction, or disclaimer have you, I thought it prudent to raise a cry against the state of New York, of which several politicians have called to "privatize" the roads, bridges, tunnels, and other 'public' infrastructure. These politicians have greedily eyed other states, such as Illinois, which have already "sold" some of their turnpikes in excess of billions of dollars.

Mind you, the politicians will only lease the roads, not outright sell them, which I would have tolerated, and might have even encouraged, since it will move the care of the resource to private hands. The downside of that would be the 'fait accompli' in regards to the issue of non-recompensation of the tax payers who have been robbed again and again to pay for the very same infrastructure. It's not the best result, but I would probably forgive and forget if the roads were truly privatized.

But since this is not an outright sale, and thus I am very wary of ledes such as this:

When Gov. George Pataki delivered his budget to the Legislature in January, he unveiled a proposal to lease the Tappan Zee Bridge to private investors. Lawmakers balked, and when the final budget was passed months later, the Tappan Zee plan was left for dead.

In recent weeks, however, Mr. Pataki's top transportation officials have been pushing hard to revive it. They say the bridge is just one in a series of revenue-generating assets that the state could privatize in multibillion-dollar deals.

It's corporate welfare of this prominence that gives a bad name to the "free" market, and I think anti-statists of all colors, dimensions, directions, and economic schools can agree upon to oppose.