Except what happens is that now that we can build them cheaply they waste the same amount of money by turning what could have been simple I beams into a mirror finish exercise in "art" nobody asks for and was bike-shed into oblivion until the whole budget and more was used up. So the public doesn't actually reap any benefit. It just makes work for more parties on the dole. We don't actually get more bridges. We get a bigger racket.
Bureaucracies became a spoils system. In the 60s the civil rights movement would boycott companies and then demand favors. Minority groups realized the moral weakness of western society and are just in it to loot whatever they can. For them the 350 pages of spoils are very important.
And the main cost of bridges is not materials, it's design, permitting, and construction. For example: Adjusted for inflation, the new San Francisco Bay Bridge span cost $8.6 billion. Its 450,000 cubic yards of concrete weigh around 1.3 million tons, for a cost of around $6,000 per ton. Concrete is $50-75 per ton, so that's 1% of the cost.
Not preventable? (Excludable)
Not limited in supply? (Rivalous)
What can even be defined as a public good. Can air even be a public good by this definition? Even arguing in good faith I cannot wrap my head around this.
A hospital? Limited capacity even with socialized medicine. Not a public good?
Is this just an (to me) alien and extreme libertarian viewpoint I cannot fathom or am I missing something deeper?
The concrete example stands. But a world in which we do not consider bridges a public good seems rather dystopian to me. I grant you that some of those might be private. But considering all to be private and just with a handwave acknowledge that most are publicly funded seems... Odd...
The reason for the different classification is because public goods obey different economic laws. For example: because public goods are non-excludable, they have the free rider problem.
What the poster before wanted to imply was that we sacrifice safety or sustainability or some value other than material/money (which may well be true).
Everybody tries to maximize their budgets.
Less taxes is not the default. You will most likely get something else.
When extractive profits is involved you will never get a cheaper bridge unless there is fierce competition. Tenders are narrowly defined so you do not see the offers that you can build 2 bridges for the price of one.
In good markets governments keep the bridge building market hot enough so you have the supply ready for the next large projects. That is what keeps the price of big infrastructure projects down.
Hence there is a very good argument for not simply returning the tax dollars.
I do believe in Free markets. But I do believe in good governance as well.
A good example around here is that the knowledge and lessons learned from building the Storebælt Link[0] made the Oresund bridge[1] get in pretty much on budget. Whereas German political fuckery delayed the Fehmarn belt project[2] and will go hugely over budget both due to missing momentum but also due to inflation
[0] https://sundogbaelt.dk/en/about-us/finance-economics/constru... [1] https://sundogbaelt.dk/en/about-us/finance-economics/constru... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fehmarn_Belt_fixed_link
> businesses have learned exactly how badly they can treat you and step up to that line at every opportunity.
Will help numbers in your 401k or pension plan go up.
