But even if we could accurately determine all the costs driving imposes on society, would that necessarily mean that driving cars is nothing but one big cost? No, critics argue. As any economist can tell you, cost is just one factor. To properly estimate the worth of something, one must weigh its cost against its benefits--something most anti-car analysts have been accused of failing to do.
"I think they are trying to affect a cultural revolution," says Roy Cordato, an economist with the The John Locke Foundation, explaining why those who argue against cars don't factor in the benefits they bring. Cordato calls the reports he has read, including MacKenzie's piece and tracts from the Sierra Club, "intellectually dishonest...hyperbolic at best, and just outright deceitful." The anti-automobile leaders are so wrapped up in imposing their vision of society on the public, he says, that they ignore contradictory data and sound economic analysis.
Cordato is a self-described libertarian who loves living on an acre-and-a-half while still being able to drive just thirty minutes to his office in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Originally from upstate New York, he speaks with northeastern impatience when the subject turns to anti-car arguments. The costs they are trying to measure, Cordato asserts, are not measurable, and the benefits that are supposed to accrue from a full-cost pricing plan are unknowable. "So-called analyses of the full cost of driving," he says, "can come to any conclusion the analyst desires."
The problem, argues Cordato, is that anti-car analysts misunderstand or misuse the economic concept of cost, which refers to opportunity costs--the amount of satisfaction foregone by undertaking a certain activity. For example, if someone must choose between going to the beach or the ballgame and chooses the ballgame, the cost of that decision is the value placed on going to the beach. This value is plainly subjective.
To know the costs of driving, then, "the analysts would have to know the subjectively determined preferences of all the individuals whose lives would be affected" by any changes to the current situation. Because this is impossible, says Cordato, any so-called "full-cost analysis" of driving should not be the basis for a policy that would cause the drastic lifestyle changes advocated by anti-car arguments.
Cordato uses the example of an asthmatic to illustrate his point. We cannot say with certainty that someone with asthma is "better off" in a society where a high gas tax, which theoretically will reduce airborne particulate matter, improves her medical condition. Perhaps the asthmatic values the flexibility and freedom she associates with automobiles more than easier breathing. How are we to know this unless we ask her? And how are we to know, in general, what every individual in society prefers?
Further, if advocates of the full-cost pricing scheme are trying to correct for "market failure"--the linchpin concept in their case against the car--why do they advocate more governmental intervention in the form of taxes, other pricing schemes, or mass transit, Cordato asks. "The transportation system is a mess because there is a lack of markets," he says. This absence of markets produces a supply of roads that does not reflect demand and generates costs such as noise and pollution that users do not pay. But since we have a completely socialized road system--a centralized authority determines where and when roads are built and does not charge users the market value of using the system--we cannot blame the free market for the system's failure. "The markets have not failed," Cordato says. "It is the government, which has a monopoly on the road system, which has failed."
Driving wherever? Priceless