Essays in Idleness

My suggestion that, instead of banning cars, we should ban roads — and especially asphalt paved roads with multiple lanes — would seem to have fallen into deaf ears; and in one case, to have been received with scorn. I find this very foolish, on the part of the world, for my proposal would not only bring many economic and environmental benefits, but also contribute to universal peace.

This was an evolution of my previous suggestion that we should reverse arrangements by which car manufacturing was privatized, and mass transportation put in the public sector. That would have eliminated much noisome traffic, by assuring that socialist incompetence prevails. Anyone who wanted a new car would have to order it from the authorities, and wait for many years. Then after it finally arrived, and was started, the wheels would fall off. By comparison, privately-owned buses, trains, ferries, and aeroplanes would become cheap and efficient.

Still, the world would be too busy.

Getting rid of our (government-financed) road and highway networks would accomplish much more; and because they are made from ticky-tacky (like our suburbs), should be easy to plow up. Old Roman roads, by contrast, surfaced with cobble and brick, over many robustly thoughtful layers, might have presented a problem. (They even mixed cement into their gravel.) But today it’s just like taking down a theatre set. Blink, and it’s gone!

An extraordinary expansion of agricultural land would then be possible, in rural areas. But in urban, where roads, driveways, and parking lots now cover two-thirds of the landscape, the gains would be astounding. It would become impossible to site workplaces more than walking distance from the homes of the workers, and without loss of population the towns would quickly shrink to very manageable size. We might want to reinvent architecture.

Other messy things will be cleaned up, into the bargain. Our lives will be much less afflicted by annoying signage and advertisements when their purpose has expired. The actual restoration of “community” will proceed, when “democracy” ends and the pothole-fillers (politicians) are disemployed. Make-work governments, and taxes, too, will not be necessary, and the “welfare state” will wither away, with all its aggregate corruption.

It will be a quiet and productive life, like that of the Catholics in the Middle Ages, or the Old Order Mennonites.