New watering rules
We've got some more watering restriction changes on the way ... particularly with the drought and heat wave hitting ridiculous levels (seriously, 82 degrees at 8 a.m.?) ...
Effective August 11, 2007, Athens-Clarke County’s revised outdoor water restrictions policy allows outdoor watering only on weekdays from midnight until 10:00 a.m. based on the last digit of a customer’s address. No outdoor watering for any addresses will be allowed on weekends.
The new outdoor watering schedule is as follows:
Address ending in: Watering day (between midnight & 10:00 a.m. only):
0, 1 Monday
2, 3 Tuesday
4, 5 Wednesday
6, 7 Thursday
8, 9 Friday
No outdoor watering on Saturdays & Sundays
Since the implementation of weekend only outdoor watering restrictions on June 26, 2007, some residents have experienced discolored or brown water during the weekends. While unpleasant, the discolored water has been tested by the ACC Public Utilities Department and is safe for use and consumption. The discoloration is believed to be a result of increased weekend demand in residential areas for outdoor watering that loosens mineral and sediment in pipes of the water distribution system. The new restrictions are intended to alleviate the problems associated with the discolored water by distributing water usage over five days instead of two.
Effective August 11, 2007, Athens-Clarke County’s revised outdoor water restrictions policy allows outdoor watering only on weekdays from midnight until 10:00 a.m. based on the last digit of a customer’s address. No outdoor watering for any addresses will be allowed on weekends.
The new outdoor watering schedule is as follows:
Address ending in: Watering day (between midnight & 10:00 a.m. only):
0, 1 Monday
2, 3 Tuesday
4, 5 Wednesday
6, 7 Thursday
8, 9 Friday
No outdoor watering on Saturdays & Sundays
Since the implementation of weekend only outdoor watering restrictions on June 26, 2007, some residents have experienced discolored or brown water during the weekends. While unpleasant, the discolored water has been tested by the ACC Public Utilities Department and is safe for use and consumption. The discoloration is believed to be a result of increased weekend demand in residential areas for outdoor watering that loosens mineral and sediment in pipes of the water distribution system. The new restrictions are intended to alleviate the problems associated with the discolored water by distributing water usage over five days instead of two.
posted by Jmac at 8:50 PM
54 Comments:
I contacted my commish about this, and this does NOT start until Monday, so your plants do NOT have to go thru the whole weekend (making it over a week between watering depending on your address) So, you can water this weekend, on the odd even basis and then water next week on your day, too.
thanks be, because I've only been in my house a year, and all the work I've put into getting my perennials established is literally drying up.
I'm the girl you saw out there on the Sunday a few weeks ago when we got day long rain out there from 5-8 (somehow I thought it was 8 am instead of 6) watering in the rain.
I know, we're members of the Upper Oconee Resehowever you spell that, and we have no choice but to limit watering, since we're at level 3, blah blah blah, but when do private property owners rights start to matter to this commish and mayor?
I mean, there are some mighty beautiful lawns here in Athens, I gather that rich folks who have underground/soaker hose systems are going right ahead and watering, and leaving those of us who want to follow the law to watch our investments literally dry up and blow away.
I live in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Athens, and one of the pleasures of the area is that homeowners take such pride in the care of their yards, really, it's a pleasure to drive thru in springtime and see roses that are obviously decades old blooming all season... well all that is gone, while those in westlake and other wealthy areas are just turning on their overnight systems and going to sleep.
Manager Reddish said last night that we have met the 10 percent reduction of use goal set by the authority, why can't we have one more day a week to water?
And when can we get out there this fall and plant our cactuses and succulents, lol... I mean, I love rocks, and rock garden plants. If this is all this commish is going to do to stand up for private homeowners, we'd better all get used to and fall in love w/native species, like violets, and spurge, catchgrass and cardinal flower vines, because they are all thriving.
And before anyone jumps down my throat, YES I mulch, there are easily 100 bags of cypress mulch on my property right now...
Time for a rain dance folks. And I for one AM interested in why Carl Jordan mentioned (briefly at that!) the other night that evening watering is more efficient than early morning watering, which pretty much evaporates. Of course, nobody listens to him even when he's right, so he has no-one to blame but himself that nobody takes him seriously.
So this week, and this week only, I'm out there tomorrow morning, soaking some things back to life, and then, you betcha, I'm back out there again on my address day next week.
concerned gardener and greenspace lover
Would you rather have green plants today or drinking water in 5 years? I myself would prefer drinking water. Yours is a selfish argument.
The reason we can't water in the evening --even though it would be better because there is less evaporation and because that is the time trees take up water to repair their cells-- is because the GA EPD won't let us. Yes, they are dumb!
If people are watering illegally, turn 'em in. Clean water is MUCH more important than green grass. And, if we go to the level 4 the state is talking about, there will be no outdoor water, period.
I have understood from a credible source that part of the brown water issue is due to the installation of new water pipes in new neighborhoods.
Also, about 50% of water used in Georgia is released into the atmosphere during power generation. Can that steam be captured and returned to use instead of blowing off over the ocean.
I agree it's a little much to drench giant lawns during this drought but if you are saying watering a vegitable garden is selfish, I think you should consider the overall energy impact of driving and marketing produce and the fact that half of our water is used to create energy.
There are myriad reasons for brown water --new construction, fire department using hydrants, etc. But the huge bulk was due to people rushing to water lawns w/ sprinkler systems on Saturdays, which caused the deposits to be washed of the inside of the pipes --there was very little brown water on Sundays, for example.
As to watering in general, I personally don't have any problem w/ hand watering vegetables and trees --the former because they provide food, the latter because they take years to grow and once gone aren't easily replaced. I see no earthly reason to be watering lawns (which will simply go dormant w/out water and will grow back), especially w/ sprinkler systems (which from my observation are usually so poorly set up they also water half the street in the process).
Island City is in the same boat that Athens is - they haven't had enough consistent rain in Coastal Georgia. The water issue is a statewide problem. But my folks' yard looks great because they have a well, and down in that part of the state, there are no real restrictions on using well water for outdoor stuff.
As a matter of property owners' rights - uhh, the water lines and pumping stations all belong to the public and are administered by the government. We (the public) designed it and keep it this way for a reason. We built the system to provide drinking water to houses and watering crops. Sometimes the perrenials have to be considered expendable. Because you bet we're going to pick driniking water over lawns.
It ain't about property rights, it is about taking for granted that we even have to argue over 'outdoor water' in the first place. There's a lot of work that goes into watering your lawn or getting you water to drink. We have the water purification plants, the pumps, the lines bringing it to your house (and lawn, in the flush times), the lines taking soiled water away from your home once you are done with it, and the treatment plants to clean the water so it might be used again by someone downstream.
Please keep that in mind when you worry about how 'invasive' or 'disrespectful' the big bad government is when it comes to telling 'property owners' what to do.
That last comment specifically directed at all the faux "property owner advocates" who ignore the importance of having a "public utility system." Sorry for the lack of clarity.
But there is no reason that water purification and piping HAS to be run by the government. Even here in the good ol' US of A, there are a number of private water companies.
And trying to turn the property rights argument around doesn't really make much sense. You seem to be saying that this is about the "property rights," not of the homeowners, but of public utility. But what does it mean to say that a public utility has "property rights", anyway? WHO, exactly, has the rights in this case? It's public, so does this mean that EVERYBODY has the rights in question?
UGA does nighttime watering, and wastes a lot of water through broken sprinklers and faulty drip irrigation. Why is it not held accountable, especially when the sprinklers are clearly shooting lots of water onto sidewalks and roads?
I mean, I work nights on the campus, and I've done by hand what I can do to redirect sprinklers or close off bad lines, and I've tried to have the physical plant notified of the leaks. Shit don't work.
Georgia's population in 2000 was 7.6 million, give or take a few hundred thousand illegal aliens. It is projected by the Census Bureau to be 9.5 to 9.8 million by 2020.
It is probably hopelessly naive to think that someone somewhere at the state level would engage in regional statewide planning based on the availability of water resources.
It's almost a cliche to state that water is a finite resource, and a resource that is required in certain minimal amounts by every living organism, human beings included.
At both the local and state level, planners seem to treat water as another "product", the production of which will expand infinitely in response to infinitely increasing demand.
Looking at out own little group of masters of micromanagement, aka the ACC Board of Commissioners, demands on the water system are seldom if ever mentioned in zoning and planning decisions.
As long as developers are willing to comply with ACC's BOC "vision" of land planning, it appears that ACC is willing to allow virtually unlimited residential development. This willingness exists despite questions about the long term ability of ACC to deliver water to these new residences.
One would think that the now perennial summer "water crisis" with the concomitant "water restrictions" would cause at least some of the planners to put finger to temple, and wonder where is all the water going to come from long term.
The "water crisis" and ten per cent savings needs to be viewed in the context that there is a large number of households in the northern part of the county that do not currently have "city water". The households are scheduled to come on line shortly.
Maybe it is a selfish argument, but when I drive by the stubs for the remainder of Whitehall Village, and come home to several hundred dollars of wilting rose bushes, some of which are 15 years old, I'm not convinced that my personal sacrifice will result in drinking water in 5 years.
Actually given that all of ACC drinking water comes from rivers, my forbearance in watering my plants does not insure that we will have drinking water next week, much less in 5 years.
Xon: Turning the property rights argument around is the only thing that makes sense to me. People tend to forget that some infrastructure issues and public utility issues administered by the government are, in fact, owned by all of us for a reason. Without public infrastructure investment half the current 'property owners' in the state of Georgia would own a piece of land linked to the world only by a dirt road, with no electricity and water from a well.
And, no, water companies don't have to be public owned, but it sure does make things easier in the long run.
Water is a public resource, we all own it: property owners to income tax payers. We could have contracted with private companies to extract, purify, deliver, and dispose of water (and some places have chosen to do this), but the majority chose to leave water management in the public (government) realm.
While water is a public resource and is usually administered as such, there are plenty of private hands that are involved. Many purification plants are built on private land or public land (whichever is decided on) by private contractors with contracts issued by the government.
The rub comes with water's interaction will all other infrastructure. The lines have to be put in under public auspices because they usually have to take other public infrastructure matters into consideration (such as roads, power lines, drainage, sewer, etc). Since there is already a system that deals with zoning and code for all of those things and issuing contracts to private business to build and maintain those things, we go with that system. That system is government.
You could go with private water companies (and some places do), but in reality, all that does is add a layer of additional pay to a middle man, because the government (ie: public) must still be involved in so many levels of the delivery of the water already.
Because the maintenance of a water system is such a large investment in capital and real estate and litigation, it would be terribly difficult for a private water company to be challenged by the market forces of competition.
Even if you had a private company delivering and maintaining all of your water currently, then that water company as well as the government could impose restrictions or price hikes.
Without public infrastructure investment half the current 'property owners' in the state of Georgia would own a piece of land linked to the world only by a dirt road, with no electricity and water from a well.
I doubt this seriously. Where there is a demand, there will (generally) be a supply. Do all these people WANT to live on dirt roads with only well water?
I understand that as a matter of historical fact, public utilities tend to run water distribution, and they certainly do so in ACC. What I am pointing out though, is that this does not necessarily have to be so. And by "not necessarily," I mean that there are plenty of actual real-life counterexamples where water is not distributed by a public utility. Just because it IS distributed that way does not mean that it has to be (and so we cannot simply credit "public utilities" for meeting this need/demand--piped in water for a new south--as though private companies had they been in the ones in charge would not have met the same need/demand.)
Furthermore, I am asking a more philosophical question about "public ownership" in general. What does it mean to say that "the public" "owns" the water? If everybody owns it, then nobody owns it, and we have a tragedy of the commons problem. If I go out into my yard and do some digging and divert water into a tank before it goes through my house's meter, and thus I fill my tank with free water, who exactly am I stealing from? Whose 'property rights' have I violated? The entire ACC community? Every man, woman, and child in that community? I'm trying to see how the rubber meets the actual road of 'property rights' here (property rights have to be held by actual flesh-and-blood people, or don't they?)
Yes, I'm selfish. I agree that for the common good we should be conserving, and for SURE anyone who's trying to maintain a LAWN should have a clue by now.
Lawns are all of the same species of grass, and do little but just suck up water.
On the other hand, planting native species (I wasn't really suggesting we fill our yards w/spurge, etc.)is a GREAT use of our property, as is growing organically, in raised beds, our own food.
Isn't it part of the commish's responsibility to fight against MORE development UNTIL we even have running water to North Athens?
I had to spend hundreds of dollars to have plumbers come install a water pressure regulator, because in order to add on new development, intown neighborhoods are getting TOO much pressure, in fact, it blew out the line between my house and my rental property, and I was told by the plumber who came and did the work for us (he also installed a pressure regulator to protect my hot water heater) that homeowners intown were having their entire systems blowing too much pressure into their systems because we are adding on pressure intown to make sure the water gets to the outlying areas.
So listen, as someone who helped the North Athens folks via the splost panel FINALLY get water and a fire station on the way, I'm all about equal and fair access to public services.
Not because of the story that is told that it was supposedly promised in the unification charter, because it wasn't. That's just lore. But because it was right. Period.
But I turned on the tv the other night to finally see ONE commissioner, Doug Lowry, talk about the housing glut in this town... and the commish had just approved YET another development.
Well, Ms. Hoard agreed that it's a ridiculous situation, but that she'd like to look into things short of a moratorium to deal w/it.
But seriously, why isn't the water company sending out educational pieces about what to plant? They could partner w/the cooperative extension folks, UGA, on and on and on. But please, no developers on that committee...
Not everyone reads the paper, or goes online, but everyone gets a water bill. I think that Dick Field ought to put together a piece to insert in the bills that educates homeowners about drought tolerant plantings, landscaping for the obviously dry future here. He could teach folks about our native animals and birds and what we can grow to feed and shelter them while we're planting our yards.
So, stop the development, enforce the "partnership" w/UGA, and make them follow the same rules the rest of us do. Maybe as reimbursement for all the water they waste every night (I see it running literally into the street at the corner under the walkover/tressle and at Baldwin and East Campus) the University could fix their own issues, or be fined... or...work w/Dick Field to get out educational materials to the people of Clarke County.
This is not going to get any better, but as usual UGA is getting away w/murder, the commish is allowing the development of every square inch of space intown, (esp. in neighborhoods like mine where they tear down little working class houses and build mcmansion ticky tacky) and oh yea, that whole north of town crew? YES, they got a fire station, which is a durn good thing, but they gonna need it, what with all the time it's taking them to hook up (even w/interest free loans for those who refuse to even pay for pipes from the street, which they can pay off on their water bills in monthly payments).
There are things we should be doing, but there is NO excuse, not ever, in my opinion, for a big green waste of resources like a green lawn. In that we all seem to be pretty much in agreement.
concerned gardener and greenspace lover
Xon, you're losing it buddy.
(property rights have to be held by actual flesh-and-blood people, or don't they?)
Not even close. There are any number of "property rights" owned by "the state" (not even considering actual real estate owned by the state). Game and fish, riverbeds of navigable rivers, all land below the mean high tide, free flowing surface water. Most of the land in Georgia east of the coastal counties was owned by "the state" and conveyed to the original private owners either as bonuses for war service or through land lotteries.
If I go out into my yard and do some digging and divert water into a tank before it goes through my house's meter, and thus I fill my tank with free water, who exactly am I stealing from? Whose 'property rights' have I violated? .
Whose rights? The owner of the distribution system that brought the water to you, and the owner of the water. The water which you wish to appropriate is a "product" which has been purified, chlorinated, fluoridated and filtered. Private or public utility, it will expect to recover the cost of that distribution system and added value.
You on the other hand are perfectly free to install cisterns, as much the world does, and use the water that runs off your roof, and exercise all of your property rights in the pollen and other pollutants thusly acquired.
Likewise, you are perfectly entitled to personally bear the expense of drilling a well on your property. You don't have to share the water you find if any. It's all yours until we hit a drought and the water table drops and you have no water.
If you really knew anything about water distribution, you'd find out that when "city water" comes to country, all those folks on wells can't get on those mains fast enough.
If everybody owns it, then nobody owns it, and we have a tragedy of the commons problem.
That doesn't even make sense.
I understand that as a matter of historical fact, public utilities tend to run water distribution, and they certainly do so in ACC.
Actually as a matter of historical fact, water companies were as likely or more likely to be privately owned. The inevitable problem into which the private companies run is that they lack the revenues to create a sinking fund for maintenance or capital funds for expansion.
Take a look at Oconee County. All of the subdivisions that are more than 10 years old were served by private (community) water systems. A few hooked in to ACC water.
Everyone of those private water systems has sold out (or been given) to the county because the water produced was not satisfactory, either in volume or quality and the system did not have the ability to raise the funds to increase capacity or obtain the equipment to produce safe potable water. Given a choice between a private water supplier, supplying their own (wells) or using a public utility, these people universally chose to go with a public utility. So here we have an example of what people really do, as opposed to what someone who has never really faced the problem theorizes they should do.
Anon 6:52 am said:
"and the commish had just approved YET another development"
That's not quite accurate. The development was approved several years ago when Barrow was on the Commission. It should never have been approved back then, IMO (and to his credit Barrow said so). But what the Commish did last week was simply allow the proposers to change their PD (Planned Development). Doing so did not add additional density to what the developers had been approved to have several years ago. It merely allowed them to move the units around within the parcel.
Xon: With regards to the dirt roads, I phrased that badly. Let me try again: Without public investment in roads, electricity and water infrastructre, most property owners in Georgia would not actually own property where they do, and would still be concentrated in the cities, not the suburbs, or they would live in places like Florida who was investing in infrastructure and utilities earlier than Georgia was.
The reason so many people move to Georgia every year is that the infrastructure there is a HUGE selling point.
The supply has already been increased by the demand of people wanting to live outside the traditional urban centers. Investment in public utilities and infrastructure made this possible. That's always been the argument of government officials working with developers, because they use public resources to benefit private industry.
IE: A developer owns land connected only by dirt roads, with no electricity and well water only. They get the city to use public resources to run roads, electricity and water to their property. Then they build houses on said property and sell to folks who then become homeowners.
But the government does this with the tacit if not outright approval of the public, because that allows the public greater access to property ownership. This also allows the public greater opportunity to start their own private businesses to serve the demands of that new community.
But private business wasn't running their own roads, electricity and water lines because that would make the entire development far too expensive for most developers to earn a return on investment with. The government (public) had more resources, and such utilities usually fall under their purview, and the public was usually willing to make such an exchange with the developers for the additional opportunities the development allowed that the public couldn't provide itself.
It is trade between public and private.
Xon: Regarding private companies providing water utility to the public, if it was not clear before, I agree with your assessment.
It is not a necessity that the government run water utilities. Private industry has and is involved in delivering the utility to the public, sometimes by working with the government utility company, sometimes by being the utility company themselves. I know that there are places where this is true in the past as well as today.
My argument is that it is more efficient and better business to run water delivery through the government utilities, and involve private enterprise at steps along the way.
Private companies simply to not have the resources to build and maintain water delivery infrastructure, and if they do, they will not be regulated by market forces and competition because it is so difficult to get up enough capital to run a competing water utility. StoptheBS points this out and uses Oconee Co. as an example.
What this usually leads to during 'deregulation' and 'privatization' initiatives is that the government contracts their water utility to private companies. Being that the government provides the service, but the private company is the one you pay, who then pays the government. The only difference then is that you have a private industry middle man, charging you additional fees for stuff the government has to be involved with already because water delivery requires such involvement. (Wasn't this what happened to natural gas deregulation back in around 2000?)
That makes it ripe for corruption, which serves neither the public or private business.
So, to sum up, it is possible to run water utilities privately, but I don't think it is a good idea because we'd be paying more for something we already get.
Xon: Regarding the public ownership/tragedy of the commons situation. I discuss this more in terms of public ownership vs. return on public investment. Tragedy of the commons is that old poli-sci term usually used in political situaions and involves an element of spin that doesn't really (IMHO) explain the situation.
The philosophical difference is one of having something vs being able to do something with something. The United States owns a great deal of real estate and resources. The United States is a democracy, with a government of and by the people. Same thing with Georgia. Ergo: the public owns what the state owns and that property is vast.
Taken individually and equally divided, that would mean we'd all get a gallon of water and a hectare of unimproved Wyoming grassland. Taken together in a public trust means we have things like the United States military to defend us, the Interstate System to allow more freedom of movement, and the SBA to help increase memebers of the public to become business owners. The commons is far greater than the sum of its parts, and you're using something you 'own' every time your commute to work is faster than driving on a dirt road, flushing a toilet, and turning on a light. I don't get to walk out to the highway and plop down a lawn chair and set up my own toll booth because the road wasn't built using my property alone, it was built using everyone's property for the benefit of myself and others. The overall return on investment for letting the government hold 'my property' in trust is so much greater than my original allotment that I never even think about what I actually would own, if we were to divide everything up.
But that property is held in trust by the state to be used for the benefit of 'the people' as decided by our duly elected representatives. Politics comes into play in the decision making process. Politics is how the people choose to use what they own, so people are going to disagree on that. And that's OK, there is no One Single Answer. The idea is being enough involved to makes sure that the use of public property is actually being used for things that bring a much higher return on investment than the initial investment.
So it isn't a tragedy of the commons, it is a return of investment issue.
I know this is off-topic, but I just wanted to repeat my quote from a couple weeks ago.
"You're happy with Gagne? What, is it 2002?"
How's that trade workin' out for ya? (And yes, I'm still pissed about Kason Gabbard leaving my snug Boston fantasy team confines for Texas.)
To concerned gardener and greenspace lover:
Actually, Public Utilities did send out information about drought tolerant plants in their Water Source bulletins, a separate mailing that goes to all customers. The list was from a Cooperative Extension list.
In fact, they sent it out twice (Spring & Summer), because the first listing contained some plants that had been since labeled as invasive by Cooperative Extension. The second mailing updated the list.
Um, hey, just sayin'...
There is value in maintaining perennials. The same value in replacing non-pervious pavement with pervious pavement.
They're not strictly there for pleasure, you know.
The same value in replacing non-pervious pavement with pervious pavement.
Which sort of brings up a related topic.
I thought there was a big push on the ACC commissish a few years ago to have big developments include permeable parking materials, at least in part.
I haven't even heard it discussed in a long while, and certainly see no evidence of it.
This seems to me to be a very easy solution to some of the run-off/pollution problems.
there are developments where developers have been required to have permeable pavement -- the Hearings Board have required it in some instances as part of the mitigation for variances, and the govt itself has used it on some of its own developments. It doesn't work in some cases, though, where there is heavy traffic, as it's not tough enough for such traffic.
Yep, what anon said. It's in use -- but it isn't as publicly discussed as previously. It can be seen at the new Harry Bissett's and at the Southeast Clarke Park. Generally speaking it's best for parking and inadvisable for driving surfaces.
"Generally speaking it's best for parking and inadvisable for driving surfaces."
Nicki is indeed correct on this, which is why we won't see it everywhere. It can also get clogged up w/ leaf litter, which is why it also is generally not good in areas w/ lots of trees.
The philosophical difference is one of having something vs being able to do something with something. The United States owns a great deal of real estate and resources. The United States is a democracy, with a government of and by the people. Same thing with Georgia. Ergo: the public owns what the state owns and that property is vast.
But who is "the state"? I understand how the rhetorical set-up for "public property" typically works. And, honestly, I'm not necessarily rejecting that rhetoric out of hand. But I am asking questions here about what this position really means, and if it really does make sense?
"We can't just go hunting over there, it's private property." We all understand this statement. The land in question is owned by a private individual(s), and we could go down to the county clerk's office and look up the plot number and see whose name is on the deed, etc. But when someone says "you're on public property", it is actually rather 'fuzzy' what this even means.
I understand the intention behind the concept, I think. We want to create a (literal) space that is available to be used by everyone, and not simply by some particular private interest(s). So, we say that it belongs to "the people." We say that the people control this space democratically through the political process, and that in some sense therefore "the government" is also the owner (acting as a sort of steward for the people as a whole).
But, despite this relatively reasonable intention, I'm still not clear on whether the concept actually carries much meaning or practical value. For instance, I try to go jogging at my local high school's track. A security guard comes out and tells me that I am not allowed to do this, because it is school hours, or maybe just because I'm not allowed anytime. But how can that be? Isn't this my "property" as a citizen of the county? Aren't I one of the people who "owns" a controlling interest in this property?
This isn't about the reasons people have for wanting to control who runs on the track--security concerns, etc. Those desires for security (or whatever) are legitimate; the question is how the idea of "public property" can accomodate such desires.
If I want my own house to be secure while my kids and their friends are having a study session, then I simply forbid anyone else from coming on my property. I can do this whenever I see fit, becuase it is MY property. I am the owner, and what that means is that I control the way in which my property is used/dispensed at any given time. This makes perfect sense, and anytime something is owned privately it is easy to see how the owner's desire to control who does what on his or her property can be exercised--they are the owner, so what they say goes.
But in the case of 'public' property, it's not so easy. The easiest way to think about it is just to say that the government actually is the owner of the school, and so they can say what happens just like any other property owner. This, in effect, makes the government another private interest. The individuals who make up the county's governing institutions are the joint owners of the school, and they have spoken.
But that, of course, is not what people mean when they speak of 'public property.' They don't just mean that it is owned by some 'special' kind of private interest--one who happens to work for/with the governing institutions. They mean that, somehow, the property belongs to the entire community. Noone is excluded from the ownership of this property (b/c to exclude some would render the remainder who retained ownership a 'private' group). Yet certain people can be disallowed from using the property in the way they wish, even though they own it. So how does that work?
I suppose the best answer might be to think of it as similar to a public corporation, where all the shareholders own a controlling interest and can vote on the direction of the company, etc. If you get out-voted, though, then the company does what the majority wants, and you are out of luck as far as whatever it was that you wanted to do. But you still own your stock in the company.
The problem with this analogy, if we are going to try to use it as one, is that stockholders do not own the COMPANY, properly speaking. Again, to own something is to have control over the way in which that thing is used/dispensed. If you do not have this control, then you don't really 'own' it. (If I had to let people live in my house and vote on who could go into which rooms when, etc., then it isn't really 'MY' house anymore, is it?) But the stockholders do own SOMETHING; they own company stock. They own a piece of the financial fortune of the company, as it were. They own the legal right to have their own financial fortune improve or dissipate in line with whatever the company's fortunes do. The fact that the company is 'public' means that all stockholders are allowed to vote on company business, but this doesn't mean that the stockholders 'own' the company in any meaningful sense. The do have a 'controlling interest' in the company, but that's not the same thing as owning it.
And so, in the case of the public school, I still don't see how this idea of 'public property' actually makes any sense. The security guard doesn't kick me off the track because I only own my own individual 'share' or 'stock' in the school property; rather, he kicks me out while fully recognizing/claiming that I own the PROPERTY itself. The idea of 'public property' is not simply that it is 'publically weighed-in-upon property', but that the public (i.e., all the citizens) somehow actually share in the ownership of the property itself. Somehow the school really is MY property, even though I have virtually no control over the school at any given time. This is what does not make sense to me.
Really, the part of this discussion that most disturbs me was anon's second comment:
Would you rather have green plants today or drinking water in 5 years? I myself would prefer drinking water. Yours is a selfish argument.
There are at least a couple of responses here that are in order, it seems to me:
1. This is a false dilemma. I would prefer to have both green plants today and drinking water in five years. This is not pie-in-the-sky utopianism; even if the fearful are right that our piped-in local supply is genuinely scarce, there are other places to get water if it comes down to it.
2. Speaking of other places to get water, maybe I prefer drinking my water in bottled form anyway. So now I'm being told by the Athens Clarke-County government that I can use water for a purpose I have no intention of using it for, and that I am prohibited (or severely restricted) from using it for a purpose that I think is more important for my own needs. The point is that if ACC wants to 'ration' how much water each person uses, then why am I not allowed to use my portion for my own purposes? I am willing to pay extra money out of my own pocket for Aquafina to supply my drinking water. I would rather use the city's piped-in water to wet my lawn. Apparently anon thinks that he/she has the right to tell EVERYONE that this is simply not an acceptable way for them to prioritize their water usage.
This is socialism; and that's not just a rhetorical ploy on my part. It is the very definition; a central agency tells us what needs are 'really' more important, and tries to control the way in which resources are distributed. (And tells you that you are 'selfish' if you don't share the central planners' point of view.) This is disastrous in its unintended (and sometimes intended) consequences, all the time, always. But I digress (sort of).
But when someone says "you're on public property", it is actually rather 'fuzzy' what this even means.
You're right, unfortunately. But it is fuzzy because no one has gone about actually clarifying what it means. Or, if they have, they have done so on very local levels. This leaves us without a lot of clarity, but a great deal of wiggle room in defining things on a local level.
The state (the government organizations that tax dollars pay for who are charged with overseeing various public properties) holds 'public real estate' in trust. And just like trust fund babies, we usually can't get at the money that is 'ours,' because certain conditions have to be applied for different levels of access.
Your stockholder metaphor is very close to accurate. If the majority of folks in your district decide that people can't jog on school grounds, or - through non-involvement, allow said school to make and enforce such rules on their own - then, yeah, you are SOL and cannot jog there, but you still retain your 'stock' and 'ownership' of the school.
The idea is that the existence of said school, even without you being allowed to jog on said grounds, is benefiting you in some way through the virtue of your ownership. You end up living in a community with better access to education, a better educated workforce, more intellectual geography, more business opportunity, more affluence/less crime, and so on and so forth.
That's the theory anyway.
As far as the 'socialism' thing, you are absolutely right. Unfortunately, this also has to do with lassiez-faire economic forces: if it was easy to set up a water delivery company and instill infrastructure, everyone would do it = more competition = more capitalistic ways of getting water around.
BUT, it is not easy to do, so we let the government do it and let private business concentrate elsewhere or involve themselves on different levels of the utility. This has benefited us greatly over the long run, especially in the south, because folks don't have to go out and search for/purchase water purification/delivery/disposal infrastructure on their own. The 'socialist' methodology that allows the government control of water also allows for greater variation of business in other industries, because they are freed from the burden of having to provide water for themselves.
If it was a private business doing this, it would be, instead of 'socialism,' called 'monopoly,' because only folks with huge capital access could get involved with this system. You'd have less control, and that control would be based on price and not supply.
"This is socialism; and that's not just a rhetorical ploy on my part. It is the very definition; a central agency tells us what needs are 'really' more important, and tries to control the way in which resources are distributed. (And tells you that you are 'selfish' if you don't share the central planners' point of view.) This is disastrous in its unintended (and sometimes intended) consequences, all the time, always. But I digress (sort of)."
Rubbish. Socialism, at least as defined by Marx, is about workers controlling the product of their own labor and not having their labor commodified by having to sell it for a wage to capitalists --the difference between what they are paid and the value they create through their labor is the origin of profit for capitalists (profit, in other words, is the extracted surplus labor that comes from workers --that's why Marx argued that it was theft by the capitalist class; workers have surplus labor extracted from them because they are not paid for the full value of the wealth they create through the labor process). If you want a definition, go and read Marx himself --don;t take my word for it!
What you're talking about re central planning of the Soviet ilk was "state socialism" where, essentially, the state takes over the economic role that would normally be played by private capitalists in a "capitalist society". Rather than private capitalists extracting surplus labor from workers it's now the state that does so. That's why it didn't work there very well.
Go and read some basic political philosophy and social history before throwing around statements such as "This is socialism" :-)
The problem with this analogy, if we are going to try to use it as one, is that stockholders do not own the COMPANY, properly speaking.
Yes they do.
The "company" itself is an intangible artificial entity, and it is that company that owns the physical assets. You, as a stockholder, do not have any ownership interest in the physical assets of the company.
What is being overlooked in this simplistic approach to "private property" rights vs. some amorphous "state", the existence of which friend Xon cannot comprehend, is, that unless you are claiming property through some feudal lord holding through right of conquest, all property rights originated with the "state". All wealth comes from the land, and with the exception noted above, all land was at one time under control of the "state", historically in the form of a monarch.
The problem with such a simplistic, inchoate definition of something called "private property" is that ignores that fact that "private" property and "property" rights only exist to the extent that there is a "state" to protect them.
Without the "state" to define what is property (slaves, women, children?), and without the state to protect an interest in that property once defined, the only "private" property is that which you can physically possess and defend from the claims of others.
Without the "state" to define and protect property rights, I would be free to go Xon's house, kick his ass, and tear up his computer so he couldn't post anymore. While he doesn't understand the concept of "state" and the ownership of property by it, I'm reasonably certain that he understands the concept of the police, with their state defined powers, driving their state owned vehicles. I have little doubt that he would experience an epiphany of sorts in the concept individual ownership of a state agency and state owned property. Of course he would be completely free to eschew the benefits of his "ownership" rights (or continue to claim that he didn't understand how such rights existed), and let me proceed to kick his ass.
I'm reminded of the Jehovah's Witnesses, who claim no allegiance to any temporal government, and refuse to participate in any of its processes. Yet let them perceive a slight to their religious liberties, they have no problem resorting to the courts, whose powers are created by the government which they claim has no authority over them.
To keep banging on the tin drum of "private" property ignores both theoretical and actual political science. You only have a property right to the extent that your neighbors are willing to allocate their resources to protect whatever it is you are claiming as a property interest. That communal allocation immediately becomes the "state" because it the extent of their willingness to allocate their resources that determines whether you in fact have any "property" interest, and the extent of your "interest" in that property.
Bottom line --- no "state" = no "property"
Boy, xon, sometimes you can be kind of a drama queen.
Here's my example:
This is socialism; and that's not just a rhetorical ploy on my part. It is the very definition; a central agency tells us what needs are 'really' more important, and tries to control the way in which resources are distributed. (And tells you that you are 'selfish' if you don't share the central planners' point of view.) This is disastrous in its unintended (and sometimes intended) consequences, all the time, always. But I digress (sort of).
A) No, it's not. As previously explained.
B) Let me summarize this in a way that makes it clear what's really going on here. Many of us believe that the state acts to some degree in our interests and is making a good-faith effort to address a legitimate issue on behalf of the majority of citizens. You believe, on the other hand, that the state is not competent to make such judgments and alternatively the market should determine the cost of the commodity. And furthermore, even though we more or less agree that water is a commodity which people MUST have, you don't believe that capitalism would ever result in anyone being unable to afford an essential supply of water.
c) What's disastrous about the above?
Now, as someone who spends a lot of time and money on my plants and conserves like a mutha (less than half the average consumption -- woo!), I hate to see them die based on a policy that doesn't recognize my overall usage, or proscribe all of the idiotic uses available to anyone with a meter, but I applaud the government bothering to take ANY reasonable step to curtail patently stupid and wasteful usage and make people think about this finite resource that we share. Because we have a finite supply and we have citizens who need access to it regardless of their socioeconomic status.
Now, if only we had policy that encouraged intelligent gardening and water conservation in general. There are dozens of totally nonintrusive ways to improve your conservation, and it amazes me how many people don't alter any behavior except that that is limited or dictated by government or economics. I'd like, say, a graduated pricing scheme that charges graduated rates according to usage.
Stop all the bs makes an excellent point which really skewers all the "private property/ let the market decide" ideologues. As much as such ideologues argue for getting the state/ govt out of the way of the market so the latter can "operate as it should", what they fail to realise is that the market couldn't operate at all without the state being involved, for it is the state that defines the laws and creates the regulatory environment which allows the "free market" to operate. Without the state we would basically have anarchy in the market place and no one could own anything (which some might like, but I doubt the free marketeers or the rich would) since ownership rights are, de jure and de facto, defined by the law (ie the state). Also, this is why all the talk about "DEregulation" is an ideological leger de main --it's not about DEregulation at all but about REregulation, just in a different format (usually substituting public ownership for private). The gas "deregulation" in GA is a classic example -- the gas companies are still regulated as to what they can and cannot do to as great an extent as before, it's just now that they are private companies delivering the state's gas system. If you want a good read about all the BS that the rabid free market right feeds us about "deregulation" check out S. Vogel (1996) Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries (Cornell University Press). It's a good read which shows that "deregulation" is really nothing of the sort.
Hey again cousin pat,
First, I thank you for the civil tone of our discussion.
Second, I agree with this
The idea is that the existence of said school, even without you being allowed to jog on said grounds, is benefiting you in some way through the virtue of your ownership. You end up living in a community with better access to education, a better educated workforce, more intellectual geography, more business opportunity, more affluence/less crime, and so on and so forth.
I agree with this theoretical explanation of how the school benefits me personally whether I am allowed to jog on its track or not. But the fact that I benefit from it does not mean that I own it. If we simply called the school a 'public benefit', then that would be perfectly comprehensible. But when we call it 'public PROPERTY' we seem to be saying a little more, and therefore a lot less.
I can't get away from my own philosophical training here, so forgive me if I think of Locke. Locke's "social contract" justification of government holds that people give up some of their rights (to their own lives, liberty, and property) to a governing entity in order to benefit themselves more greatly in the long run (i.e., by getting themselves out of the 'state of nature' which no reasonable person would want to live in). But the whole idea behind Locke's theory is not that all the citizens come to "own" some common property togetether; it is just the opposite. They give up some of their property; they no longer own it b/c they have agreed to give it up to the government.
If the school can tell me that I can't be at the school, then it is clear that I don't, in fact, own the school. Not in any way shape or form. I benefit from the school being there, perhaps, but it is not my property.
Anonymous said:
"As much as such ideologues argue for getting the state/ govt out of the way of the market so the latter can "operate as it should", what they fail to realise is that the market couldn't operate at all without the state being involved, for it is the state that defines the laws and creates the regulatory environment which allows the "free market" to operate."
This is ONE common explanation of the relationship b/w the state and the market, but many (most?) free market advocates reject it. You are really just begging the question against the free market position here, I am afraid, by arguing that the gov't is necessary (through the regulatory environment it creates) for the free market to exist at all. But this is precisely what most free market/libertarian types deny, and so you cannot simply assert it as a 'fact' which 'skewers' the pro-free market perspective.
To clarify this point, perhaps we need to make sure we are clear on the definition that most free market advocates (as I understand them) are using when they talk about the "free market." The free market is, by definition, a social arrangement of exchange wherein all exchanges between two (or more) parties are mutually voluntary. IOW, the 'free market' is, by definition, a state of freedom from any and all physical coersion. IOW, the 'free market' and the state are mutually exclusive. Whenever the state 'regulates' the market, by definition the market is no longer free. (This would be what is often called a 'mixed' economy, where centralized coersion and de-centralized voluntarism are both found in various spots throughout the economy.)
This is what libertarian types are usually defending when they talk about the 'free market.' So for you to say that the state is "necessary" for the free market to even exist in the first place means that you must be speaking of something other than the 'free market' which libertarians are thinking of. In other words, I think we're talking past each other.
I think a lot of people simply use the term 'free market' to refer to "people selling stuff to other people", or something. This is too generic of a definition to get at what libertarians are talking about (whether their position is right or wrong). People selling stuff to each other is a MARKET, but it is not by itself a FREE market. For a market to be free it must also be...free....of all governmental coersion. To be a free market means that there is no government coersion. So it is exactly 180 degrees from the truth (on my view) to say that the gov't is a necessary condition for the free market.
And, keeping with my 'drama queen' nature as pointed out by Nicki, I found this statement rather disconcerting from anon:
"Without the state we would basically have anarchy in the market place and no one could own anything (which some might like, but I doubt the free marketeers or the rich would) since ownership rights are, de jure and de facto, defined by the law (ie the state)."
Ownership rights might be, de facto, defined by the law. But not de jure. Limiting rights to what the law says makes rights violable. If your civil jurisdiction doesn't grant you the right to peacably assemble, then you have no such right. This is bad medicine, and inconsistent with historical liberalism which has always held that rights are inalienable (de jure). When a government puts someone in jail without a trial, they are violating that person's rights. But anon's view would seem to have it that the person simply has no right to a trial since, after all, his gov't has not been gracious enough to bestow such a right upon them.
De facto, of course, the person still goes to jail and rots. For who can resist the coercive power of the state? If they say you go to jail, then you probably end up in jail whether they are doing an evil thing or not. But as a 'de jure' matter, the government has done a grave injustice which no amount of written legislation can erase.
Or perhaps I misunderstood you, anonymous?
Xon: Thank you, as well for the civil discussion. This is Safe As Houses, after all, not Daily Kos. :)
Second, these are important topics to discuss rationally and in a civil manner, because we are not talking about hard and true black-and-white facts so much as differences in philosophies. They are important different philosophies, as they make up the foundations of liberalism, conservatism and libertarianism as we know them in the United States today.
The thing is, I don't see a fine line between private and public property, because as politics evolves and situations change, that line changes. Then there are all the little places where public and private property intertwine. After that there are conflicts of interest (and down here in New Orleans, I'm getting a crash course on conflict-of-interest-as-an-extreme-sport) that further muddy the waters.
So the line between public and private property is malleable. The difference in philosophies is usually summed up by Locke's social contract (giving up something to get something better in exchange - a market based way of looking at government if I've ever seen one) and the 'all rights come from the power of the state' arguement that most liberal ideologues espouse.
Over the course of American history, we have always had an evolving social contract that usually will grant more power to the state to act on a problem the public wants to see dealt with. Then the state agencies overseeing the correction of the problem overstep their bounds or do not truly address the issue, and calls go out for private business to take over. Then private business screws things up, and there are calls for more government regulation. This cycle perpetuates upwards in an upside-down pyramid shape leading us to situations like where we are today, as a nation, with dozens of state agencies and private businesses all claiming rights to fix the same problem. At that point, you can go jogging at the local school not because it is or isn't your property, but because no one knows who's job it is to tell you to stop jogging there.
Heh.
The 'all power evolves from the state' arguement ignores the fact that 'all the states power evolves from the consent of the people'. This becomes less a political argument and more a zen thing. Who came first the chicken or the egg? Answer: it doesn't matter, I'll have my eggs scrambled, thank you, with hash browns and crawfish ettoufee on top.
I look at it where public property ownership rights are directly related to our style of government and are directly proportional to your involvement. I'll go back to the jogging at school metaphor: when I was in high school back in Glynn County, no one voted in school board elections. We had about three districts where the winner was determined by around 80 votes. Had I realized my ownership potential while I was in high school, and shared that knowledge with my high school friends, we could have organized enough high school students and recent graduates to control the school board ourselves.
And that would have been with paying no property taxes at all.
That's where the public property thing comes in for our state. If you want to go jogging at the local school, you have to go out and make that the policy. You are legally allowed to petition for such rights, and form coalitions and circulate petitions that will make that part of public property available to you. Just like enough people working together could change the water restriction policy in ACC or privatize it as the public wills. Because that is the public deciding what to do with public property. Right now, the public has decided, through action or inaction, to allow the city government to control that sort of thing.
Oh, and one more thing anonymous. I agree completely with your argument that "deregulation" is usually just a code word for more regulation. But, again, if you read what libertarian economists say you find them making this very poitn. In other words, when I say that I want the 'free market' to handle something like water distribution, I am not talking about that kind of 'deregulation.' The "freer market, more rules" approach is a problem that many on the right have propagated, but there are advocates of the free market who are up to something quite different than this.
Nicki, I'm sorry if you think I've missed an earlier explanation, and I don't want to try your patience, but I'm not sure where you "previously explaiend" that what you are proposing is not socialistic. That said, I'll happily reconsider whatever earlier comments you are thinking of if you point me back in their direction. But in the meantime I'll respond to your most recent comment.
I've broken this quote into numbered parts, to respond to them in turn.
"B) Let me summarize this in a way that makes it clear what's really going on here. (1) Many of us believe that the state acts to some degree in our interests and is making a good-faith effort to address a legitimate issue on behalf of the majority of citizens. (2) You believe, on the other hand, that the state is not competent to make such judgments and alternatively the market should determine the cost of the commodity. And furthermore, (3) even though we more or less agree that water is a commodity which people MUST have, (4) you don't believe that capitalism would ever result in anyone being unable to afford an essential supply of water."
You then ask "What's disastrous about the above?" which I assume refers to your own view as laid out in (1). This is a rather abstract point, and so I won't be able to do it full justice here, but I'll try to give a fairly quick sketch. The problem with centralized control of economic goods--whether bananas or wrapping paper or even water--is that the regime bureaucracy has no way of calculating what the most important uses of the scarce resource actually are. Under the free market, the price mechanism makes this calulation (imperfectly, to be sure, but in-the-ballpark-ly). If more people in Athens suddenly want ribbed toilet paper, this shows up in the fact that they are willing to pay more money for it than they had previously been willing to pay. All else being equal, this sends a 'message' to the tp producer that more of the ribbed kind should be sent to Athens. Ribbed tp has become more profitable in Athens than it used to be, and so the tp producers are going to respond accordingly. This is all completely voluntary and requires no 'planning' from anyone. Thousands upon thousands of people just go about their daily lives and make choices at the grocery store as they think best in the moment, and the result is that aggregate demand changes and then ribbed tp production goes up to meet that demand. We have just, in effect, 'rationed' ribbed tp towards its more 'important' use by sending it to the area (Athens) where it is in higher demand. Again, this works well pretty well, is actually quite astonishing, and requires no centralized planning whatsoever.
But what do the central planners who sit on the People's Commmittee for Sanitation do? They start trying to 'direct' ribbed tp to the places where it most needs to go. But how do they do this, exactly? How do they know where the ribbed tp really needs to go?
The amount of knowledge that is required to do a good job of this is immense and frankly beyond any government's ability. (Which brings in a Ron Paul plug; this is what Paul means when he says that as president he doesn't want to 'do' much of anything b/c he doesn't know how. His whole point is that NOBODY knows how, no matter what they think).
Like I said this is pretty abstract, but (for the record) the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises predicted the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1920s for just this reason--socialism renders the central planners incapable of making the economic calculations necessary to distribute resources efficiently. And so the Russians ended up with too much steel used to make screws, then too much to make guns, then too much used to make factory roofs, then a shortage of steel altogether, then an overabundance at the cost of other vital resources, etc. Then a 'five year plan' to get steel production on track, then a revised plan when it became clear that nobody knew what 'on track' even meant. And so on...
Now, to make one last ditch and altogether hopeless effort (I am sure) to convince you that I am not being a drama queen by comparing ACC control of water to Soviet-era socialism, let me say a bit about the water situation in light of what has gone before.
Pretend water costs a dollar a gallon, just to make the math easy. This is the uniform rate from the Water Business Office. By law they are not allowed to increase this rate to compensate for drought-induced lower supplies, b/c we are worried about the poor. So the central planners of the ACC gov't try to control the price of water by holding down below what the market level would be under these drought conditions. The question is, what effect will this have on water usage? Will this cause people to use LESS water? Obviously not; when price goes down, demand goes up. When the price is held artificially low (when circumstances are really demanding that the market raise the price), then demand will go artificially high. People will use even MORE water than they otherwise would. And this, remember, is our response to a SHORTAGE (so-called) of water. We respond to a shortage by fixing the price low, which actually only gurantees that more water will be used.
But we are "doing the right thing," so the ACC bureaucrats feel good about themselves and go about their business. They try to compensate for the increased demand resulting from the higher prices by FORCING (and there is no way around this fact) people not to use water for certain purposes.
Aside from the 'social' costs this has in the community (neighbors turning each other in, general distrust and resentment, etc.), all you are doing now is creating what is in effect a 'black market' for water. Many people, for instance, who would prefer to use their water on their lawns, will continue to do so. They will simply sneak out and do it at night. Or whatever.
And what about the significant economic loss that is now being forced upon some of those who obey the law? For instance, what about someone who is trying to sell their house and cannot get the best price b/c they don't have the 'curb appeal' of a nice lawn. And please don't tell me that these people are just being selfish, because for one they may very well use less utility water than average (perhaps they buy their drinking water at the store, skip out on baths every other day, or something). But this particualr usage of the utility water, the usage which is most important to them (and for which they would gladly sacrifice other usages for themselves), has been declared off-limits (or severely restricted).
The gov't almost never even considers these sorts of unintended consequences. When it does, it is then tempted to respond with--MORE regulations. Perhaps the gov't might try to grant 'exceptions' to some people to water their lawns and not others. A signing up period can be set up, perhaps accompanied by some sort of court (more bureacracy, and what's the economic cost of THAT by the way?) to decide who is a worthy exception and who is not. Special interests will vie for their own exceptions, and now 'doing the right thing' with water has become oddly political: you can't water your lawn, unless you convince someone with power to let you. Ah, power. Catch the wave!
Anyway, all of these complications have one guaranteed result--water is not being used as efficiently as it would be if the price mechanism were simply allowed to operate upon its distribution. Important and valid usages of water are falling by the wayside, while other less important usages are being overdone.
So, anyway, the problem I have with your (1), Nicki, ("Many of us believe that the state acts to some degree in our interests and is making a good-faith effort to address a legitimate issue on behalf of the majority of citizens") is that what "many of you" believe really does not--even if you are correct in your belief--justify violating other people's property. Just b/c the gov't is doing something good for people with its power over water does not, by itself, justify it seizing that power for itself in the first place. "Oh look, if I take that guy's property, then I could do such-and-such." Well, even if such-and-such is a good thing, you're not (normally) supposed to take other people's property, and so you have a little more moral work to do to justify seizing it in this case. The simple fact that you think you can do something that is to people's benefit (even to the benefit of the person you took it from) does not, by itself, justify the taking.
I don't disagree with you that the state 'acts to some degree in our interest' and that it 'makes a good faith effort to address a legitimate issue on behalf of the majority of its citizens.' What I disagree with is that the gov't has the right to do this just b/c its intentions are good. And I also worry, as you correctly note in (2), that the gov'ts efforst will backfire economically, as they almost always do.
Re: (3), yes we both agree that water is something that all people need.
Re: (4), this isn't quite my position. I do not deny that "capitalism would ever result in anyone being unable to afford an essential supply of water." This might happen under capitalism (though at that point one would hope that people's altruism would kick in via charity and the like); I am not a utopian. We live in a world of death, and people die. Some people have a really rough time of it compared to others, and have to make very hard choices.
I don't really think that water prices would rise so high that the poor would not be able to afford it, but for the sake of argumetn I'll say "okay, it's possible." (What is more likely is that the price will rise enough that the poor will have to sacrifice other things in order to buy water. Their overall quality of life will go down, but they will not literally die of thirst b/c they can't afford water.) But, again, we live in a scary world where things don't always work out. Things don't work out for everybody when the government controls things either. I never understand why capitalism is always forced to bear the burden of its 'cracks' that people might fall through, but the same skepticism is not directed against governments. Governments often have a way of turning cracks into tunnels, and leaks into floods.
So I'm not acvocating the free market b/c I think it will make everybody's life perfect. I am advocating it b/c it will have far better results than the best laid 'plans' of bureaucrats. I don't claim to be able to make everybody's life ideal. If I may finish on a bluntly cynical note, that is the sort of arrogance reserved for government agents who justify their own positions in society by blaming problems on the 'free market' (and, surprise surprise, offering their own services as the 'solution' to this 'problem.')
"IOW, the 'free market' is, by definition, a state of freedom from any and all physical coersion."
But this is an unattainable/ unrealistic situation because it completely denies the issue of power in the marketplace, both economic and political and reveals the ideological nature of, basically, neoclassical economics (which is what the libertarians and the economic conservative Republican types draw their understandings of society/ markets from). Indeed, we have to look at power if we are to understand the nature of markets and how they work. So, on the surface you can always say "well, both parties can come to an arrangement 'freely', one expressing demand and the other offering supply and therefore it's a 'free' market." But let us suppose we are talking about two countries --a powerful one like the US and a weak one like Chad. On the surface the two may be seen to be coming together "freely" to engage in trade. But, the power relations between them means that they are not both equally capable of defining/ shaping how the market operates. Moreover, no matter how much Chad may not like the conditions of the market as it appears in trade relations w/ the US, it doesn;t really have much the freedom to withdraw but must engage in such trade largely on the US's terms. This is the essence of the "dependency theorists'" arguments about the global economy. Ultimately this goes to the nature of power and what we mean by freedom to choose --at one very shallow level you can always argue that a country (or individual) is "free" to withdraw from the market, but that is rarely the case. If I am starving, how much "freedom" do I have not to engage in selling you my labor at the price you demand?
This is the problem w/ both the libertarian arguments (libertarianism --nice philosophy if you can afford it, I always say :-) ) and the neoliberal (ie ultra "free trade") free marketeers' arguments; they have a very shallow understanding of what is actually meant by "freedom" in the market place and also completely deny the existence of power relations. In that sense they are ideological (and I don't use that term in a negative/ pejorative sense, merely as a counter to the argument that neoclassical economics is not ideological but is "scientific"/ "natural way things work" etc)..
This is the problem w/ both the libertarian arguments (libertarianism --nice philosophy if you can afford it, I always say :-) ) and the neoliberal (ie ultra "free trade") free marketeers' arguments; they have a very shallow understanding of what is actually meant by "freedom" in the market place and also completely deny the existence of power relations.
Here, here!
Thanks, xon, for your response.
I'm not sure where you "previously explaiend" that what you are proposing is not socialistic.
I didn't -- a previous poster did.
Now, a few things...
The problem with centralized control of economic goods--whether bananas or wrapping paper or even water--is that the regime bureaucracy has no way of calculating what the most important uses...Under the free market, the price mechanism makes this calulation.
This idea completely appalls me when the resource is essential or substantially essential. Because capitalism is amoral, and I consider it a matter of morality that we all have equal access to freedom, justice, etc., because in this country we do not allow matters of essential importance to be dictated by private producers and users and therefore potentially restricted from anyone. Because when a resource is essential its denial results in dire consequences. And at least to me, to allow that to happen for the sake of someone's profit is unconscionable.
Again, this works well pretty well, is actually quite astonishing, and requires no centralized planning whatsoever.
Water and tp are in completely different realms. And it bears noting that the only thing free market capitalism does is recognize where the potential for profit lies. If there is no or limited potential for profit, then no resource goes where it may be needed.
The amount of knowledge that is required to do a good job of this is immense and frankly beyond any government's ability.
I disagree. The amount of knowledge to distribute, or control its distribution, or encourage better distribution of essential resources is within the abilities of most governments. If the people they serve value that service. And again, a government is not a corporation -- it serves a role which is beyond that of a distributor and in some cases makes decisions that are in fact acapitalistic or even anti-capitalistic for other reasons.
socialism renders the central planners incapable of making the economic calculations necessary to distribute resources efficiently.
There's that word again. But I don't think it applies. And the russian steel situation is an example of rank incompetence and corruption -- not necessarily an indictment of government distribution in general or even of socialism as a theory.
We respond to a shortage by fixing the price low, which actually only gurantees that more water will be used.
Yeah, but I already mentioned my opinion of what would be effective and fair, which is a market-driven solution with some allowance for essential use. Where we differ is that I believe it is our moral duty to ensure that no one is without essential resources or denied the basic promises of our society (freedom, justice, self-determination) -- and it appears you don't.
Please note that you speak of the ACC when the policies are a hybrid of state and local restrictions.
And what about the significant economic loss that is now being forced upon some of those who obey the law?
As mentioned, I would be reaping (and hopefully am not -- we shall see when this heat wave ends) those consequences. But I am obeying the rules and this means I recycle greywater. I also water very efficiently. Which are solutions available to everyone.
For instance, what about someone who is trying to sell their house and cannot get the best price b/c they don't have the 'curb appeal' of a nice lawn.
This is not a good example, and it wasn't the first time you brought it up. First, any loss you incur is a loss of potentiality, not actuality, and it was predicated originally on the idea that you could expect to irrigate your lawn as much as you like and as often as you like in any season regardless of the water situation. Which is ridiculous. And how much economic loss would you incur if water were $50/gallon and you insisted on watering the bejesus out of your lawn for the same reason?
Second, lawns are fundamentally a poor idea given our persistent droughts if you feel that you must artificially have a swath of vibrant green in 100-degree heat. And the local realty community is not facing reality by making that their paradigm. So your entire economic scheme is based on a highly artificial and arbitrary situation which is unsustainable under either of the following situations: 1. the government limits your water uses and 2.water becomes unaffordable.
Perhaps the gov't might try to grant 'exceptions' to some people to water their lawns and not others.
Currently the govt allows exceptions for new lawns for the reason that vegetation has benefits that we all realize, and the government does not want to preclude its initial establishment. Older plantings are much better able to handle the challenges of a short water supply.
Important and valid usages of water are falling by the wayside, while other less important usages are being overdone.
This is from the guy who wants to water his lawn in the 100-degree heat. Exhibit A.
what "many of you" believe really does not--even if you are correct in your belief--justify violating other people's property.
As noted, your property and mine derive much of their value by the services provided by the government we share, so I consider that a two-way street. It gives me certain things and in return I give it others. So, "violating" is really an egregious term for "accepting certain types of economic advantage in exchange for others."
Re: (This might happen under capitalism (though at that point one would hope that people's altruism would kick in via charity and the like); I am not a utopian. We live in a world of death, and people die. Some people have a really rough time of it compared to others, and have to make very hard choices.
Let them eat cake, eh? Damn good thing we can afford to live. At least under the current conditions.
Things don't work out for everybody when the government controls things either. I never understand why capitalism is always forced to bear the burden of its 'cracks' that people might fall through, but the same skepticism is not directed against governments. Governments often have a way of turning cracks into tunnels, and leaks into floods.
Again, two-way street. Why is government held to task for its failures (not necessarily faults) when capitalism is not? And as I see it unfettered capitalism is amoral -- and that is not a process problem, but a huge fault which to me renders the theory invalid.
"For instance, what about someone who is trying to sell their house and cannot get the best price b/c they don't have the 'curb appeal' of a nice lawn."
There's a simple solution --plant a lawn of zoysia rather than turf grass. I did so about 5 yrs ago and have not watered it a single time since I put it in and it's as green as anything. Society/ I shouldn't have to suffer the consequences of your poor choices --hmmm, now where have I heard tha argument before?
For instance, what about someone who is trying to sell their house and cannot get the best price b/c they don't have the 'curb appeal' of a nice lawn.
This is not a good example, and it wasn't the first time you brought it up. First, any loss you incur is a loss of potentiality, not actuality, and it was predicated originally on the idea that you could expect to irrigate your lawn as much as you like and as often as you like in any season regardless of the water situation. Which is ridiculous. And how much economic loss would you incur if water were $50/gallon and you insisted on watering the bejesus out of your lawn for the same reason?
Xon's example is an excellent example of why the "private property" has little meaning in the "free market" totally unregulated environment.
In the totally free market, your grass would be brown because someone with more money than you would be filling their swimming pool, washing their Mercedes, or even more likely, hoarding the resource against the inevitable increase in price.
Also the value of "your" property would be determined by whether or not it was on a publicly maintained paved road, had access to publicly maintained utilities, had publicly provided police and fire services, and even which publicly maintained schools were nearby. Each of these elements has as much or more impact on the "value" of your property as the intrinsic value. Furthermore, unless you barter for property of equal value, the money which you accept for your property only has value to the extent that the government says that it does.
Using this example, in counties where landowners have the choice between the free market solution of maintaining their own services (well, septic tank), almost without exception they will choose "city services" when offered, even if there is a substantial hook-up fee. Not inconsequential in this decision making process is the fact that the availability of publicly provided services makes the property more valuable.
Access to the public utilities also protects private property interests by insuring that the property owner will not be responsible for unforeseen repair or replacement of the services necessary to use and enjoy the property.
Again any analysis of a "free market" inevitably has to come back to the extent of other citizens to provide the resources so that you can possess and use the property. Without this communal support, you really have nothing with which to enter into the "free market".
Since stop the bs "here here'd" my earlier post, I'd like to return the favor. Here, here!
Nicki,
If there is no or limited potential for profit, then no resource goes where it may be needed.
Ah, but if the resource is needed over there, then there will (almost always, if not always) be a good potential for profit. B/c the fact that is needed means that more people are demanding it, are willing to pay a higher price, etc. Producers and investors can see this and respond by allocating more resources into distributing the newly 'needed' good to the area that is demanding it.
And remember that a big part of profitability is often low prices. Finding a way to sell something at a low price is a way to make huge profits. So, again, if everybody is demanding something, then producers are going to be highly motivated to come up with a way to provide that something at a price that everyone can afford. (And water is, for the most part, affordable by everyone.)
Swarthing masses begging for water, but monopolyman capitalists standing by and saying, "Nah, not profitable," is an unlikely scenario. They are more likely to say "Gee, swarthing masses of people begging for water; think how much money I could make if I found a way to give them water they can afford!"
The basic problem I have here, Nicki, is that when looking at capitalism you hold real world inevitabilities against it but when looking at government you act as though utopia is actually possible. So you chide me for apparently being 'okay' with some people not having healthy access to water, as though this is our choice: we must choose the government-controlloed water world in which everybody has access to water and nobody dies of thirst of malnutrition, and the free market water world in which some people die without access. But the truth is that we have a different choice (on my view):
1. the government control world, in which some people don't have access, or
2. the free market world, in which some people don't have sufficient access
My view is not 'let them eat cake' because I am not telling people to just suck it up. It is hell to be poor, I have no doubt. And I burn with the compassion of a thousand suns for all who are in that plight. But I advocate the free market because I sincerely believe that it offers the best arrangement for those poor people. If anything, it is the government control view which paralels the Antoinette approach, b/c it is the gov't agents who are claiming to do something which they cannot. "Under capitalism, some people are left to die." Um, but under non-capitalism people are dying, too. Is the government actaully claiming to be able to prevent every occurrence of such tragedies? If it is, then it is a view of utopian arrogance, and when people die because of it (as they surely will) it will not be b/c some capitalists said "let them eat cake."
If it is not claiming such omnipotence and omniscience, then your argument is undermined b/c you have to accept the genuine evils that remain under government control when you try to compare such a scenario to your fears of what the free market might do.
More later...
Swarthing masses begging for water, but monopolyman capitalists standing by and saying, "Nah, not profitable," is an unlikely scenario.
Uhh, have you been to a gas station in the last year or so?
Xon said "Ah, but if the resource is needed over there, then there will (almost always, if not always) be a good potential for profit. B/c the fact that is needed means that more people are demanding it, are willing to pay a higher price, etc."
What nonsense. Food is needed by everyone, but only those w/ the resources to pay for it will get it, regardless of the demand. In fact, the higher the demand, the less likely the poor will get access to it. Ditto for healthcare, education, water, and a bazillion other things. Spend time in the third world if you don't believe me. This is why your libertarian nonsense makes sense in the hypothetical world but not in the real one --though I guess that would make you a great economist (the definition of which is a person who believes that if there is a difference b/w their model of how the world works and how the world actually works then the problem is w/ the world, not their model of it).
PS: I didn't mean to be quite so snotty, but I've had a lifetime of libertarians arguing like this and it's just intellectual masturbation. Again, libertarianism is great if you are wealthy and never need any kind of public good. But that cuts out a large swath of the population about whom I care more than i do rich people (yes, I guess I am a class warrior!).
Xon, I think we must agree to disagree. Though you're incorrect that I see government as utopian -- I simply see it as a preferable alternative in this case to a system which has no motivation other than the exchange of goods for profit, which of necessity ignores those issues that do not have a clear economic benefit.
Quite frankly, I don't believe your comments regarding the private market caring for individuals better than the government when the private market does not have care of anyone in its goals or focus. Whereas the government at least incorporates an understanding of what I consider to be a moral necessity to ensure a minimum of the essentials for all.
Nicki,
Though you're incorrect that I see government as utopian -- I simply see it as a preferable alternative in this case to a system which has no motivation other than the exchange of goods for profit, which of necessity ignores those issues that do not have a clear economic benefit.
Okay, so let's take stock. I take you at your word that you are not a utopian; you support government control of some goods and services as a 'preferable' option to the free market, but you are not claiming that it is a perfect option. But then I don't know why earlier you tried to frame our discussion as one between those who "believe it is our moral duty to ensure that no one is without essential resources or denied the basic promises of our society (freedom, justice, self-determination)" (i.e., pro-governmental intervention people like yourself) and those who don't (i.e., anti-government intervention people like myself).
Since you admit that your position is that the government is simply "preferable" to the free market, but not a utopian paradise, then I presume that you would also admit (as any person must) that under government control some people still go without essential resources or are denied the basic promises of our society. In other words, this moral (and admirable) goal that you want to see fulfilled--nobody going without--is left unfulfilled under government control and under free market conditions. (arguably)
So, you aren't really rejecting the free market approach for "moral" reasons so much as for the "practical" reasons that you don't think the free market fulfils your moral goals as much as the government-control model does. But both models leave some people slipping between the cracks. Neither model guarantees a sufficient quality of life for every person. This was the point I was trying to make about how your comparison b/w gov't and the market is not fair. Under both arrangements, in the real world, there will be people who go without. The question then is "Which system creates the best and most prosperous conditions overall, despite the inherent flaws of life that will remain?"
See, our goals are the same. We both want a society in which as many people as possible prosper as much as possible. The question is "HOW is that society achieved?" I say a free market is a necessary condition for such a society, and you say that governmental interference in the market is a necessary condition. From here we can discuss which system really "works" better, and we can drop the moralizing oneupmanship about whose society is "moral" or not. That's all I'm saying; let's discuss which system better provides for its people, rather than simply accusing one system of leaving some people unprovided for but ignoring the same feature when it pops up in our favored system.
Quite frankly, I don't believe your comments regarding the private market caring for individuals better than the government when the private market does not have care of anyone in its goals or focus. Whereas the government at least incorporates an understanding of what I consider to be a moral necessity to ensure a minimum of the essentials for all.
But the assumption you are making here is that you can only achieve an end if you explicitly set out to achieve it as a purposed goal. But this is not necessarily true. Perhaps people acting in their own perceived self-interest under market conditions end up (without explicitly trying) benefiting the society as a whole, whether that is what they intended to do or not. This was Adam Smith's argument about the 'invisible hand,' after all, so again it seems that you aren't quite grappling directly with the libertarian argument.
For myself, I don't quite agree with Smith or the classical (or neoclassical) schools of thought on this. I believe that there is far more to the free market than simply people acting selfishly but benefiting the whole society by accident. But that's a discussion for another time, I suppose. In either case, the assumption behind your argument here is questionable.
I had said:
Swarthing masses begging for water, but monopolyman capitalists standing by and saying, "Nah, not profitable," is an unlikely scenario.
To which stopthebs retorted:
Uhh, have you been to a gas station in the last year or so?
But gas stations illustrate the validity of the free market view very well. The first problem with gas stations is that prices are held artificially high by, at the very least,
a. taxes (the government's cut on a gallon of gas is close to 50% in some places) and,
b. anti-'gouging' laws and sentiments.
So, when supply of gasoline really does go down, or when demand goes up, we limit how much profit gasoline suppliers and investors are allowed to make. Thus, they do not make the most efficiemnt adjustment to the market conditions (the market conditions do not send them the proper signals about what to do because the market conditions are being tampered with by governmental interference).
If gasoline producers are allowed to respond to true market conditions, then they will make even greater profits and even more investors will be motivated to enter the gasoline production/supply business. This will increase competition between these suppliers/producers, and the ultimate result will be prices going down again. This is Econ 101.
The second problem is that gathering in crude oil, refining it, and delivering it to gas stations all over hither and yon is not a cheap process. There are ways to make it cheaper (at the very least, more refineries, more competition, etc), but these companies invest billions of dollars in the process. It should not surprise us that they bring in billions of dollars of profits. That said, even at our current price levels, we are paying less for gas as a proportion of our real wealth than people were paying 40 years ago. In other words, when you factor in inflation and other things, we are paying less of our incomes towards gasoline today than we were decades ago. True, we aren't at the all-time ridiculous low real income prices that gasoline reached in the late 1990s (when I could get a gallon of gas in Augusta for 79 cents at a time when the economy was surging and people had, on average, more money), but overall gas has been more expensive in the past than it is now.
The third issue with gas stations is that worldwide demand has gone up dramatically, and will continue to do so. When demand goes up, price goes up (unless we interfere with the market process and try to hold prices down artificially, which we've already seen is a bad idea that produces massive inefficiencies and widespread waste of resources, which hardly benefits the poor). That's just the way it is. So the price of gas is going to go up, especially as long as supply stays relatively level even as demand goes up.
But the initial point of you bringing up gas stations was to somehow refute my point that producers are not going to simply ignore huge numbers of people who are clamoring for a product that they cannot afford. This creates huge motivation for those producers to find a more inexpensive way to produce the product, so that they can sell it to the poorer people who are demanding it and make a profit. The idea that they simply don't bother because they're already making profit might be the way that the average person thinks about finances, but it is not how successful people usually think. Successful people don't generally get that way by ignoring genuine opportunities for profit that come their way. Every little profitable move adds up. If I can find a way to sell gasoline to millions of poor people at 50 cents a gallon, and I only make 5 cents profit, then I'm still going to do that because that's 5 cents millions of times over and it is stupid to turn such an opportunity down even if you are already making tons of money in other ventures. Now, I'm not saying that it's possible to produce gasoline that cheaply. Maybe it's not. But the point is that producers have every motivation to try to find a way to produce it more cheaply so that they can sell it to those who want it but cannot afford it.
But the fifth issue here is that your example doesn't really bear on my argument anyway. Gas is one of the more inelastic demand items out there. Even when the price goes up, people still need it. So far the majority of people are still able to afford gasoline. But they are having to cut back on other things. So the real issue for the market is how the producers of those other things are going to stay in business. Maybe they're not. If people are spending too much money on gas to afford other things, then people are essentially 'voting' with their walletbooks that gasoline is more important to them than those other things. And when resources are scarce we need more of what is most important to people and less of what is less important. So, again, the free market comes through and provides us with the kind of rationing we need in a time of scarcity.
But some creative entrepeneur may come up with a way to provide people with another good or service for a lower price than it used to go for, and then these people who are paying more for gas will be able to afford that item again. And the creative entrepeneur will make a lot of money. Because, yet again, producers have every motivation to make something cheaply enough that they can sell it for a tiny profit to a lot of people. Profits come through numbers, as all good businesspeople will attest.
But the idea that gas producers are just sitting around ignoring the pleas of people for cheaper gas is ridiculous. Gas producers deserve to make a return on their investments, too. If you take that right away from them, then they are better off liquidating their companies and taking their billions of dollars and investing it in some other venture. And then what would those of us who want gasoline do? Gas producers cannot charge whatever they want for gas; they have to charge a price that we are willing and able to pay, or else they will not sell enough gas to make a profit. If there is a way to make gasoline more cheaply, then that would be a great opportunity for an oil company, but it's not very likely to happen when we have regulations preventing the opening of new refineries, anti-gouging laws, heavy taxes on gas, etc.
If there's not a way to make gasoline more cheaply, then all this world demand is going to keep raising the price, and some people are really going to feel the pinch. But what is the solution? To have the government come in and 'take over'? How will that make things better?
If we're doomed to expensive gas on market conditions, then we're doomed indeed. The government is no solution.
Anon, I don't think you're being snotty at all. I do think you're getting some things wrong, but that's no crime or anything. This is an emotionally-charged issue. It's cool.
So what do you get wrong, in my opinion? It starts, again, with definitions. I don't think you and I are talking about the same thing when we use the word "demand," for instance. You said,
"What nonsense. Food is needed by everyone, but only those w/ the resources to pay for it will get it, regardless of the demand. In fact, the higher the demand, the less likely the poor will get access to it. Ditto for healthcare, education, water, and a bazillion other things.
Okay, in economic terms (as I understand things), 'demand' doesn't just mean "people say they want something if asked on a survey," or something like that. It means rather that there are actually people who are able and willing to pay more money for something than they were previously. If somebody wants something but can't afford it, that by itself does not mean that "demand" has increased.
But it does, as I said earlier when I was spouting my 'nonsense', create an incentive for producers and investors to find a way to deliver the good at a price people can afford.
If demand for bananas in Athens goes up to 2 dollars a banana, meaning that the Athens grocery stores are suddenly able to clear all the bananas off their shelves even when they have a 2 dollar price tag on them, then this provides a motivation for food producers to start sending more bananas into the Athens area. They can do this either by diverting their already existing banana supply from other areas and sending more to Athens than they used to, or they can do it by investing the money and resources to actually grow more bananas. (Perhaps this company sells both bananas and kiwis; they migh start growing less kiwis and more bananas to respond to the higher demand). The bottom line is that more resources are put into providing Athens with bananas, and Athens actually ends up getting more bananas. The thing that Athens "demands" ends up being the thing that Athens gets.
But what about the poor people who used to love bananas but cannot afford 2 dollars a pop? Well, the increased competition between banana producers will start to drive the price back down again. After all, people are willing to pay 2 dollars per banana, but they'll pay less if they it's offered. So to get a better market share of the Athens banana eaters, Chiquita will start charging less for bananas (but still enough to make a profit). Then Banana Republic (just kidding) will do the same, and the price will start to drop. Eventually, banana prices will hit a level at which they are still more profitable in Athens than they used to be, but less than 2 dollars. And there will be a lot more bananas on the Athens market than there used to be.
"Spend time in the third world if you don't believe me. This is why your libertarian nonsense makes sense in the hypothetical world but not in the real one --though I guess that would make you a great economist (the definition of which is a person who believes that if there is a difference b/w their model of how the world works and how the world actually works then the problem is w/ the world, not their model of it)."
Well, Austrian economists aren't into modeling, but I understand your basic point about theory not always lining up with fact. Far be it from me to just take an ideological stand devoid of any factual basis. But I don't see where you've actually proven your claim that "In fact, the higher the demand, the less likely the poor will get access to it." The only thing you've said to evince this claim (that I can see) is to refer me to "the third world." But there are plenty of reasonable analyses of the third world that don't rely on bashing the free market. Again, what about outright widespread regime corruption? What about the socialistic policies of many third world governments? What about the system of values in those societies regarding work, profits, quality of life, etc? You'll have to say more to convince me that the third world is in bad shape because of free marketeers.
Xon:
Your argument about bananas and kiwi fruit assumes that there is perfect knowledge of competitive conditions in different places; there never is and there never will be. Furthermore, unregulated competition typically allows producers to nudge others out of the market until we get either monopoly or oligopoly, which invariably leads to cartels/ price fixing --which is why we have things like the Sherman Anti-trust act to enforce competition (imagine that, government regulation NECESSARY to enforce competition!). Despite what the free market "I want competition in the market" theories say, in practice unregulated markets have a tendency towards stiffling competition --given their druthers, producers prefer monopolies to competition.
As to Austrian economists like Hayak et al (the doyen of the libertarian, free market crowd), many did model economies, but that's a different issue. My point about demand leading to higher price is pretty much straight out of neoclassical econ 101; if there's more demand the price gets higher until the market draws in more producers. That's what the theory says. But, in actuality, just because there is a higher price doesn't mean that more producers are drawn in --the costs of market entry may be far too high (tried to build a steel mill or car plant recently?), there may be collusion of a cartel nature, people don't have access to perfect information, etc. Again, you can say these are "market imperfections." fair enough, but that's how the real world works. It doesn't work on an isotropic plane with complete transparency of information and never will.
Finally, of course I am not saying that in the third world there aren't other problems as well, but in my experience the kinds of free market structural adjustment policies enacted there have usually immiserated large swaths of the population. Even jeffrey Sachs, the leading light of ultra-free marketing in the 90s, has now said it's a disaster.
I've always thought oil was a public resource as well, and that the oil companies contracted with the government to extract it and sell it for a profit.
Your argument about bananas and kiwi fruit assumes that there is perfect knowledge of competitive conditions in different places
I don't think I'm assuming this at all, actually. When a banana producer decides to send more banans in the direction of Athens, GA because bananas are selling for a higher profit there all of a sudden, he doesn't need to know ANYTHING about 'competitive conditions' except that "Hey, bananas are making more money in Athens all of a sudden." That's one of the nice features of the price mechanism as a guide to resource distribution--it provides a rough estimate of factors that nobody is capable of knowing exhaustively. Again, this is one of the key elements of the libertarian/Austrian arguments, that humans cannot know everything about current conditions, but that the one thing they can know (prices have changed) is enough to guide them towards a relatively efficient distribution of goods and services.
So my argument isn't assuming perfect knowledge of anything.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, as to me your banana example clearly assumes a whole bunch of stuff about the transmission of information about price changes through the market. Unless you can have instantaneous transmission of information through time and across space (which we can never achieve, because it always takes time for information to cross space; all social and biological processes, by definition, take time to unfold), you will never have the kind of market you seek, as there will always be market imperfections --some people who are "in the know" get information more quickly than others, which means that they can act to corner a market or dump stock (whether of bananas or anything else) before others do and so "distort" markets. Think of how knowledge of stock markets' operation is diffused across the economic system --those w/ access to a computer get the info, those w/out don't (or get it much later). In Athens, those who know that bananas are going cheaply or expensively at Earth Fare or wherever get a competitive advantage over others; no one visits every store personally in Athens to check the price of bananas before buying, because a) that is very time consuming (and not everyone has equal amounts of that resource [time]) and b) because it takes time to do so you can never know for sure that the price at Earth Fare hasn't changed in the 3 hours it's taken you to visit Publix, Kroger etc to check on their prices. Ergo, you make decisions based on imperfect knowledge of prices because you have to. In turn, this fact means that price mechanisms can never operate as the perfect representations of economic relations and conditions which they are theorized to do and, consequently, you are left w/ an ideological decision to make --do I let imperfect humans (like govt) guide me to make economic decisions or imperfect prices do so? The point is that this is an ideological decision, not one based on any scientific or absolute measuring that "the market" is implicitly "better" at allocating resources.
As to your Chiquita case; if the demand goes up more producers can only get into the market if they have the freedom (ie those already producing don't keep them out through cartel-like activities) and capital to do so. Again, you can argue that "well, this isn't the market operating perfectly" and I'd agree w/ you. The point of divergence, though, is that you will never get a market operating perfectly because: 1) information doesn't diffuse evenly and equally, so you never have consumers and producers w/ equivalent knowledge of how the market is operating (which is what the theories rest upon --go and read the econ 101 textbooks if you don;t believe me); and 2) because you can never get rid of the power relations in markets that mean that some have greater ability to bend the market's operation to their benefit and to the detriment of the powerless. This is why what you argue for may work in theory (which I don;t think it does, for the reasons stated above --the assumptions of instaneity are too many to make it so) but can never work in practice and therefore are useless for describing the real world. Only when you have an isotropic plane and a society of people with equal knowledge, capital, and power resources will it do so. But, this itself can never occur because, as said before, when you deregulate markets you get concentrations of power, money etc and reductions in competition, which is why govt has been necessary to enforce the rules of competition through things like the Sherman anti-trust act etc.
Ergo, you make decisions based on imperfect knowledge of prices because you have to. In turn, this fact means that price mechanisms can never operate as the perfect representations of economic relations and conditions which they are theorized to do and, consequently, you are left w/ an ideological decision to make --do I let imperfect humans (like govt) guide me to make economic decisions or imperfect prices do so? The point is that this is an ideological decision, not one based on any scientific or absolute measuring that "the market" is implicitly "better" at allocating resources.
I know you're already at least a little familiar with Hayek, b/c you brought him up in connection with Austrian economics. And obviously my suggestion puts no obligation upon you. But I think you would benefit from reading some of the more "hard core" (yes, even more hardcore than Hayek) Austrians, such as von Mises, Rothbard, or (today) Lew Rockwell and Walter Block. I approach these things too much as a philosopher at times, and so I agree that we are probably pretty close to grinding to a halt as far as this exchange being useful goes. But I do think (from my own reading) that you're missing a big part of the way the Austrian system of thought holds together. Your recent concerns about imperfect knowledge being the case in point. Austrians accept imperfect knowledge as part of the economic system. They do not theorize some perfect price mechanism that transmits perfect informtation to all people equally. As you yourself put it,
Ergo, you make decisions based on imperfect knowledge of prices because you have to.
and you sound like an Austrian when you say this! But what doesn't follow is where you try to go from here (a couple of my own comments are interspersed):
In turn, this fact means that price mechanisms can never operate as the perfect representations of economic relations and conditions which they are theorized to do [but Austrians don't theorize them to do this, xrh] and, consequently, you are left w/ an ideological decision to make --do I let imperfect humans (like govt) guide me to make economic decisions or imperfect prices do so? [right, I am fine with characterizing the debate this way. And I think Austrians provide a compelling argument here in favor of imperfect prices, b/c the imperfections inherent to socialism are several orders of magnitude worse, per von Mises. xrh] The point is that this is an ideological decision, not one based on any scientific or absolute measuring that "the market" is implicitly "better" at allocating resources.
But this is a false dichotomy, and again it is one which Austrains explicitly reject. One of the whole oddities of Austrian economics (particularly the more 'hard' liners like von Mises and Rothbard) is that they view economics as an entirely 'theoretical' discipline, i.e. one that is understood entirely through rational reflection about human nature and not at all through any sort of 'empirical' testing or modeling. But this doesn't mean that Austrians are pursuing 'ideology' rather than science; it means that, for them, ideology and science join into one when it comes to economics.
Or, to put it differently...sure, Austrians favor the market for 'ideological' reasons, not 'scientific' ones. But they do this because those ideological reasons are really good/strong, and because the 'scientific' reasons that most economists use are actually illusions. Science (defined as systematic empirical observation) simply cannot be used to discover principles of economics.
So, as long as we're not using 'ideological' as though it's a bad thing, then I'm fine with saying that Austrians are being 'ideological' rather than 'scientific.' It all depends on the arguments they offer, which I find more or less compelling. Price-drive markets are one thing, and human central planners are another. There are inherent problems to the one that don't come into play for the other. This is not an arbitrary preference on the part of free market supporters.
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