Today Americans celebrate independence from a foreign nation and, more generally, freedom from tyranny. Regular readers of the Antiplanner won’t have to guess what I think about that.
Fireworks over the Willamette River, July 3, 2007.
Flickr photo copyright 2007 by Sean Dreilinger.
All my life, I’ve wondered about the relationship between the individual and society. When do the needs of the community trump individual freedom? Henry David Thoreau gave his answer in his famous essay, Civil Disobedience:
“I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men.”
I interpret this to mean that people should be free to do what they want so long as what they do does not harm their neighbors and other people. But how do we define “harm”?
While Penegra, could be the product, to get rid of the patent protection act and some other medicine producing companies is producing the medicine with that Sildenafil citrate are Kamagra, Kamagra buy levitra no prescription oral jelly, Forzest. The medicine is effective and will start http://deeprootsmag.org/category/departments/sky-above-earth-below/?feedsort=comment_count cialis 5 mg by activating an enzyme in your blood stream. This does involve surgery but it produces levitra 20mg price fast results. It is important that the email subject have the name of their business in it so they viagra no prescription online will likely open and read it. Some people want to say, “If you build a house on your own land that is in my viewshed, it harms me because I no longer have a pristine view.” That, indeed, is the argument for amending measure 37 in Oregon: some people owned land with the expectation that their neighbors would never develop their land, and are now upset that their neighbors can do so.
When to do the needs of society trump individual freedom?
Flickr photo by Infinite Wilderness.
Economist Ronald Coase addressed this issue with what has become known as the Coase Theorem. As long as the initial property rights are clearly identified and can be bought and sold, said Coase, it doesn’t matter who initially owns what: the result will be the same. If the deed to your property includes a restriction that you can’t block my view, you can still block my view by buying that right from me. If it doesn’t include such a restriction, I can protect my view by buying it from you.
Advocates of planning often talk about the need to increase peoples’ sense of community, their willingness to sacrifice their personal freedom for the greater good. One big problem with this is: who gets to define that greater good — and what is to prevent them from using that power for their own benefit? Planners want to set up all kinds of public involvement processes to prevent such corruption, but in the end either the planners have the power or the elected officials who oversee them do.
The Antiplanner concludes that sacrifices in personal freedom for the greater good are almost always unnecessary, and those who promote them are in fact grabbing power for themselves. In almost any case that someone can imagine people should sacrifice their freedom for the greater good, we can in fact find a property rights regime that will give people freedom to choose and to negotiate with their neighbors. Rather than come up with new regulations, government leaders should look for new property rights systems that will solve problems without government interference.
Best wishes to all on this Fourth of July.
In almost any case that someone can imagine people should sacrifice their freedom for the greater good, we can in fact find a property rights regime that will give people freedom to choose and to negotiate with their neighbors
Negotiating with neighbors implies transaction costs, both in terms of time, effort, getting off the couch, and actually talking to one’s neighbors. A lot of Americans don’t want to pay those costs, and it seems to me that one justification set forth for government is that government resolves those negotiations on our behalf. In other words, we elect/hire and pay government folks to do things we don’t want to do, so that we’re free to do the things we do want to do. Regulations replace negotiations.
For some (many?) people, while a negotiated outcome may be preferable to a regulated outcome, regulated outcomes may be preferable to the sum of negotiated outcomes + transaction costs. (NOTE: regulated outcomes are not “free”, but paying taxes is preferable for some people versus payments in the form of time and effort).
Thank you, D4P, for illustrating the basic difference between us. You trust the government to negotiate on your behalf. I don’t.
My distrust is not based on any ideology or philosophy. It is based on more than thirty years of studying a wide variety of government agencies, all of them created with the best of intentions, none of which ended up working on anyone’s behalf but themselves and the most powerful special interests they could find to support them.
It’s not so much that I trust government per se, but rather that I’m not sure what the alternatives are, and whether they’re any better. Government employees might be susceptible to “bad” influences, but so are non-government employees. Do you believe private citizens to be different (and better) than government folks? I don’t. I think they’re generally the same, with the same weaknesses. Systems that rely on individuals to act completely upon their own behalf are not immune to corruption, are they?
I don’t disagree that government typically ends up serving powerful special interests (see, for example, the Bush administration). On the local level, elected officials chase tax revenues, which means (among other things) that real estate people (who represent a small minority) have a lot of influence. I’m not convinced, however, that letting people do whatever they want necessarily brings about better outcomes. I think people are generally selfish, and selfishness isn’t necessarily “sustainable”. That’s not to say that what we’re doing now is sustainable, either.
In an idealized form, government exists to help promote some long-term, comprehensive conception of what is best for “the public”, whatever that means. There’s no question that government falls short of achieving that goal, in part because such a goal is difficult to define, and in part because people in power often have their own agendas that divert their attention. But I’m not convinced it’s feasible for every individual to be involved in decisions regarding every aspect of their lives. I’m not sure there’s enough time in the day for that to actually happen. My impression is that most people would rather spend their time elsewise.
The reason private action is preferable to government action is that private action is non-coercive and generally sets costs where they belong. If you object that you bought your land with the expectation that you would enjoy the view forever, without that right already in place, too bad. Your expectation was grossly unreasonable. Now, if you want to buy the right to the view, then let’s negotiate. The cost is borne by you, where it belongs. You might then whine that the owner wants more than you want to pay for that right. That is, again, too &@^#$$ bad. Perhaps you have neighbors who also want to preserve their view? Negotiate with them to partner up. All this negotiation is tough, I know. It takes time. You have to consider what other people want and need. You can’t be a total jerk. Liberty is such a drag!
“Systems that rely on individuals to act completely upon their own behalf are not immune to corruption, are they?”
Yes, they are, because corruption is an effect of power. It’s corrupt to create a government agency whereby you can get value (the view) from my land without paying for it, or if you do pay for it, make your neighbors subsidize your desire for a view. It’s when people don’t want to negotiate, or spend time negotiating, that corruption sets in. They’d rather use force to get what they want.
The reason developers cozy up to zoning boards is because that’s where the power is, and where the whining NIMBYs live. That’s why there shouldn’t be zoning boards with such power. Let’s say a developer owns some land that’s currently zoned for a shopping mall. It is next to your house. You deserve no consideration and should have no power to stop them. When you bought your land you knew, or should have known, that the land next to you was zoned for a shopping mall. Instead, let’s say the developer’s land is zoned for houses and he wants to build a shopping mall. Now its up to him to buy the right to build a shopping mall from you, his neighbor. You could hold out. That’s why developers generally don’t buy land up front, they buy an option to purchase, then start negotiating with the neighbors. That’s also why their rights buyout usually includes a clause stating that everybody has to say yes or nobody gets anything. The holdout’s neighbors will pressure them, too. The function of the zoning board, in this case, is to memorialize the neighbors’ assent to the change.
That’s why rights need to be negotiable and transferable. With a zoning board, I have to abase myself before them, often with bribery unrelated to the project, such as cash for a park 5 miles away from it. That is corrupt as hell, even if the board’s members get no personal benefit other than self-aggrandizement. The board might ignore the neighbors, who aren’t putting up cash for a park. Without the board I only have to negotiate with my neighbors, who don’t have a board to override them, and have the freedom and power to negotiate on their own behalf. Heck, each one might want something different, a feature of liberty impossible under government rules because government is one size fits all.
“transaction costs, both in terms of time, effort, getting off the couch, and actually talking to one’s neighbors.”
And working full time from January to May to pay your taxes is not a lot of time and effort?
And working full time from January to May to pay your taxes is not a lot of time and effort?
Since people have to work under either system, work is essentially a “fixed cost” that doesn’t really matter in this context. It’s a given.
If you don’t want to negotiate with your neighbor you don’t have to, you have to pay taxes.
Randal, thanks for the photo of the Oregon Country Fair, can’t wait until next weekend!
There are at least two major problems with this notion of negotiating with neighbors.
First, resources for negotiating vary widely. Some people have a lot more time, money, and bargaining power than others. Those without resources can’t negotiate, and thus are excluded from the process. In theory, government helps address this inequality by treating everyone the same, regardless of resources. In practice, however, the wealthy and connected fare better than the rest of us. Which system is more equal? I don’t know.
Second, planners like the notion of stepping back and taking a comprehensive view, considering cumulative impacts of individual decision-making and such. If decisions are left (e.g.) to two neighbors, this comprehensive view is lost. Of course, some may have no problem with that, and may believe that cumulative impacts should be ignored.
If decisions are left (e.g.) to two neighbors, this comprehensive view is lost. Of course, some may have no problem with that, and may believe that cumulative impacts should be ignored.
Of course. And who mitigates transaction costs to those not involved in the bargaining? The vast majority sees thru this scheme and thus this is a non-starter.
Best,
D
If you can’t afford to pay your neighbor what they want in order to give up a right to their land, or to give you a right to their land, so what? Not our problem. Your exclusion is utterly irrelevant, because employing the coercive power of the state to give you the power to strip a landowner of a right you can’t afford to buy is, frankly, grossly immoral. The only equality that matters is the equal right to demand whatever we will when you come knocking, and to refuse if we don’t like what you offer. My system is *more* equal, because being connected doesn’t get you anything, so the wealthy can’t steamroll the poor by influencing government agencies. The wealthy still fare better than the poor, but not because they have more *rights*. Instead they’re negotiating in good faith because they know they can’t influence some government agency to take from you if you refuse their entreaties. What matters is equality of *rights*, not equality of time, ability, or money.
If you aren’t bargaining, you have no transaction costs. If you aren’t one of the affected neighbors, you have no standing. The “comprehensive view” is too often an invitation to bureaucratic tyranny. As to “cumulative impacts”, you mean after I build my mansion somebody else on my block might want to? And the irrelevant, disapproving busybodies who don’t live on my block can’t stop it? The neighborhood changes the way it wants to rather than how those promoting the “comprehensive view” want it to? Oh, the horror! Somebody please stop this avalanche of liberty.
government helps address this inequality by treating everyone the same, regardless of resources.
Perhaps you could help me explane that to the IRS…the government treats the wealthy far differently than others, they make them pay almost all the bills!
And who mitigates transaction costs to those not involved in the bargaining?
The current system rewards those willing to invest time and/or money to lobby the government and finance elections. Just look how most land use issues are done in most towns. A few gadflies go to evening meetings and bitch about this or that pet issue and a few high payed attorneys show up to make sure their client’s pet projects get done and the other 99% of the people are busy eating dinner, going to soccer games, working, etc. and have no idea the bargaining is even going on!
When I worked on the campaign message last year for the no on I-933 campaign, as soon as we explained to folks that their neighbor could do what they wanted on their property, and you had no say in the matter, that was it. Over. Finìs.
98.275% of the people aren’t going to negotiate with their neighbor to alleviate harm. Negotiating skills to ensure you don’t get screwed and get all the info you need don’t grow on trees, and 98.275% of the people know this. And like the current system just fine.
Get real.
DS