There’s a proposition on the November ballot in my area to study having a government agency use eminent domain to take over a private regulated water monopoly. I won’t say anything about the merits because this blog cannot legally take a stand on a ballot issue.
But I will discuss something I learned last night that I found incredibly interesting.
A friend texted me and asked me how she should vote on the proposition. I texted back to tell her and I gave some brief reasons. She texted back and said that that was her thinking also but that some friends of hers were surprised when she said that the study was about having the government take over the private company. They had understood the proposition to be about having the public, not the government, take over the private company. That’s somewhat understandable. One of the main slogans of the government takeover group is “Public Water Now.”
In other words, her friends distinguished between the government and the public. I distinguish between the government and the public also. In my writing, I make sure not to talk about the two as if they’re interchangeable. But I have many libertarian and economist friends who use the words interchangeably.
This latest discussion suggests that it’s more important to make that distinction than many have thought.
Sidenote: That’s part of why I have never been thrilled that the study of incentives in government is called Public Choice.
READER COMMENTS
Pajser
Oct 17 2018 at 12:44am
If government “take over” the water, it implies it can sell it and divide money on the members of the government. It does not seems true. One of the meaning of the word “public” is “organized by state”, and it is closer to the intention; if state sold the water, it can divide money on the members of the state. Libertarians often use word “government” when they should use the word “state.”
Bedarz Iliachi
Oct 17 2018 at 4:00am
In the context “having the public take over the water company”, what could “public” possibly mean other than government?
john hare
Oct 17 2018 at 4:46am
The blog cannot take a stand legally? Is this regulatory from some government entity, or terms of service from the server?
Amy Willis
Oct 17 2018 at 9:10am
EconLog is a program of Liberty Fund, Inc. We are a private operating foundation, and our status as a non-profit precludes us from active engagement in politics. (That said, we don;t really want to engage in it anyway…) Our mission here is to discuss the economics of politics/policy, not advocacy. I hope that explanation helps!
John Hare
Oct 17 2018 at 9:59am
Thanks. I wasn’t aware of that. A voluntary possession is something I can respect more than some arbitrary rules from others.
Jon Murphy
Oct 17 2018 at 8:00am
It is an important distinction that I try, and sometimes fail, to make. It’s easy to accidentally slip into colliqually used, but misleading, words and phrases (like using “law” to discuss “legislation”).
However, I don’t have much of an issue with the phrase “Public Choice.” If we’re considering the way the public can adjust along margins individuals cannot, and subsequently the mechanisms (political, social, etc) that facilitate or dictate how those choices are made, then I think Public Choice is a fine name. We need to distinguish that government is just one institution that can be used in this process.
David Henderson
Oct 17 2018 at 10:41am
Jon,
You write:
But the public is made up of individuals. There’s no way that the public can adjust along margins that individuals cannot.
Jon Murphy
Oct 17 2018 at 11:14am
I disagree. Consider the following example:
Joe and Dan are trying to lift a box into a truck. First Joe lifts (nothing happens) and then Dan lifts (nothing happens). It is only by working together, by Joe and Dan working as a team, can the box be lifted. In that sense, it makes sense to refer to Joe and Dan as a single unit (the team, the crew, whatever) as the agent that is taking the action, even though the unit is comprised of individuals. They are adjusting along some margin they individually could not adjust along.
To expand this to other examples, I think collectives adjusting along margins individuals cannot help us understand that the prisoner’s dilemma is not a trap per se, but rather something that can be escaped from a la Ostrom (I think she talks about this in Chapter 1 of Governing the Commons, but I don’t have my copy handy so I cannot confirm right now). Individually, individuals may not be able to perform certain welfare-enhancing actions for various reasons. But as a collective unit, they may be able to (with suitable enforcement mechanisms). I approach law & economics and public choice as a study of these particular margins.
Does this make sense or am I just rambling?
David Henderson
Oct 17 2018 at 11:44am
Jon,
What you say makes sense and no, you’re not rambling. But your example is of two people working together to achieve an outcome that neither could achieve on his own. Both people are individuals who are adjusting. I think it would be a stretch to call the analysis of their actions “Public Choice.” I think it’s pretty clear that Gordon Tullock, who, I believe, came up with the term, meant to use it analyze incentives and outcomes in the government sphere.
Take another example: a large firm. The firm achieves things that individuals working on their own could not achieve. But we usually call analysis of firms “Industrial Organization,” not “Public Choice.”
Jon Murphy
Oct 17 2018 at 7:27pm
I see what you are saying and I don’t disagree per se. I am embarrassed to admit, but I do not know that reference to Tullock you are making; I did not know he defined it that way. Given that is correct, I fully appreciate your initial comment that I objected to.
Andre
Oct 17 2018 at 9:01am
The government and the public are not the same, because the incentives of the government and the public are rarely aligned – and sometimes or often will be significantly misaligned.
Think of any bureaucratic fiefdom: it’s likely to pursue its own interests, which usually means pursuing as big a budget as it can get and use, and spending it on its own priorities, regardless of the public interest.
The only limitation on this misalignment is the government entity’s self-preservation instinct – it can’t behave so contrary to public interest that it gets targeted/punished/abolished, etc. This often takes a lot of misalignment, though, so the government can get away with a lot.
It generally takes a lot of misdeeds for the public to rally.
Robert Schadler
Oct 17 2018 at 11:03am
Have long thought the Brits usage on “public” much better. A “pub” is short for a “public house” (as opposed to a private house) — meaning anyone is free to enter. But it is private business that sells beer. A “public school” is an elite and expensive school (as opposed to being privately tutored at home); none of their public schools are government schools.
Wish we could follow the Brits more closely in this case.
Phil
Oct 17 2018 at 1:28pm
The fact this is a ballot measure which is voted for democratically, rather than an act of the state or municipal government legislature, it appears to be more a public action than a government action. Had the county commissioners simply voted to acquire the water company’s assets, that would clearly be a government action. But in California where ballot measures are often used for this kind of thing, a good argument could be made that it really is a public action.
My comments are merely definitional. I make no judgment here whether such ballot initiatives are the right way to make such decisions, nor whether a government should take over the water system. I am a neighbor of David’s and am equally affected by this measure and — as I am sure he does — I have strong opinions about it. 🙂
Peter Gordon
Oct 17 2018 at 1:42pm
Why not simply us “politics” and “politicians”? It is the actors (human action) that matter. “Public” and “government” are less clear.
Dylan Parker
Oct 17 2018 at 10:40pm
To distinguish the “Public” from the “Government” can be difficult to do. Often times the word public can be used the same as government because in the U.S. the public opinion has a large effect on government action. Since the government taking over the water monopoly will be voted on by a ballot by members of the public, this does seem like a public action. If the government had taken control of the water supply without letting the citizens vote this would seem more like a government action. Although the government is the entity seizing the land I would suggest that this is still a public action because the public opinion was the deciding factor.
As for the slogan “Public Water Now”, I would say that the water will be public if the government gives it to the public. However, it could be argued that the water does not belong to the public because the government could revoke the public’s right to the water at any given time. It mostly depends on personal opinion. Some people would say that the water belongs to the public because they are the ones receiving the water. Others would say that the water does not belong to the public because the government could take it away at any time.
Mark Brophy
Oct 26 2018 at 8:55pm
Why can’t this blog take a position on a ballot issue? Doesn’t the First Amendment allow free speech?
Comments are closed.