Chapter 3 Rain, Rain, Go Away, February 26, 2008
Once again, for the umpteenth time this month, I arrive at work soaking wet.
Just getting from the car to the front door of the Mises Institute is like going through
the rinse cycle, and umbrellas just aren't my thing.
What's striking is how this weather pattern follows a year of dire warnings from government
and officials about the deadly drought that is destroying the region, as you can easily
see from the government's own US drought assessment maps.
Actually, these are interesting maps.
They give the impression that the whole of the nation is a parched land that vacillates
between persistent drought and improving droughts.
Nowhere is listed as soaked or just the right amount of rain.
And if you reflect on government announcements of these things, all places seem to fall into
one of three categories, catastrophic flooding, catastrophic drought, or forgettable.
Some years ago, the head of the local bureaucracy in charge of the distribution of water was
quoted in the newspaper along these lines.
If these conditions persist, rationing will certainly become necessary.
If these conditions persist? That's quite an assumption. We could say during the next
rainfall, if these conditions persist, it will become necessary for everyone to build
an ark. Conditions never persist, they change. Bureaucrats really hate that. One suspects
that these same people love droughts. Droughts give them power, not just over the aggregate
Use of Water. They enjoy pressing people on the smallest details of life. They get
to tell you that you must take short showers. They tell you you must flush less. They impose
a profound sense of guilt on you for watering the basil growing in your window box. Droughts
can turn the most innocent public employee into the moral equivalent of a Gestapo agent
issuing dictates and imposing fines ferreting out the water thieves all in the name of the
Public Interest.
Droughts turn neighbor against neighbor, and force the whole of everyone into the criminal
class reduced to sneaking around at night to water tomato plants.
Droughts make everyone feel dependent on the state.
We must read their rules such as, even number of houses may water their lawns from 4 a.m.
to 6 a.m. Monday, Thursday and Sunday.
So rain rain go away, that's their theme.
Bureaucrat international has a common feature, loathing of consumerism.
Whereas people want to have choice over how they spend their money, bureaucrats want us
to suffer constantly and be intensely aware of what we use, not trusting the price system
to determine our consumption patterns, but rather obeying regulations and strictures.
Note that no drought ever officially ends.
The papers are packed with warnings of impending doom during the worst of it.
But when the torrents of rain come, and they invariably do, eventually, there is no press
release that says something along the lines of, praise be to God, the drought is over!
Use as much water as you're willing to pay for!
Never, never, never, they never say this.
They would rather we carry with us some sense that the drought is never really over, since
after all, it could come again.
The core of the problem here has nothing to do with rain and changing weather patterns.
The weather has in fact been changing since the dawn of time.
What creates the problem is public ownership of the means of production and the utterly
irrational system under which the price doesn't change regardless of availability.
There is no real profitability here, nor are there losses.
So there is no economic calculation going on. Prices are determined by extra market indicators.
Think of the difference with the market system. Every day we are enticed to consume every
product you can imagine, cars, celery, computers, anything. There is a constant calibrating
of supply and demand. If anyone attempts to overprice a product and make profits, another
Another entrepreneur sweeps in to offer the same for less and draw profits away.
Innovation is everywhere so that suppliers are required to adopt the latest thing in
order to stay afloat.
No profits are permanent.
They are always and everywhere threatened.
These days this happens almost overnight.
Now think of the difference with public water markets in which the theme is always, you
are using too much.
Interesting isn't it?
Why is this?
It's because the market is not being allowed to work.
This has nothing to do with the product in question.
If you doubt it, make a visit to your local grocery and the bottled water section in particular.
There are vast numbers of choices with each supplier begging you to consume.
But in public water markets, they demand that you conserve.
State ownership and management of the means of production are the key reason.
Privatize, completely privatize the supply of water and a change would emerge overnight.
People immediately respond that this is a crazy idea.
Streams, lakes, reservoirs and water towers can't be owned privately.
But is that really so?
There are many cases of partial privatization on record, though the mandates are extreme.
No doubt that there are efficiency gains that come with contracting out in privatized but
regulated markets.
The best solution is the same one that applies to all areas of life that are considered public
goods from trash collection and disposal to schools and defense.
The government should get out of the business entirely.
Talk about opposition.
Labor unions go bonkers when presented with the idea.
Bureaucrats do too.
Even religious groups have gotten in on the act.
You see, for example, the growing movement of nuns against bottled water. Presbyterians for restoring creation are circulating pledges for people to sign that forswear drinking bottled water. These people claim that we shouldn't have to pay for what should be a free gift from God. But, oddly, these same people don't seem to have a problem with people's paying of the government's water bill. Look, it's not complicated. Drought is another name for shortage.
Government is capable of creating a shortage in any good through bureaucratic management.
Prices do not respond to supply and demand, and lack of innovation characterizes production.
We see this in schooling, mails, defense, courts and every other area in which the government enjoys a monopoly.
It shouldn't surprise us that the same is true in water provision.
Instead of blaming mother nature and the consumer, the water commissioner should look closer to home to see why everyone is required to live in fear and is reduced to doing rain dances to keep the water gods happy.