this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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Oh shit you're right. There's no such thing as a societal need, everything ought to be turned into for-profit endeavors that enrich private equity! Don't just defund the police, let them compete in the free market! Let's see who has the best ideas! Let's see if we can create a quadrillionaire! Because isn't the invisible hand of the market such an inherently appealing idea that we should ignore its failures? Isn't it fun to think of an economic theory as a great filter?
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Why does this read like the plot of an indie game xD
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
Mmmm that's good satire.
You fundamentally misunderstand what people are calling for. The aim of making utilities public isn't the enrichment of a small few, its to spread the benefits of society to all who contribute. The core of this is that we want responsible accountability and the best way to do that is to operate with a communal mindset. One in which if we find a political officer is abusing their position of power we can remove them and restore the material wealth stolen to who it belongs to. You're so used to operating in a system where positions of power go to the already wealthy that you're assuming that's what we're still calling for. Collaborative cooperation has become such a foreign concept to you that you're completely ignoring that we're saying utilities and services should enrich no one but society as a whole
Nobody is stopping people from having a commercial option next to a government option.
Central planning is not to enrich the elite, lmao. That's Capitalism.
Infrastructure is terrible to use as an example where competition exists.
We can't all have 6 different gas lines run to each building or even to each street to choose who to buy from. The distribution will always be common. So either that has to be installed and maintained by a municipality or a single company which then rents it out.
Competition is also predicated on the concept of low barriers to entry. If it's nearly impossible for small companies to enter the market place, there effectively never will be competition. We also have seen that money talks, that the power inequality of a big company vs small company means the large company can squeeze the small company out by economies of scale and being able to absorb larger losses until either the smaller company quits or sells to the larger company.
We can offset a lot of this by putting in strong regulations, pathways for small businesses to enter the market, create and enforce strong anti-monolopy laws, or take ownership of core infrastructure by municipalities.
You also seem to have the idea that anything state run is inefficient and corrupt, which has just been corporate propaganda. I trust USPS far more than FedEx, UPS, or any other parcel service. They run quickly, efficiently, and against some very harsh regulations which make them fully pre-fund retiree pensions.
Meanwhile FedEx consistently says I wasn't home when they tried to deliver which is highly interesting because I work from home and never leave my neighborhood on workdays. If they tried to make a delivery I'd see the truck. They just leave the "we missed you" post it without ever ringing the bell or knocking at the door
Can you think of no other ways to deliver gas than running six pipes?
When everything becomes electric, we'll have plenty of utility room to spare. Locking us into a different type of monopoly won't allow room for innovation or advancement.
The next sentence was about shared infrastructure for the pipes. That multiple gas companies could use to distribute, with the caveat that they still would need to be owned by a single entity whether that's a private company or municipality. I'd argue a municipality is the correct answer here.
If we look at electric as an analogous system, the poles and wires are always owned by a single company and then the supply can be "chosen." Even though it's just routing where your cash goes, since electricity is all pooled. The downside, is no matter how much I may not want to support the company that owns the poles and wires, I have no other option and there is no way for a competitive company to build another product to give the consumer a choice.
It's why I advocate largely for the distribution infrastructure to become public owned, paid for and maintained with taxes. I don't necessarily agree with the production of the gas/electricity/water. If the distribution infrastructure if publicly owned, then so long as a new business creates a product that matches the regulated quality they only need to pay for the permits and means to attach to the distribution network. We can lower the barrier of entry to new competitors.
The minimum standards would be set based on regulatory capture in very many municipalities. I don't think it would be worse than jank monopolies, at least. I don't know that the speed (or incentives) of either is something I trust with keeping up technologically.
Moving from a monopoly to a municipality doesn't help when the standards they set are super strict.
We've tried that. What's prone to happen is the corporations spend money to the municipalities to deregulate. Let's stop giving them the chance. It hasn't worked. Let's instead go back to treating utilities as publically beneficial
Or they spend money to make them over regulate. Yeah. If we can't even control local politicians now, how do you propose we do close that bit of fuckery?
Continuous community organization and demonstration. Systematic election reform. Solidarity
Can we do that without any masters? Do we really have to choose one?
Having no masters would be exactly the aim. Ultimate power should lay in the hands of the people and government should only exist to serve the will of said people. I don't fully know what that should look like but I can say for sure we've tested a lot of ideas that aren't that, and that we should try some new things because what were doing now isn't working.
Man you really just can't stand the idea of doing something without giving your money to venture capitalists, can you? You really think it's better that random billionaires in Silicon Valley and Jackson Hole control your power supply?
Americans are seriously ill, and need help.
I absolutely can.
Venture capitalists shouldn't exist. Our laws shouldn't insulate people from liability.
How do you suggest we run our utilities without private firms nor government firms?
What's the difference between private and government?
We want voluntary associations, yea? So we work with/in our communities. We can choose larger or smaller municipalities or companies, but we don't violate the local, voluntary bits.
Welp... In case you don't actually know, a lot....
https://www.cmich.edu/blog/all-things-higher-ed/difference-between-public-and-private-administration
Right. Our local governments. Government organizations.
Not my tempo 🥁