All too often, individual choice gets lost in broader arguments where governments and existing private interests are supposedly representative of everyone. In these scenarios, governments tend to become the behind the scenes default mechanism for getting things done. What isn't sufficiently acknowledged, is this holds equally true for many who publicly insist governments should have little to do with economic outcomes. In spite of all the bluster and rhetoric about support for small government (yes, even today in local election commercials!), the political right has too often reduced individual freedom as a factor in economic outcomes.
Again, let's consider how public choice effectively supersedes individual choice. Several recent posts dealt with various aspects of this reality, including musings from David Henderson in "The government is not the public." regarding an unfortunate conflation between the two:
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.And in an unexpectedly helpful side note (at least for me), Henderson adds:
That's part of why I have never been thrilled that the study of incentives in government is called Public Choice.The problem? Society tends to function as if only one essential economic and social choice is all that's really possible. What's off putting for me is that some adherents for public choice are now taking part in a fierce struggle over what "should" define our most basic economic organization patterns, and way too many cultural elements appear to be part of the mix. Meanwhile, no serious decentralization potential for economic dynamism, has yet appeared on the horizon. What's more, when public aspirations get confused with government intentions, the non tradable sectors which generated such legal rigidity in the first place, only become more convoluted than ever.
Another aspect of individual choice potential: Is this mostly a matter of package bundling problems? Arnold Kling notes how the Tiebout model hasn't proven as beneficial as expected, consequently leaving little real value for one's right of exit. I also agree with Scott Alexander about exit, voice and choice when he says
...I'm reasoning from a perspective where communities are a basic unit because I believe in Archipelago, a world where the only win-win solution to our many differences about what societies should look like is to let people form highly varying communities with exit rights and let people live in whichever one they want.That said, communities built primarily on cultural differences would be a tough call. In democratic societies, cultural attributes can quickly change from generation to generation. Even Alexis de Tocqueville was able to provide a reasonable explanation as to why, well over a century earlier in Democracy in America:
When the state of society turns to democracy and men adopt the general principle that it is good and right to judge everything for oneself, taking former beliefs as providing information but not rules, paternal opinions come to have less power over the sons, just as his legal power is less too.
Perhaps the division of patrimonies which follows from democracy does more than all the rest to alter the relations between father and children.If one can't expect cultural attributes to remain constant, especially in communities which need to be able to offer unique societal options, how to encourage individual choice sets for initial community design which really matter?
For one thing, there's scarcely any existing design options at all for lower income levels, especially for local educational possibilities or innovation in infrastructure. For example, Isabel Sawhill recently explained how local communities wish to create closer ties between local learning and the ongoing needs of their citizens. In a new book The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind, Raghuram Rajan highlights the fact that local community integration into the larger economy, needs to be pursued by advanced and emerging economies alike.
Infrastructural innovation is key for individual choice in community design. One reason why exit as individual choice has not been particularly effective for lower income levels, is due to the fact Republicans seek to further reduce local taxes even as a full range of services and infrastructure costs continue to rise. As this process plays out over time, more communities find themselves forced to reach out to higher income citizens as a property taxation source which can still realistically address their services and infrastructure costs.
One of the most vital options for individual choice in community, is that of walkable communities for living and working which are accessible to individuals of all income levels. Indeed, once a basic design element such as this is introduced into new communities, it immediately suggests a range of other reasonable "bundling" options, in terms of well aligned population densities and organizational services formation. Even the single design addition of walkable communities as a local community option, would make the Tiebout model more meaningful for all concerned.
Despite discussions in recent years re new cities which could make room for the marginalized, few of these have included grassroots options for structural design and implementation. A prime example is charter city construction, which would actually be collaborations between high level public and private interests. Again, while new charter cities would doubtless create additional economic value, they mostly reflect additional economic options for upper to middle income levels. In other words, these decentralized economic options still lack the platforms that could make it feasible for lower income levels to unite their efforts in shared ownership and personal responsibility.
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