Trego's Mountain Ear

I ran across this statement on the blog “Small Dead Animals”:  “Concentrated minority interests will ALWAYS defeat dispersed collective majority interests in any system of government/institution that doesn’t terminate in an individual owner.”  It referenced a substack article at Short Take: Public Choice Theory and How This Ends  The article is an interesting read – but supplementing it with What Is Public Choice Theory?  is probably a good idea.

“In his 1957 book Economic Theory of Democracy, American economist and expert in public policy and public administration Anthony Downs, established that one of the chief underpinnings of public choice theory is the lack of incentives for voters to monitor government effectively. According to Downs, the typical voter is largely ignorant of political issues, and this ignorance is rational. Even though the result of an election may be very important, an individual’s vote rarely decides the election. Since individual voters are aware that they have virtually no chance to determine the outcome of the election, they see no value in spending time following the issues.”

Downs makes sense – his explanation shows how the voter becomes alienated from the process.  It’s why lobbying works – you can spend money to influence politicians on a narrow issue where you can’t influence the public.

The substack article addressed homelessness – Kulak points out the “Social Worker Complex” that profits from the situation.  I’m an Aggie – I look at the corn diverted to ethanol production to add to my gasoline.  I think back at how increasing regulation of the dairy industries crowded small producers out of business.  I think of tobacco allotments.  The term “concentrated minority interests” does cover the topic.  The ThoughtCo article describes our system:

“More recently, however, public choice experts have adopted a “congressional dominance” model of bureaucracy. In this model, government agencies and their bureaucrats are not free to pursue their own agendas. Instead, agency policy preferences mirror those of the members of key congressional committees that oversee particular areas of public policy, such as agriculture, nutrition, and housing. These oversight committees constrain bureaucratic discretion by exercising their powers to confirm top-level political appointees to senior agency positions, finalize annual bureau budget requests, and hold public hearings.”

The Economic Research Service classifies rural counties based on economic and policy types.  We’ve gone from being a natural resources dependent economy to being a mix of recreation, retirement and government employment.  Rural areas that become increasingly recreational tend to crowd the natives out.  It’s public choice – though the residents who are crowded out might not feel that it’s their choice.

I recall an old man outside Libby about 25 years ago.  He had worked the woods and the mill, building a very nice house on the river.  His retirement income was not high – but his property value and taxes were.  He had asked me to check his math, and there was nothing wrong with the old man’s math.  When I affirmed his calculations, he described his decision – to sell his house, and move to Chester.  The cost of becoming a recreation county is paid by folks who find they can’t afford to stay.

Kulak thinks the solution is to convert Washington DC to a wasteland.  On the other hand, the ThoughtCo article offers this solution:

“Niskanen holds that to raise the performance of public bureaucracy, the remedy must be increasingly found in terms of private markets where the structure and incentive system exist specifically for the supply of public services. As a result, suggests Niskanen, the monopoly of the bureaucracy must be reduced by exploring privatization—the use of private-sector sources to supply public services.”

Both articles are worth reading – Public Choice Theory offers too many explanations for what is occurring in our neighborhood.