Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Collective Decisions


More analysis of polling.

Who do you think should provide the following services?

Select one in each row
Metro
Another government body
Private company
Don't know
Garbage and recycling
Oregon Zoo
Regional land use planning
Regional transportation planning
Maintaining natural areas
Managing the Convention Center/Expo Center
Regional mapping and GIS

Is your opinion of Metro Regional Government:
Select one
Very favorable
Somewhat favorable
Not too favorable
Not at all favorable
Don't know

Here is an example of the exclusionary bias your ideological framework seems to be performing since it seems to exclude a libertarian framework. The question of "who" should provide the various services forecloses a response from someone who believes government should not attempt to decide who should perform those functions. If a service has value, then someone will want to offer that value in exchange for value, a service in exchange for payment. Regional land use planning from at least one framework of political economy is quite clearly an inappropriate function to be attempted collectively. Five of the services do allow "private company" but I'm afraid by that you mean government would issue franchises or contracts. How would someone from my framework respond to reflect that view that we shouldn't be collectively making these decisions about who should provide services. That decisions is not a proper function of democratic (or more properly republican) governance.