Yesterday, I returned from a 3-week vacation (with some success at also doing some writing) at my summer cottage in Minaki, Ontario. The last full day I was there, I was visiting on a neighbor’s (Canadian translation: neighbour’s) dock to say good-bye. We had both noticed earlier that day a stray buoy that had drifted into some relatively open water. I’ve been going there since 1951 and my neighbor has been doing so since about 2006 and we both knew that it didn’t belong there. If there was any doubt, the angle of the buoy confirmed our belief: it was tilted about 30 degrees from horizontal and the end of the buoy was ragged. If a boat were to run into it at night–and yes, some people around there do operate their boats at night–the buoy could do a lot of damage and even cause a fatality. I expressed that thought to my neighbor, Don Fullerton, and he agreed.
About 15 minutes later, he said, “Dave (almost everyone at Minaki calls me Dave), come with me.” We got in his fishing boat and went out to the buoy. I reached over to pull it and was pleased that it was made of plastic and wasn’t as heavy as I expected. At the end was a long chain whose end, we figured, must have caught on a rock below. We pulled it and it came loose. So we pulled the buoy into his boat. It was filled with foul-smelling debris. We took it back to his dock.
Why do I tell this story on EconLog? Because so often when I hear people argue for government intervention in economic activity, they say, “Without government doing this, who would ____?” There are few government officials around. Employees of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources are typically out enforcing fishing regulations. The one member of the Ontario Provincial Police is busy, I assume, with other matters. Maybe he would have got to it, but when I was out on my jet ski earlier that day, I saw the buoy and 4 hours later, it was still there.
So we did it. Small piece of evidence ? Yes. But an illustrative one nevertheless.
READER COMMENTS
JK Brown
Aug 9 2018 at 7:35pm
Now prove you didn’t destroy/disturb a navigational aid, which is a felony in the US.
What prevents more people from just solving a problem in the community is the risks of things like my previous sentence. And it is an extreme risk to presume the bureaucrats, with badges or not, will be reasonable.
Matthias Goergens
Aug 9 2018 at 9:39pm
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-37166353
This reminds me of the time when some smugglers in Russia upgraded roads there.
Andy Weintraub
Aug 9 2018 at 9:50pm
How often I have cleared branches and other debris from a lane the road so others won’t have to. Can’t wait for the government to do it all.
It’s called being neighborly….or neighbourly.
James
Aug 9 2018 at 11:59pm
People ask “Without the government, who would do xyz?” because they are arguing from facts not in evidence.
Some examples: If you cannot name the party who will address some problem, it is safe to assume that problem won’t get addressed. The government will address that problem in a beneficial way, or is at least more likely than anyone in the private sector to address that problem in a good way. A government with the necessary power to address the matter won’t abuse that power later. Etc.
There are probably (more like certainly) some problems that would not get addressed if the government did not get involved. That alone is not a reason to favor government intervention into those matters.
Alan Goldhammer
Aug 10 2018 at 7:30am
When I first saw the headline of the post I thought that David was going to write about the role of government in keeping drinking water clean. While this story is a nice one about the role of all of us as individuals, let’s not forget that hidden water hazards such as lead, pesticide and fertilizer run off, sediment build up, etc. are not amenable to such individual solutions. I’m just being a contrarian here.
Jon Murphy
Aug 10 2018 at 9:09am
Alan-
You can have collective solutions without government: firms, co-ops, markets, etc. Heck, Prof. Henderson’s story is a collective solution: he and his neighbor working together to solve a problem.
Rich Osness
Aug 18 2018 at 9:54am
Alan,
I believe that all problems are amenable to and only will be corrected with individual action whether the actions are taken by a government employee, a private company employee or an independent “volunteer”. The question is which actor is going to do it best?
David’s neighbor solved the problem quickly and efficiently. Now what to do with the smelly buoy.
Phil
Aug 10 2018 at 3:07pm
David – you jet ski? THAT should have been the video you linked to this story! 🙂
David Henderson
Aug 10 2018 at 6:58pm
I did! Had a blast.
Comments are closed.