Detroit's Water Woes

Imagine the horror: you can't pay your water bill, so your taps run dry and the toilet is shut off. How do you live without running water? What about the children, or the elderly, or the infirm?

For Detroit resident Nicolle Hill, those aren't hypothetical questions. According to this story in the Los Angeles Times, Ms. Hill joins "thousands of residents in Detroit who have had their water and sewer services turned off as part of a crackdown on customers who are behind on their bills."

"In April," reports the Times, "the city set a target of cutting service to 3,000 customers a week who were more than $150 behind on their bills. In May, the water department sent out 46,000 warnings and cut off service to 4,531. The city says that cutting off water is the only way to get people to pay their bills..." [Emphasis added]

Five thousand people are left without water at the beginning of summer — just because they can't pay? 

This sounds like some kind of libertarian nightmare, except that Ms. Hill and many others have been reduced to collecting rain water in trash cans because the City of Detroit — the local government that owns and operates the utility — is cracking down on those who aren't paying. 

Forgive this digression: Americans are lectured ad nauseum that "we" are the government. Does that mean Ms. Hill cut off her own water?

But wait! How would a libertarian society deal with this?

First of all, let's acknowledge that this is a not a libertarian society — it's anything but that. Detroit has been run by Leftists — for decades. 

Successive "progressive" politicians have run Detroit into bankruptcy and caused what these writers (and plenty of others) have called an "exodus of residents" from the city. Those who stayed now face "staggering costs" that have wrecked the Motor City and threaten public safety — and a potential humanitarian crisis.

Mr. Obama, turn on those faucets! 

Libertarians, by contrast, prefer a liberal marketplace, where choice and competition are able to satisfy demand — the very environment where prices tend to decline while quality increases.

In a libertarian society, water customers wouldn't be dealing with bureaucrats at the Water & Sewer Department — they'd be dealing with any number of entrepreneurs, all of whom would be interested in trading value for value to satisfy their customers' needs. Kind of like the way we get our Internet, and iPods, and laptops, and cars, and clothes, and video games, and cell phones, and televisions, and [fill in the blank].

(We already obtain food in such quantities and from so diverse a range of options, at such a variety of prices, that people are supposedly eating too much. Restaurants offering cheap food have even been accused of preying on poor people. If you're eating at a fast food restaurant, you're getting crappy food; that's for sure. But you're eating. In Detroit, they're just getting crap — backed up in their toilets. Wouldn't it be nice for them to have more choices right now? Can I have the cheap, fast and convenient option for my waste removal please? Proceed to checkout.)

In Detroit, residents get one choice* when hooking up to a water/sewage system: the local government's water/sewage utility service. As those of us "served" by Portsmouth's equivalent well know, the bills have been creeping up steadily for a while — in part because "our" government-run water/sewage utility service didn't maintain "our" system properly, and is now being forced to do so because it's falling apart. 

Couldn't we all benefit from more choice?

Private groups and individuals, operating in a free market, acting for profit or for charity, can achieve amazing results. They already do, sometimes under terrible conditions. In fact, ours is among the most commercial and charitable societies on Earth.

By comparison, you won't see any bureaucrats or politicians — no "selfless public servants" — marching in the streets, demanding pay and budget cuts in the public sector so that poor people's water keeps flowing. These types — and their lackeys — are more likely to blame others when the chickens from their "progressive" Hell come home to roost.

Let us hope that soon — very soon — more freedom will come to Detroit, allowing the people there to rebuild and improve on what half a century of "progressive" government has lowered to Third World conditions.
 

*If there is any municipality in the United States where a competitive environment in the provision of water delivery and/or sewage disposal services is currently maintained, I am unaware of its existence. Please send relevant correspondence to: readtoofar@doofus.com