Some Businesses Are Inherently Public, Says Washington State Supreme Court
Brian Doherty | February 21, 2008, 1:11pm
Some bad news from the Institute for Justice, in a press release that does not yet seem to be on their website that you can read here in its entirety:
The Washington Supreme Court today dealt a blow to civil liberties. In Ventenbergs v. City of Seattle, a divided Court decided that the city of Seattle could violate local entrepreneur Joe Ventenbergs' constitutional right to earn an honest living by creating construction waste-hauling monopolies for two multi-national corporations, making it illegal for Joe to practice his profession.
“The Court got the law wrong today and Washingtonians will suffer as a result,” said William Maurer, executive director for the Institute for Justice Washington Chapter (IJ-WA), which represents Joe Ventenbergs. “The Court ruled that our constitutional rights are less important than protecting two enormous, out-of-state corporations from competition. The sole good news from this decision, however, is that it is so narrow that it affects only hard-working entrepreneurs in the waste-hauling business and not other entrepreneurs throughout the state, who will be able to continue to rely on the protections of our state constitution to combat the creation of government monopolies.”
In a decision released this morning, the Court stated that hauling construction waste is not a private enterprise and “is in the realm belonging to the State and delegated to local governments.” The court found specifically that the provision of waste hauling service is a “government service” and constitutional protections do not apply to government-provided services.
Justice Richard Sanders, joined by Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and Justice Jim Johnson, dissented, arguing that today’s decision “presents a textbook example of governmental corporate favoritism to advance the profits of the privileged few at the expense, and the extinction, of any potential competitors. It flies in the face of the state’s privileges and immunities clause which was adopted to combat this exact sort of unholy alliance between government and big business, which ultimately not only disserves the excluded businesses but also the public in general.”
IJ's page dedicated to the Ventenbergs case. with a timeline and many links.
Paul | February 21, 2008, 6:23pm | #
for that link, Socialism, you get a respectable, touché.
Mmno.
My guess is that Socialism wants me to defend (or ignore) the thesis of Robert Poole. I won't do either.
I believe that while some instances of Poole's theories of privatization might work (and might have worked) they still lead to the same dreary result: A corporation that trades a real free-market competitive field in exchange for heavy regulation, monopoly status coupled with hefty government protections, guarantees, and the elimination of their competitors. I believe the left calls this "corporatization".
Most libertarians (that I know) may have liked the idea of privatization years ago (when first reading Poole's work) because on the surface, it made sense: get our services out of government hands and into the 'efficient' private sector. What most libertarians have since discovered is that what you end up with is cronyism driven by hefty campaign donations and political connections, and a complete elimination of the competitive market surrounding said industry, leading one right back into the jaws of inefficiency. Then the "democratization" of property rights came about, a re-writing of phrases in the Constitution from "public use" to "public purpose", and privatization has a deservedly odious air about it.
"Privatization" as a concept is not invalid altogether. But only in very specific terms and instances. Privatization should be absolute. For instance, here in Washington State, liquor stores are run by the state. If the state "privatized" it's liquor business, it would fall back into the hands of a wide open, competitive business where Safeway, Albertsons, or any smaller individual liquor stores would fill that market need. Basically, the market would grow organically.
But when the government has a monopoly on a said thing, like say schools, and then decides to transfer said monopoly to one (1) corporation, this is hardly privatization. According to Poole's original concept it might be that, but in practice, it's not.
Real privatization would be for the government to
abandon the monopoly in schools, and then let market forces take over and fill the void.
