Let us all hail “Bangladesh Clean,” the voluntary organization that is out there cleaning up the varied rubbish, wastes, and pollution strewn across Dhaka and Bangladesh.
That people get out there and do something about this problem is good. Just as the One Taka Meal organization – which feeds poor people – is a good thing.
But the important word here is “voluntary.” Which needs a little explanation -- why that voluntary is so important.
It's a very basic observation that there are problems in society. This is true of any society, at any level of wealth and richness, for we never do solve everything.
We should be going out there and solving those problems, obviously. But how is it to be done?
There was a British political philosopher -- about the time of Adam Smith -- called Edmund Burke. He agreed, entirely (as did Smith and as do I), that there are things that simply have to be done by the government.
The general idea in economics is that “public goods” have to be supplied by the government. Without going into boring detail of the logic, these are things where it's near impossible to make a profit out of.
Therefore the capitalists, and in fact us, won't do them. So, while we'd like them to be done, they won't be done unless we get governments to do them.
The archetypal example is usually presented as lighthouses and some would say lifeboats. How can you charge a passing boat for free light showing where the rocks are? And charging to rescue people who have hit those rocks all the same seems not to work -- what do you do, take a credit card reader out as you rescue them?
And yet, Ronald Coase got half of his Nobel in economics for pointing out that all that theory's true, yet Britain had private lighthouses right into the 20th century -- the latter part of it too.
You charge the boats that come into port and give it away to those just passing by -- that's enough to make the system work. And the British lifeboat service has always been a charity. A real charity too -- there are collection boxes in every pub and “give it to the lifeboats” is a standard phrase for “no, I don't need that change.”
In fact, back in the 19th century, the government tried to subsidize the lifeboats, who found they lost more than £1 in donations for each £1 in tax money they got. The lifeboatmen themselves don't even get paid. The coxswain (for those unfamiliar with naval terminology, “the boss”) does but everyone else is doing it from a sense of duty. Or a sense of joy, as a friend who has done this points out, skidding across rough seas at 50 kmph is actually fun -- in that sense it will be great when this is over.
Now, that could be just us British, or even just young men and excitement -- we're an odd lot. But the point is still true. Even with the difficulty of making a profit, or collecting revenue at all, societies often do come up with solutions that don't require that government. Government with its taxation, bureaucracy, and general stifling of any innovation or even joy.
Burke called this the “little platoons.” Which can mean anything from cheap food for the poor, through rescuing those about to be lost at sea to a sewing circle for dadis/nanis whose grandchildren don't telephone often enough. Burke also went on to insist that these little platoons are the very basis of society. For it is what we do among ourselves that creates the very society we live in.
Bangladesh Clean is a perfect example of this very politically-conservative idea. Yes, sure, wouldn't it be great if the government got its act together and did this stuff we already pay them for? But, they don't, so, let us go and do it ourselves. Then it is done and society is better as a result.
So, let us all hail. Approve of, join if we wish to, and not if we don't. Just as with all of these other groups that exist out there. The really big difference with the little platoons is that the people doing these things are the people actually interested in doing these things.
Which is what makes it such a more efficient system than the government where, well, let us just mutter to ourselves about how each and every bureaucrat is just so interested in solving the problem, right?
Yes, the government is necessary at times. But it's amazing how few of those times that's actually true.
Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London.
