The parable of the tui
One of the apparent spillover effects of Wellington’s Karori Sanctuary (and intensive possum control) is the increase in tui in the ‘burbs. From my perspective this is a positive externality from the Sanctuary. But like all positive externalities the Sanctuary doesn’t get any of the financial benefit and the rest of us get utility for free. Now a free lunch, let alone a free virtuoso performance, isn’t the way of the free market and should be fixed….
Now, if we were to apply a full market solution, we would allocate the property rights of the tui song to the Sancutary. Then we would calculate the economic utility to tui-lovers like me of having a tui outside my window singing away in the morning. We could do this by conducting a survey in which tui-lovers would be asked how much they would be willing to pay to ensure that they had a tui singing outside their window - the average response would be the price. Then each time I heard the tui sing I would be required to make an automatic payment into the Sanctuary’s account.
But there is a worm in the ointment because, remarkably to me, there are those who don’t like the ‘noise’(!) of the tui, as revealed in this article in the DomPost. For the tui-haters, as I shall (probably unfairly) call them, the tui song is a negative externality. We would determine the financial value of that externality through a survey of how much tui-haters would pay to not have the ‘noise’, and each time they heard the tui ’noise’ the Sanctuary would have to pay the tui-haters the price of that negative externality.
The balance between these two payments, from the tui-lovers and to the tui-haters, would be a market way of determining whether the Sanctuary would continue to thrive as an economic unit, or whether the gates would be opened, the fence pulled down and the cats let in.Â
Of course it might be a little complicated to establish, quite hard to enforce the rules of this market, and the transaction costs would be pretty high. But we are told by Treasury and their mates in the Business Roundtable that markets are always best in all situations (hence why we have an Emissions Trading Scheme rather than a carbon tax but that’s another story). After all, as Roger Douglas told us, there is ‘unfinished business’ and I reckon the market in tui song is clearly unfinished.
But then again we could just decide as a community that we liked tui (and hihi and tuatara and..) and we would pay some taxes, pay some rates and make some voluntary donations and together have enough money to fund the Sanctuary and we could (almost) all enjoy having some tui around and learn to live with a bit of nature.
In taking this alternate course of action we would coordinate our actions via bureaucratic and civil society coordination mechanisms rather than primarily through market mechanisms, though there would be a bit of a market in the gate takings. Sometimes bureaucratic and civil society mechanisms have lower transaction costs than market mechanisms and hence are a more efficient way of acheiving our goals.
The parable of the tui: there are three coordination mechanisms in our society - markets, bureaucracies and civil society - and each has its place and a non-blinkered approach looks to where each works best.
Now there’s just the small matter of the blackbird that keeps shitting on my washing on the line. Can we establish a market in blackbird shitting as I would be willing to pay a pretty penny to stop that…
January 8th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Well, I guess I must be among the tui-haters, though this post (http://wellingtonista.com/tui-hooligans) was intended to be at least partly in jest! I guess it just shows a few things:
- It’s remarkable how quickly one can get used to certain sounds (traffic, bar noise), and still be woken by less familiar sounds (like birdsong)
- It doesn’t take a lot of greenery to attract native fauna into the “urban jungle”
- Early-rising tui and night owls just don’t get on!
January 8th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Tomsk said: Early-rising tui and night owls just don’t get on!
They get on just fine out here in West Auckland.
I go to bed with the ruru calling, and when woken by the tui, the ruru is still calling. Cool by me! I hear the first train whistle and crossing bells at 5.50am when the wind is blowing from the Northwest, so it’s nice to be woken by the somewhat more pleasant call of the tui a wee bit earlier.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Russel said: Now there’s just the small matter of the blackbird that keeps shitting on my washing on the line.
I’ve got a problem with blackbirds too - in my garden. My cat should be the answer, but I trained it as a kitten to not attack the native fauna - problem now is she doesn’t attack any fauna at all, apart from the occasional fly that she inevitably misses.
So my recently planted and supposedly adjacent rows of beans and parsnips are now intermingled, thanks to the blackbirds scratching around for worms.
And the blackbirds shit on my washing as well.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
“there are three coordination mechanisms in our society - markets, bureaucracies and civil society”
Could there be a fourth?
In the case of blackbirds I shoot them with a slug gun (no not really - just tongue in cheek) so the fourth market force (pun?) is “might is right”
However the blackbirds have revenge by no longer shitting on my garden furniture but breaking up snail shells to get the the taste dinner inside, on my pavers. Leaving a big mess of snail shells and half eaten snails!
I guess that might be the fifth law of markets (Newtons law). For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
January 9th, 2008 at 12:50 am
The most interesting comparison of market forces and state intervention I’ve come across is the inadvertant privatisation of the road toll in 1987. A classic example of the law of unintended consequences as none of the politicians involved seem to have actually considered the impact their actions would have on the road toll.
The three things they did were to let pubs chose their own closing times, let almost anybody operate a taxi, and to allow unrestricted car imports.
In the decade before these changes were made drunk drivers caused half the road toll, a decade later durnk drivers only caused one-qurter of the road toll. Forcing every pub to close at ten o’clock had made it impossible for traffic cops and taxi drivers to solve the problem of people driving home from the pub. Spreading closing times over several hours solved part of the problem. Deregulating the taxi industry allowed supply to expand to match demand. In a surprising twist, taxi drivers found that later closing times created a new demand to take people to pubs in mid-evening. Previously people had simply stopped in at the pub on their way home from work.
Scrapping import licences for motor vehicles also had surprising consequnces. Instead of sourcing imports from factories supplying the UK or Oz markets importers started souces from Japans domestic market. These cars are fitted with chimes to alert drivers and passengers if the car is travelling at more than 100kmh. Open road speeds had been creeping up by an average 1kmh in the 1980s. Once these cars flooded onto our roads average speeds levelled off at 105kmh (+/- 1) finally allowing the gradual improvement in safety standards to actually reduce the road toll instead of merely compensating for speed creep.
A further consequence was to crash used cars prices to the point that youths could afford a car instead of a motorcycle. Half the drop in the road toll in the early 90s came from this single cause.
Unfortunately the first and last of these effects had gone as far as they could by the end of the 1990s and a new approach was needed. The LTSA recommended taking Transit’s Crash Reduction Program permantly to a new level by locking in the 3-year funding increase approved by Transfund in 1999. Unfortunately the new government had different priorities and chose to halve the funding for the Crash Reduction Program. Not surprisingly the road toll has stubbornly refused to improve since that decision was taken.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Kevyn - interesting, given your statements about how good deregulation has been for the taxi industry, that they have for some time been complaining about deregulation, and been begging the government to regulate it more.
January 9th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Unfortunately those Japanese imports were being exported for a reason. We end up the dumping ground for old Japanese cars with a consequential impact on our fleet fuel economy.
Additionally I have driven several Japanese imports without the bells. I would be interested to know how wide spread the bells were? And what an extraordinary idea. Make it mandatory for cars to have bells on their speedometers. One single bell when the speeds of 50, 70 and 80 are crossed and a continuous bell for speeds over 100. This would surely remove a lot of speeding and consequently reduce the road toll - and fuel consumption further.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:13 am
You state:
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Treasury and their mates in the Business Roundtable that markets are always best in all situations (hence why we have an Emissions Trading Scheme rather than a carbon tax but that’s another story). After all, as Roger Douglas told us, there is ‘unfinished business’ and I reckon the market in tui song is clearly unfinished.
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The “unfinished business” will be finished when Wellington Central is permanently flooded under 10 metres of sea water - caused by the money grubbing and determined greed of Roger Douglas’s cohorts scattered around the planet.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Luke
The chances of me leaving a fncking bell connected/operable are, how shall I put it… “slender” at best.
Except my car doesn’t have one and the chances of a new car any time soon are even more slender …
With the possible doubling of petrol prices before that happens I expect that the speed “limit” will have even less to do with the road toll than the stuff-all it has now.
respectfully
BJ
January 9th, 2008 at 11:46 am
The authorities could do more to deal with noises from stereos and exhausts if they really wanted to. There was a time when dogs used to be allowed to poo anywhere; the council ran a campaign “ if your out walking your doggy and it does a doggy doo. Remember that the doggy-doo your doggy does, belongs to you.. etc. After that there was a big change in behavior.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:47 am
That would have been when Vicki Buck was mayor?
January 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
jh - I’m not sure it would be that easy (although I agree that more could be done). The doggy-doo campaign relied on a persons respect for others, while some excessively loud stereos/exhausts may be because people haven’t thought about it I suspect most are because people don’t care if it annoys others.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
bjchip - so you have no respect for the law? Or do you consider the law around maximums speed wrong and that speeding is an act of civil disobedience?
Why is it seen as “okay” to speed or park illegally - as long as you get away with it - but not to shoplift or assault someone?
January 9th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Russel, we pay enough taxes now. Thats why we have a SURPLUS as in we pay more than is needed……..
Ask your mate Cullen for some money for the Sanctuary. You’d have my support. Certainly more worthwhile than some of the other crap he funds,(actually we fund) wastefully mostly too. What is it? 1000 administrators for every 1200 beds? Oh yes Government is really efficient!
January 9th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
BeShakey, I have never ever made a statement about how good deregulation has been for the taxi industry. My comments were that deregulation was good for the industry’s customers.
Those in the taxi industry who can remember when regulation made a taxi licence a highly valuable commodity complain about deregulation, and want the government to regulate it more.
January 9th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
beshakey said:
excuse me while i choke over my cuppa…
if the doggy-doo campaign worked, it’s because dog owners are generally a better class of people. the DOOMF DOOMF DOOMF drivers know very well that their “music” is in everyone’s faces - that’s why they do it.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I think they do it as a sort of unconscious, expression of domination> the lead male /female (he/she thinks) is going to conquer and take. The rhythm isn’t random so you can’t block it out; we are programmed to respond to a message and the message is heavy unyielding footsteps. The first step is to stop treating it as “just music” and demonstrate the effect on those around. Ie it gives one little p**** the ability to affect the mood of x # of people in every direction.
January 9th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Surely too loud car stereos pale in insignificance as a problem beside too loud car exhausts.
http://www.noiseoff.org.nz/
January 9th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Bring on the Tuis, Bellbirds, and the rest of the native species. These sanctuarys are great, we need more of them.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
We would much rather listen to Tui than inane radio advertising each morning. About 16 years ago we switched from commercial radio to Radio NZ to avoid adverts.
All was well until early last year when some overpaid Ozzie consultants were hired by RNZ to stuff it up.
Ever since, we have been plagued by relentless Radio New Zealand “Gnashnal� ‘idents’ and ‘promos’ needlessly advertising themselves every few minutes.
We have taken this up with RNZ to no avail. We now recommend switching the radio off to enjoy the Tuis or to listen to a CD instead.
Being Election Year there may be a prospect of relief if we can have the repeated advertising of the name “Gnashnal� caught by the Electoral Finance Act.
At the equivalent value of $1000 an advert Radio New Zealand would have used up their $120,000 by about the 3rd of January.
Yey! And Hallelujah! Peaceful listening to RNZ until October!
Perhaps…………….
January 10th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Most loud car stereos are simply because thats how they want to listen to music and not to piss old people off. I have more problems with loud trucks which get more and worse.
Most people probably started picking up their dog poo cause if they didn’t it was fair game to throw it at them, or at least tell them off.
As for paying for tui songs i happily do through tax and those who don’t like it can pretend their tax goes to another cause such as garbage dumps for all these rusted jap cars.
January 10th, 2008 at 8:26 am
ekstatek,
Scrap metal is too valuable to go into landfills these days. All those scrapped japs go back to Japan to make new jap cars that will come to NZ in a few years. A virtuous circle.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Andrew - you cut off the end of my statement. If you’d have included that it would have been clear that the point I was making was pretty much the same as yours: that a campaign against loud cars that relies on the owners respect for others is bound to fail because that respect often doesn’t exist.
January 10th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
We do tend to go all one way or the other though.
Consider the “load smoothing” mechanism here. Your meter has a gadget that lets the power company turn your hot water off. They don’t give you a credit for having it, it is simply required. If the price of your Electricity were adjusted and the meter was optional but gave you the lower rate (and YOU decide if the price vs availability tradeoff is acceptable to you), is that not somewhat more appropriate than simply taking away all choice?
There is something to be said for those who criticize the “nanny-state” mentality here.
respectfully
BJ
January 10th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Luke
No respect for the law? Oh no… every possible respect for those poor sods who have to enforce the god-awful dogs breakfast of half baked, unfinished and desperately unneeded bills that seem to be the natural product of any legislature
That was fun to write but is a bit stronger than I really feel. Some of the stuff that we’ve got has worked out well and some laws are OK.
However, there are several areas in which I regard the law as being perversely guided by people who are ignorant of the truth and motivated by a strong desire to impose their morality on me.
Speeding is a “victimless” crime if it is done with an eye to what the actual safe speed on the road IS, and speed limits can give guidance in determining that, if they are actually reflective of conditions. Here in NZ they are not. Blind obedience is demanded. Actual judgement, exercised in control of a motor vehicle, is not required. Speed limits which are too high for conditions are almost as common as those that are too low.
It is apparently too difficult to actually make the speed limits informative. As a result I ignore the signs except to gauge the danger to my wallet from the cop with the laser. I suppose that this is worse than thinking the law is “wrong” in a way. I regard it as completely irrelevant.
I note that the cop with the laser WILL be targeting vehicles in areas where speeding is relatively safest… this occurs because more people will be caught speeding there and it appears more productive. Most people do actually slow down as the road turns into a goat track.
Parking illegally is a half-half. Disabled parking is a no-go zone. Parking in places where it makes driving dangerous is ALSO a no-go… whether it is illegal or not. Not paying when there’s no shortage of space is however, perfectly reasonable to me.
Both Parking and Speed laws have been subverted over the years to become cash-cows for various municipalities. I have seen this enough to be QUITE cynical about these laws.
Smoking Pot is a “victimless” crime … as is ingesting almost ANY psychotropic substance. Taking various nutritional supplements, importing them for my own use and using them myself…. shouldn’t be against the law.
Similar criticisms can be leveled at a number of things.. but these examples will serve I think.
So maybe a bit of both civil-disobedience and a lack of respect…. I am not a sheep. I decide for myself. The law in general…. is considered…. but I also generally reject anything that smacks of nonsense.
I’m the guy with the CB and the Radar Detector slipping past the bears on the I-95 and rocketing over the I-5 between LA and San-Francisco… I have not found these tools useful HERE. The roads where speeding is “safe” are too short to make it useful… particularly as heavily patrolled as they are. The roads where speeding is unsafe are far more common here. The limits that are set aren’t even informative. The price of petrol is too high. The car I have isn’t that much fun to drive. The kids get carsick.
Anyone want to buy a Valentine or a good CB radio?
respectfully
BJ
January 10th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Oh yeah… while going at “the law”, who had the BRILLIANT idea of making the right-of-way law apply to “T” intersections ?
If I am on the MAIN road I have no damned way to know if the fellow at the intersection has a yield sign or not. I’ve developed a fair local knowledge now, but this is one of the most STUPID things I have ever seen in a road code.
Conformity and Consistency are not objects of worship for me.
BJ
January 10th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
BJ
Not sure what you mean by that last-but-one statement — on the main road you’ll have right of way, even at an uncontrolled junction. Unless you’re turning right. Probably.
January 10th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
And if your turning right you should be able to see if there are white or yellow lines indicating that the person has to give way or stop…
But as to the main crunch of your argument. I agree operating a fine based system always leaves room for the appearance of, even if it does not exist, money grabbing. Solutions could be that all money should be collected into a fund and used to fund more speed cameras on dangerous stretches of road in the locality the speeding occurs in. So if you speed your making it harder to do so in future. And parking fines pay for more parking wardens. But these ideas suffer from many flaws too.
I particularly agree with your point that the fact the speed limit is their justifies that speed being obtained. Even if it isn’t dangerous. How to cope. Abolish all road rules apparently it can work (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,746877,00.html) but that is in a built up environment.
Would rural people accept a 70 km/h speed limit - probably all that is safe for most of our back roads. Not now. Especially after all the services have been stripped from the small rural towns meaning you have to drive for 45mins to an hour at 100 km/h to get to a supermarket to do your weekly/fortnightly shop. That would extend by 15 to 25 minutes. Pushing that long drive into the extended category. It all adds up weekend sport, getting the paper on a Saturday after school music and other activities.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
nice post jh, but not so unconscious i’m sure. in fact i wouldn’t be surprised if they have their excessively powerful speakers turned outwards to project the sound externally rather than aiming it at their own head.
ekstatek who said anything about old people. they are trying to piss people off full stop.
& there’s where the difference is plain. you wouldn’t even approach one (or a carful) of those perpetually angry-eyed borderline sociopaths, as you would a dog owner, let alone open hostilities by throwing something at them.
can’t say i’ve encountered much of a problem with noisy vehicles (other than their stereos) yet. chainsaws should be banned in urban areas in my view. if they need a tree cut that badly, use a manual saw. especially since the contractors always bring their wood-chipper machine into the locality & that thing makes a noise like an aeroplane taking off. it’s preposterous that they could think it o.k. to make that sort of noise outside of an industrial zone. they should truck the offcuts away & chip them on their own base.
leaf blowers are about the worst manifestation of our generation’s insanity that i can think of.
incidentally a friend of mine has a car which chimes when it goes over a certain speed. the sound is really quite pleasant. we agreed it might put us to sleep!
January 10th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
XYY
That’s the problem. If I am turning right, and the other guy is turning right and its night and there’s stuff all chance of me figuring out what sign HE is looking at, if there is any.
I know the problem is there because I’ve seen it in action. Near as I can tell most councils have simply bought a sh!tload of yield signs and put them up all over the place… because someone in a high place has his/her head higher up his own bum than usual.
That’s a LITTLE thing, but it is indicative of people who are making rules based on consistency rather than reason.
respectfully
BJ
January 10th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
In support of BJ’s comment about speeding.
A speed-related crash is officially defined as travelling too fast for the conditions.
This definition predates speed limits by several years. It actually is an abreviated version of the reckless driving offence (circa 1930) “Driving in a manner or at a speed that is dangerous having regard to all the circumstances of the case including the nature, use and condition of the highway and the amount of traffic the driver should have expected to encounter” The last bit is ommitted from the modern law.
Speeding offence consists solely of exceeding a speed limit.
Between 1936 and 2005 a speed limit of 30mph (or 50kmh) applied on any road forming part of any Municipal Corporation or borough, town or city as those terms were defined in the Local Government Act on 27/9/1987. On all other roads the open road speed limit shall apply except where the Minister approves an alternative speed limit requested by the local authority and supported by a traffic engineer’s study.
Since 2005 speed limits have had to take into account the nature and use of the road and the amount of pedestrian and turning traffic.
Until 1973 motorways had higher speed limits than ordinary highways. Regrettably this has not been reintroduced in the new Rule for setting speed limits even though it is standard practice everywhere except in New Zealand and Australia.
January 10th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Russel,
I’ll swap your blackbird for a couple of Pukeko that keep wandering away from the QE2 expressway wetlands.
Or there again, I seem to vaguely recall a nursery rhyme about four and twenty blackbirds.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Russel,
If your analysis of the tui scenario has any validity it will remain valid if we swap the specific case for anything else we care to mention.
So let’s do that.
Forget the sound of the tui. In your analysis, suppose instead that some people want to build a mosque and broadcast the call to prayer many times a day over the entire neighbourhood.
What does you analysis tell us in this case, which is the same as your example in all the essential details?
January 12th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Russel,
I’m not too good with parables, but what I get out of your post is a sense that “logical”, market-driven systems sometimes miss the point, and cease to value things that have intrinsic, non-financial value.
The tui-sound-haters have every right to be unhappy, but the rest of us have every right to prevent them from making the Tui extinct.