With State Senate Republicans spending money like it’s going out of style and certain Democrats moaning about high taxes on our poor middle class citizens, those unfamiliar with New York State may wonder what the state’s predominant political philosophy is. As recent events once again demonstrate, that philosophy is a modern version of feudalism. Under capitalism, you get what you earn, at least in theory. Those who believe that people need an incentive to work and innovate can agree with that. Under socialism, you get what you need, at least in theory. Those who believe that we are all part of one human family can agree with that. But over time, when you have the same group of people in power, both capitalism and socialism degenerate into feudalism, under which the privileged expect to continue to get what they have been getting, and perhaps a little more, whether they need it or not, deserve it or not. For those who have real needs, and who produce real earnings, it’s just tough luck. The latest example of feudalism in action: congestion pricing.
Actual socialists are thin on the ground in the United States, but one was in town this week: London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who has successfully implemented congestion pricing in that city. His concern is social equity – why should the more affluent minority who drive, and thereby diminish the quality of life of the majority who arrive by mass transit, pay nothing for the privilege? The New York City Partnership, a capitalist group if ever there was one, is in favor of implementing congestion pricing here, and for a typical capitalist reason: efficiency. By allocating a scarce resource – road space – by wait time rather than by price, that resource is wasted to everyone’s detriment. New York Mayor Bloomberg has focused on a different equity concern – generational equity – in pushing the proposal, with three potential benefits for future generations: more infrastructure investment, less debt, and less global warming.
So capitalists and socialists are in favor for reasons of equity and efficiency. So who is against? Those who have existing deals, that is who.
The city’s current policy to dissuade people from driving into Manhattan is to make it impossible to park, by prohibiting additional parking garages by zoning. This inflates the income of existing garage owners by allowing them to charge more and more money as Manhattan’s ongoing redevelopment removes competing spaces. A great deal for them.
Those who don’t have to pay those inflated parking prices also benefit. They can travel over free bridges, and if they have a parking deal it costs them less to drive, assuming they would own the car anyway, than it costs less well off New Yorkers to take the subway. The feudal lords include those with public permits to park in reserved on-street spaces, those whose position in some private corporate bureaucracy provides them with company-paid parking, and those who somehow have the right to use zoning mandated loading docks as personal parking garages, even as trucks load from public streets and sidewalks.
In the medieval feudal system, the ruling class defended their privileges from the peasants through elaborate patronage connections. In the New York version, politicians appeal to the narrow segment of the population that votes for local offices by promising to prevent change, and thus maintain privileges. One can find feudalism in every public service, in every public policy, because no matter now bad things are they benefit somebody, one reason why when the government does something it often finds it impossible to undo it. You can identify an “I’ve got mine jack” argument when someone asserts that a proposed change is “unfair” because some group will be disadvantaged, using as examples the worst off (and least representative) members of that group, without discussing how that group fares relative to everyone else right now. What has “everyone else” got to do with it?
Because the power of inertia is so great, and progress so difficult, those elected officials who take the easy route of pandering to existing privilege deserve special disdain.