When visiting Vietnam, I noticed this.
It’s a water tank on top of a roof. It’s for water pressure. When I scanned along the skyline, every rooftop had one. You can zoom in on this next photo and find them all.
This is because vietnam has low water pressure at the municipal level, so each building has a pump that pumps water up to the storage tank on their rooftop so they can have decent water pressure throughout the building. In this socialist country, they decided that each individual building should have their own water pump, their own storage tank, along with taking on the annual maintenance cost of both.
Come on guys. Do we (the united states) have to show you how to do socialism?
Here is a water tower from one of the most politically conservative cities in the country.
It just make sense. A single tower. Single pump. Managed by the community. Everyone gets the water pressure they need. So much more efficient than everyone building and maintaining their own water tower atop their building. I’m sure the water tank and pump companies wouldn’t be so happy about this solution, but sometimes individualism and capitalism doesn’t make sense. Would Mesa (or anyone in arizona) wish to turn over their water supply to a private company and trust that a private corporation will provide it fairly and affordably to everyone? I’m doubtful.
Sometimes it just makes sense to do things collectively – to own and manage a resource together as a community. Not always, but sometimes with some things. We see this in the u.s. fairly often with security (policing and military), waste management, electricity, sewage, education, fire protection, parks and recreation, transit, emergency medical. We do this voluntarily sometimes in HOAs, network connectivity, or through social/religious organizations.
From a business perspective, I learned that about 20% of households run their own business… wait a minute – that’s about the same percentage as the U.S.! Here’s the kicker. In Vietnam, 99% of these businesses are under the tax exemption threshold, so they never pay federal taxes!
At this point, i have to ask – do you know what it means to be a socialist country? We fought a bloody war – us to save you from socialism… and you because you desperately wanted to be socialist. I know you won, but… did you get what you want?
I suppose we should be asking a similar question… if we had known vietnam would have turned into what it did, would we have sent in so many of our children to die in the war?
And how committed are we _really_ to anti-socialism? I know we talk a good game and invoke the s word like it’s a venereal disease whenever healthcare comes up… but is it time to admit that there is some level of collectivism that just makes sense… (like water towers) instead of using socialism as the boogeyman word to try and thoughtlessly scare the uneducated – isn’t it time to be more thoughtful about expressing the criteria for when collectivism makes sense and when it doesn’t?
Here is a proposal:
- When there is a natural monopoly of a resource that most people want or need. (Like water from the Colorado river… water pipes.. electrical grids… fiber to homes. )
- Economies of scale – cheaper to maintain a single water tower than for each home to build their own.
- Externalities – where individuals decisions affect others – e.g. pollution, public health, overfishing, irrigation, not mowing your lawn ever…
- Public goods – we don’t want each home to hire their own security and administer justice. Or build their own flood protection system just for their own home.
- Risk pooling – this is the most interesting. Everyone wants help when disaster strikes… but no one wants to pay the premiums…
- Equity and access – generally we believe everyone should receive some level of education. We don’t want old people or sick people dying in the streets or living in hunger.
This isnt a proposal for what belongs in the federal government, but just a criteria for when it makes sense to think and act collectively within an affected community. Not all things should be owned and managed this way.. in fact, most things shouldn’t… but lets admit it… some things should be managed as a community.. most people like the idea of social security and medicare – I’m looking at you, boomers…
