A Stitch in Haste

Ezra Klein once again unleashes his remarkably adolescent intellect upon the blogosphere:

This is getting a little crazy. Responding to the South Los Angeles’s new ordinance imposing a one-year moratorium on the construction of new fast food restaurants, William Saletan says, “We’re not talking anymore about preaching diet and exercise, disclosing calorie counts, or restricting sodas in schools. We’re talking about banning the sale of food to adults.”

No. No, we’re not. South LA has an incredible density of fast food outlets already. The food they sell will not be banned. The franchises they’ve opened will not be nationalized. Rather, the city council is doing something incredibly ordinary: Deciding what sort of establishment it will allow to open within its jurisdiction. This is called zoning, and not to scare anyone, but it happens all the time.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

There are several reasons why Mr. Smarmy Pants’ “analysis” is, to use his junior high school version of a lexicon, “a little crazy” —

First, micromanaging a neighborhood — building by building, function by function, day by day — is not “zoning.” Not even close. Zoning is declaring whole regions to be, say, “commercial” or “residential” or “industrial.” It might also be declaring that an area will be, e.g., height restricted or subject to some other universal constraints that apply to all property owners equally. But saying that Entrepreneur A is allowed to operate a McDonald’s but Entrepreneur B is not allowed to operate a KFC in the same area under the same rules is not “zoning.” It’s arbitrary central planning at best and invidious discrimination at worst (remember, this is South Los Angeles, and only South Los Angeles, being hyper-regulated by the rest of the city’s politicians and bureaucrats).

Second, “zoning” is — or was — always understood to be a process generally implemented before property is ever owned and developed. It is decided, before the fact, what the zoning rules are going to be within a jurisdiction and then private parties are free to pursue opportunities accordingly. The rules — which may be reasonable or oppressive — are at least laid out before the game begins. Changing the rules after the game begins (i.e., after someone has already acquired the property) is neither “zoning” nor just.

Third, the rationale, or rationalization, for zoning had always been to avoid intractable externalities among the property owners themselves. How, exactly, can a hog farm operate next to a housing tract? But of course a fast food restaurant is not a hog farm (and least not literally). The whole point of this rights-abidging exercise is the fact that some self-important nanny-statists abhor the pesky fact that the residents of these neighborhoods want fast food restaurants.

Klein summarily declares this a situation of “incredible” density? Incredible — to whom? By what standard? Certainly not any standard of the residents who patronize these establishments. (Is it really necessary to note that if there were truly “too many” of these restaurants, then some would go out of business? (Cf., “Too many” Starbucks.)

The only “externality” here is the disingenuous War on Obesity argument favored by Klein’s fellow health care socialist, Paul Krugman: Fast food = high calories = obesity = health care costs = taxpayer burden = grounds for behavior control. All to be cured (no pun intended) with a “modest” ban on fast food, which is to say with a sweeping negation of property rights and individual autonomy whenever and in whatever form some politician or bureaucrat concludes is justified. Every two-bit city council member or health commissioner — now entitled and equipped to control everything from your neighborhood to your lunch.

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On the fact that the ban is “merely” a moratorium: So what? Only someone with a willful contempt for the notion of a free society could think that way. I wonder how Klein would feel if he were evicted from his home for “only” one year, or forbidden to travel for “only” one year, or blocked from reading blogs for “only” one year. Rights either exist or they don’t. If they do, then abridging them for even a nanosecond is an outrageous abomination, to be advocated only by the most fundamentally un-American thinkers. (Incidentally, the moratorium is “only one year” only for now. According to Saletan, its sponsors have already expressed their intent to seek a permanent moratorium. That fact is of course conveniently omitted by Klein.)

One last thought:

City governments have long used the preferences of residents or the perceived needs of the community to discriminate when licensing businesses for construction. It happens all over the country, every day, with every type of establishment.

The preferences of residents? Which residents? The perceived needs of the community? Who, exactly, is “the community”? The activist legislators who sell their vote to highest-bidding lobbyist? The 50% + 1 of the electorate who feel perfectly entitled to declare their views to be “the will of the people” — and the other 50% -1 (and their rights) be damned?

Does Klein have the intellectual horsepower, I wonder, to realize just how much like a certain other group of majoritarians his argument sounds? His reasoning is utterly indistinguishable from that of the most decrepit anti-gay bigots who seek to ban something a tad more substantive than a fast food restaurant. What a delicious sampling of the faux difference between liberals and conservatives: “power to impose our will on others” … versus “power to impose our will on others.”

Klein is, however, right about one thing: “it happens all the time.”

Kip’s Law: Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.

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More thoughts at QandO, Cato@Liberty.

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Previously:
Kip’s Law Sighting — Ezra Klein

Filed under: Activist Legislators & Nanny Statists, Freedom of Contract, Kip's Law, Law, Property Rights