I have always been a believer in the law of unintended consequences. If you don't understand this law, consider the difference in the Democratic presidential nomination process if California had not moved its primary to February. Television's pundits would only be talking about California, exactly what our politicos tried to get and gave away.
More recently, I have been obsessed with the way a similar set of relations is playing out. Economist Alfred E. Kahn put forward a premise called the Tyranny of Small Decisions. He defined it in economic terminology: "Decisions that are small in size, time perspective, and in relation to their cumulative effect may lead to suboptimal resource allocation."
Let me use an example. It is a very small decision to get in the car and run to the store for a gallon of milk. It happens thousands of times a day. Yet, cumulatively, we have to ask what this does to society as a whole. We use more gas, adding to demand when the supply is constrained relative to demand and ask for governmental action to bail us out. We burn more fossil fuel adding to the load of greenhouse gases in atmosphere. I could build a longer list, but this is enough to give you a feeling for the way it works. Eventually, the societal cost will become real costs to the consumer the result of Kahn's suboptimal resource allocation.
The electoral process in the United States, especially choosing a new president, makes us focus on what appear to be big decisions. The recent brouhaha over a gas tax holiday this summer, something that only makes a sort of perverted political sense, show us another small decision whose long range consequences could be exactly the opposite of its hyped up intent.
Let me bring this back to Morgan Hill. We have a series of decisions facing us where Kahn's Tyranny of Small Decisions will surely come into play. For each issue, there is going to be a set of considerations that proponents/opponents will tell you to look at. These are almost always going to be presented without regard for the long range consequences to our community or to our individual lives.
There is a long range view that was embodied in the call for a 7th Generation Amendment. Imagine a world where all our sustainable resources were protected for our children's children's children, seven generations from now. We need to think about everything in that manner, to combat the Kahn's small tyranny.
Morgan Hill's decision on land use in South East Quadrant will play out over the next year as the City Council has commissioned several additional reports including one on the continued viability of farming in South County. We all know that every attempt will be made to shape content of those reports from all sides of the question. The key report is that on the future of farming in South County. Surely, it will not be the same as it is now. If this report only considers the nature of current markets and current operations and does not look at the future, then the answer will be a foregone conclusion ... farming has no future.
Markets change as do farming practices. I could site suburban examples of community supported agriculture that are succeeding by doing something more useful with a yard that waters grass. Almost every day now, as the price of gasoline goes up, we are reminded that an increasing share of the rising costs of food at the retail level is directly related to transportation. Not only does it cost more to transport food here, but the demand for alternative energy sources is itself consuming a growing share of our food crops. Any decision to eliminate agriculture from local land use will be paid for by future generations.
In a similar manner, we need to consider what future generations will think of our solutions to growth. One decision that we will make this year concerns the use of eminent domain (Propositions 98 and 99) to further private development needs. While eminent domain is supposed to provide for a public good, that good is now seen as increasing the tax base for governmental services that we, the citizens, try to avoid paying ourselves.
Proposition 99 does not protect us enough. Proposition 98 goes far beyond its supposed benefit to put other restrictions on local government in terms of how we might decide to shape the future of our communities. While neither is perfect. at least, Proposition 99 does no harm and will protect our homes. I differ from columnist Lisa Pampuch in this and urge you all to vote No on 98, Yes on 99.
We will have additional choices this fall if the initiative to reduce affordable housing in Morgan Hill has qualified for the ballot, as it appears to have done. This is another decision where the promise of some immediate gain needs be weighed against the long term effect it will have on defining this community.
In all of these, we must think of the future, not the present. We need to have the same awareness in just about everything that we do. And, since Mother's Day was Sunday, I need also to thank my wife who keeps reminding me of the effects of those small decisions every time I get some grandiose idea.
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth." ~ Roberto Clemente
Wes Rolley Wes Rolley is an artist and concerned citizen. The Board of Contributors is comprised of local writers whose views appear on Tuesdays and Fridays.
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