Posted by
Andrews on Saturday, April 19, 2008 2:14:56 PM
Back in the 1980's I lived in an apartment with centrally controlled steam heat. In other words, the apartment had radiators that were turned on or off for the entire building. I never really noticed when they came on or went off, as, for my first few years there, the heat was on when it was cold and off when it was warm. However, one spring, when we experienced an exceptionally warm March, I noticed that the heat was still running. Now, the apartment had no air conditioning and I relied on fans to cool off, so it was quite noticeable when the heat was running on 80 degree days.
I called the management and asked them if they realized they were broiling their tenants. It was then that I learned the government, either Maryland or Baltimore County, I don't recall which, had enacted a law that, in apartments where the heat was not controlled by the tenants, the landlord must provide heat through the end of March. In short, it was illegal for them not to broil their tenants.
So, why the story? Well, it illustrates two principles that I have mentioned before, and does a great job.
First, it does a great job of illustrating why government-driven, rules-based solutions are always inferior to private, agreement-based solutions. The government must operate by rules, as otherwise it is simply capricious dictatorship. For some situations, this works adequately. Saying murder and theft are against the law is a rule based solution, but it works well enough. On the other hand, mandating that heat must be delivered until the end of March does not work, as it fails to take into account other factors, such as weather. Of course, the rule could be refined, but inevitably any refinement will leave some other exception unanswered. The rule based solution simply will never be as flexible or useful as the private solution.
Second, it illustrates the way that good intentions often result in horrible outcomes. The government, worried that greedy landlord would deprive tenants of heat, instead ended up mandating the heating of apartments on 80 degree days. They meant well, but their assumptions led to making rules which harmed the very people they intended to protect. A far better solution would have been to do nothing, as tenants will not likely rent apartments that fail to provide heat, meaning the assumed "greedy landlords" would either have to provide adequate heat or see their apartments sit empty.
Actually, both concepts reinforce one another and both point to one conclusion. The state should be kept to matters for which there is no other solution, when it meddles in the wrong fields, the results are inevitably much worse than the problems it intends to solve.