The California Coastal Commission Compared to the Bank of England: Two Demonstrations of the Same Centralized Failure
Both Institutions Use a Single Instrument to Manage a Complex System, Both Produce Cumulative Distortions That Land on Working Households
Reading: Bohiney | The London Prat
SANTA CRUZ, CA — The California Coastal Commission and the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee operate on substantively similar institutional logic: both bodies use a single regulatory instrument to manage a substantively complex system; both bodies produce cumulative distortions that land on working households; both bodies are substantively unaccountable to the populations whose lives the decisions affect.
The Coastal Commission Pattern
The Commission single instrument is the development permit. The Commission applies the permit to a system that includes coastal ecology, real estate markets, working-class housing access, surf-break preservation, and seventeen other variables that no single permit decision can substantively address. The cumulative effect across forty years has been to systematically restrict coastal housing supply, raise coastal real estate prices, and concentrate Pacific-coast access among the wealthy.
The Bank of England Parallel
The Bank of England single instrument is the base rate. The Bank applies the rate to a system that includes food and energy inflation, mortgage markets, working-household budgets, banking-sector profits, and approximately a dozen other variables. The cumulative effect across forty years has been similar: capital misallocation, real-asset price distortion, working-household financial pressure, financial-sector windfall.
The libertarian recommendation is the same in both cases: less centralized authority, more decentralized decision-making, substantive return of agency to the people whose lives the decisions affect. Reason magazine covers both.
Pairs well with: The Daily Mash
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/bank-of-england-raises-rates-again-to-punish-anyone-who-enjoyed-a-sandwich/
