Sorry to return to London’s Congestion Charge again, but seeing socialism in action does have a certain ‘scared straight’ value to it. Add to this the certainty that some American municipality will probably give this dumb idea a try, then publicizing Red Ken’s crusade against cars may have some value to an audience over here.
The indispensable Iain Murray has now weighed in on this controversy:
“Livingstone… told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that, “The aim of congestion charging was always to cut traffic and congestion, not to make money.” It is clear, therefore, that Livingstone was not interested in a market mechanism and finding an appropriate equilibrium between revenue and congestion. Instead, the congestion fee is revealed as what a lot of us thought it was to begin with — an environmental tax.
Yet it is not a traditional form of tax. Ken Livingstone has seen free to buy what he sees as environmental benefits by diverting large sums from Londoners’ pocketbooks (the average person paying the charge will probably end up paying well over $1,500 a year) into the coffers of Capita. The economic term for Capita’s role is “rent-seeker” — a person or company that seeks to secure guaranteed income streams by using regulation to appropriate the income of other persons or companies (in recent American history, the most notable rent-seeker was Enron). It appears that Londoners are not happy about this. Over 100,000 people are currently refusing to pay penalty notices.”
Failure, incompetence and coercion: classic socialism imposed by a man who is, at heart, just another 1960s boomer who won’t go away.
Of course, there’s another topic here – why the left hate the auto so much – but that’s a discussion for another time.