§ II. ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
The primary need of public ownership
1. Public ownership is primarily to control the essential agencies of government. A large part of public ownership and activity in industry develops from political functions. As society evolves, what was unessential to political life becomes essential. Civilized government requires the use of a number of material agents. Buildings for legislative and executive officers, custom-houses, post-offices, lighthouses, can be rented of private citizens, as post-offices usually are in small places; but it is obviously economical and convenient in large cities for the government to own the public buildings. Government can reduce to a minimum its employment of labor by "farming out" the taxes, as all countries once did to some extent, and as France continued to do up to the French Revolution. It is now the settled policy for government to own or control its essential agencies, but this does not involve in every case the employment of day-labor direct to clean the streets, to collect garbage, etc. The more simple political functions shade off into the economic. To coinage usually are added the issue of legal-tender notes and certain banking functions; the post carries packages, transmits money, and in some cases performs the function of a savings-bank for small amounts. The only open question is as to the proper limit to this development.
Conflict of public and private interests
2. Public industry expands to supply as free goods many essentials of good citizenship, and to insure cheaper and more bountiful supplies of others. It is the ideal of Herbert Spencer and of a small surviving group of laissez faire philosophers that government should confine itself exclusively to the most essential political functions, leaving the economic functions absolutely alone. It should keep the peace, prevent men from beating and robbing each other, and preserve the personal liberty of the citizen. They assume that all of the economic needs will be provided by competition, in the best way humanly possible, in quantities and at the rate needed. In many cases, however, the general interest fails to harmonize with that of the individual. The forest has an immediate utility to the consumers of lumber, and it has also a diffused utility in its influence on industry, on climate, and on torrents and floods. Yet, as the private owner cannot control enough of the forest to affect the climate, and could not sell climate even if he could affect it, he will cut down the tree whenever he can gain by doing so. In this situation either government control or government ownership of forests is essential.
Social economy of some public industry
In some cases the difficulty of private ownership is in the excessive cost of collecting for the service. The cost of maintaining tollhouses at short intervals on a turnpike sometimes exceeds the amount collected. Collection in other cases, as for the service of lighthouses to passing ships, is impossible. Public industry secures, through the economy of large production, a cheaper and more efficient service, the benefits and costs being diffused throughout the community. The benefits of the work of experiment-stations for agriculture are felt immediately by the farmers, but are diffused to all citizens. A manufacturer able to keep his methods secret, or to retain his advantages for a time, can afford to undertake experiments in his factory, but the farmer seldom can. The public ownership of parks for the use of all gives a maximum of economy in the production of the most essential utilities—fresh air, sunshine, natural beauty, and playgrounds in the midst of crowded populations. Municipal ownership of waterworks is an extension of the same idea. Not only because large amounts of water are used by the public, but because cheap, pure, abundant water is an essential condition to good citizenship, speculation should in every possible way be eliminated from this industry.
Monopolistic nature of localized industries
3. Public ownership tends constantly to include the industries of a monopolistic nature, locally supplying general necessities. This is no abstract principle; it is merely a statement of what is seen to be happening. Some industries are of such a nature that they drift inevitably into monopolistic control. Waterworks, gas, electric lighting, street-railways, telephone systems, are among these. However fierce may be the competition for a time, sooner or later either one company drives out the other or buys it up, or both come to an agreement by which the public is made to pay higher prices.
Localized production favors monopoly