Fixing California

Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism

By: Edward Ring

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

California has always been a trendsetter. Today more than ever, California’s cultural power combines with its extraordinary natural beauty to make it a unique society with influence felt around the world. California, despite its many challenges, is still a land of dreamers and innovators.

The problems in California are not caused by lack of good intentions. They are the result of good intentions that have been based on false premises and inaccurate assumptions. They are the result as well of good intentions that have been hijacked by special interests. But California’s innate power, the confidence of its inhabitants, its diverse economy, its unimaginable wealth, means that California can change direction, and when it does, the nation and the world may follow. So with great peril there is also great hope.

Most of California’s issues need a thorough reexamination. The well intentioned but flawed premises that guide policy in California are counterproductive to its future and the future of humanity. But in debating the wisdom of these misguided pieties that hamstring real progress in California, it is important to acknowledge that we all want the same thing. We all want prosperity, freedom, tolerance, opportunity, and healthy ecosystems. We agree on the ends. We disagree on the means.

An alternative to emphasize is the value of abundance over austerity. What are the barriers to achieving abundance, and to what extent are these barriers artificial? To what extent do these barriers - public policies and priorities - violate rational cost/benefit analysis, yet persist? Californians should have abundant energy, abundant water, and abundant housing. California’s transportation corridors should have overcapacity. Californians should produce and extract more of their own natural resources instead of relying on imports. Why don’t they?

In short, California can be affordable for ordinary working families, and only by changing fundamental assumptions can this be achieved. For example:

The rights of homeless people do not supersede the rights of working people, and the programs currently designed to help the homeless are wasting billions of dollars and making the problem worse.

Environmentalism run amok has crippled California’s economy, denied its residents a decent quality of life, and - especially in recent years - caused more harm than good to the environment itself.

Suburban “sprawl” is a good thing, not a bad thing, and bringing back suburban development of single family homes on California’s vast open spaces is a prerequisite to making housing affordable again.

Public sector unions are not remotely comparable to private sector unions and are one of the biggest root causes of California’s overbuilt, overpriced, often ineffective state and local government.

It is possible to invest in infrastructure that will guarantee Californians abundant water even in times of prolonged drought.

New transportation technologies make development of more roads the most sensible priority for government spending, not high speed rail or light rail.

And finally, the immutable algebra of energy and population trends mean that nations will continue to rely on fossil fuel, and the most useful example Californians can set is to develop technologies that use it in a manner that is as clean as possible. Californians must adapt and innovate in ways that don’t merely punish the poor and reward those who are wealthy and connected.

If some or all of these points can be successfully conveyed, if some or all of the conventional wisdoms that these points challenge can be broken, then this book will have fulfilled its goal. Californians have the potential to do wondrous, amazing things over the next few decades. Clinging to the current political mindset, however, will result in California being left behind. The choice is ours.