“By definition a free market means open access and competition. Your interpretation of Hayeck [sic] is flawed.” (Robert Borlick, below)
“Rob … I don’t think you have the foggiest idea of how the Austrian school of economics is relevant to electric power systems.” (Robert Borlick, below)
In the ‘never too late’ category, it’s time to introduce insights from the Austrian School of economics to electricity. Here is a running exchange with some power-market experts on my attempt to do just this.
I should emphasize that I am learning from them, as I hope they are learning from me. I have tested their patience with the notion that regulation/planning/renewables has hurt the Texas system–and hurt it enough to have caused the Great Blackout.
I am introducing new ideas to them, which really aren’t so new (see Raymond Niles in 2008 here).…
” … it is our moral responsibility to play a leading role in the response to the threats posed by climate change. Both inaction and unrealistic proposals are insufficient responses. The United States should prioritize actionable policy solutions … for all Americans impacted by climate change and for the betterment of future generations.”
– American Conservation Coalition
“Beware of the American Conservative Coalition…. Christopher Barnard should engage in open debate to demonstrate why the climate is in crisis and why rationing consumer-chosen energy is a workable policy.” (Bradley, below)
With an endless supply of money, the Progressive Left have been creating nonprofits to fracture and weaken the resistance to climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. Many “conservative” or “Republican” or “bipartisan” front groups are doing the incrementalism that tip-toe on the road to serfdom.…
“Although intended to counteract the problems caused by an earlier violation of property rights—the legalized monopoly status that utilities gained under ratebase regulation—the forced opening of the grid was itself a violation of property rights.”
“In the wake of a liberated electric grid based on property rights and private ownership of the rights-of-way, the imaginations, ingenuities, and profit motives of scientists, engineers, and financiers would produce all manner of possibilities.” (Raymond Niles, below)
Raymond C. Niles is one of those people who has “forgotten more than I know.” His insights from 13 years ago in electricity history and policy (one of his many interests in political economy) ring loud in the wake of the Great Texas Electricity Blackout of February 2021.
I recently came across Niles’s May 2008 essay, “Property Rights and the Crisis of the Electric Grid,” published in The Objective Standard.…