Brett M. Frischmann, Infrastructure: the social value of shared resources.

Excerpt

Brett Frischmann starts his captivating and challenging book with some figures provided by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), according to which “more than 26 %, or one in four, of the nation’s [U.S.’s] bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete” (p. ix–x). From this, Frischmann generalizes that “we have a major infrastructure problem in the United States” (p. x). This problem is not limited to bridges but, also affects other resources that Frischmann defines as infrastructures including: the internet, basic research, ideas, language, law, and the environment. One can assume that the problem identified by Frischamnn transcends national boundaries since it is rooted in a flawed theoretical approach to managing infrastructures. More precisely, Frischmann claims that “our” approach to managing infrastructures is “complacent, reactive, piecemeal… [and] incredibly shortsighted” (p. x). Changing it “entails a dramatic shift–perhaps a paradigm shift–away from the conventional position favoring market provisioning and markets ‘free’ from government intervention” (p. 368). Indeed, the complacency Frischmann denounces is the one that we have in favor of market provisioning that leads, in his view, to a “myopic focus on supply-side issues” (p. 18). In effect, the problem is that these standard pro-market approaches to infrastructures begin by focusing at the individual level. They base the type and amount of infrastructure to provide on the willingness of individuals to pay for it. This means that the social value of infrastructures correspond to, and can be reduced to, the sum of the individual evaluations and demands. …