Larry Persily pointed out recently that the Permanent Fund is a common good. Rightly, he noted such goods can work well serving all, but privatization destroys the future benefit from the commons. But ‘the tragedy of the commons’ applies not just to the destroyed future of the resource, but also reducing the current value the commons.
This, too, can be seen in the fisheries’ collapse that Persily referenced and in the current push to assure the biggest Permanent Fund check ever. To do that, we are reducing the value of Permanent Fund earnings reserve by taking resources from shared services that reach across the state, like when big companies take large hauls in the fisheries, leaving the local smaller boats with less to space to fish and less fish to catch.
For instance, Head Start and all pre-K funds are being forfeited, but children and communities loosing pre-school will not be able to find replacement with that check. According to the 2017 Alaska Child Care Market survey, the average monthly preschool costs in Alaska are just over $800. That check won’t even purchase a half-year of preschool for the Head Start children. Certainly, reducing schools budgets will drive even more costs to all, as that check won’t begin to pay for the more than $7,000 average annual tuition for private school in Alaska. Those not already not in private schools will be left with less basic school activities, as the resources are taken from schools.
This story is repeated for many of the budget cuts homeless shelters, public schools, the university, senior services and so forth. We reduce the resources for all. In business, often we talk about increasing efficiency and effectiveness with economies of scale, yet with the Permanent Fund we are saying combining our resources is not efficient that the resources should be given to each individual. In other words, we are reducing all the resources and reducing the ability of all to use those resources. We need to get back to the days when we came together and built together sharing labor and resources to make our state a community.
We need to save our commons – the Permanent Fund – and use the shared resource for all. After all, in school we were taught that sharing is good for us, and good for all.
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