Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/393

 PRODUCTIVITY OF MUNICIPAL ENTERPRISES 379

final or proper test to apply. But with a sparser population the question of health may sink into the background and the superior convenience or cheapness of water in pipes over water in cisterns, wells, or springs may become the more important consideration. A last example may be permitted. Public lights were introduced as a means of increasing public safety and decreasing crime. They still are of much importance for that end. But the entire lighting, heating, and power system, of which the public lights are usually but a small part, can hardly be said to exist primarily for the prevention of crime. The economic service it renders to the community is probably greater than its service as a substitute for the police. Accord- ingly a municipal enterprise of this character may be tested by its economic productivity.

The question, then, may be limited to the methods of deter- mining the economic productivity of such municipal enterprises as aim primarily at economical production. Certain municipal enterprises are merely or mainly devices for rendering economic services cheaply and well. Their efficiency must be determined by comparing them with other devices for rendering equivalent services. The latter may be divided into private enterprises regulated mainly by competition, and private enterprises regu- lated both by competition and by governmental interference. This leads to a final limitation of the question, viz., the methods of comparing the economic productivity of municipal enter- prises aiming at economic production with private enterprises rendering similar services and more or less subject to govern- mental control.

It may be noticed in passing that the final decision upon the wisdom or folly of such municipal enterprises must be influenced by many considerations besides the economic productivity of the ventures. The general theory of our law and political sci- ence is adverse to a wide extension of the functions of munici- palities in such directions. The not infrequent corruption and the more frequent incompetency of our city governments are practical arguments in favor of the same position. The tend-