Peggy is right, to a point. Your proposal places an artificial constraint on the “email market.” But all but the most radical of free-market economists acknowledge the need for interventions to correct for “market inefficiencies.” As you described it, the prime inefficiency in the “email market” is that there is no scarcity, no tension “between supply and demand.” Economists commonly refer to this problem as the “tragedy of the commons”—a term that has its roots in shepherding.
In a situation where a number of pastoralists keep their flocks on a limited area of common land it pays each flock owner to increase his or her flock as much as possible. The advantages to the owner of the sheep of an increase in one animal would far outweigh the effect to him or her of a relatively slight degradation to the pasture caused by that animal.The logic is therefore remorseless: each owner will maximise their herd to the greatest extent and no - one individual will suffer in proportion to his or her increased advantage. However, eventually the population will face ruin and the whole social structure of people and animals will crash.
This is a hot topic today in the field of environmental protection. Free marketers have been (correctly) complaining for years that conventional approaches to environmental regulations are socialistic and (like most socialistic solutions) have lots of negative unintended consequences. They advocate for creating markets for trading “pollution credits.” Similar to your email model, this approach involves establishing a limit on the amount of a particular pollulant that can be emitted in a specific area. This artificial cap on emissions creates scarcity and produces incentives for industry to reduce the amount of pollution it produces. You can read more about free-market approaches to environmental protection here. Your email proposal is very much analogous. Email overload is a problem in most large organizations—and it is very much a “tragedy of the commons.” Your approach would address the issue, not by centrally regulating who can send what to whom and when, but by creating a tension between supply and demand. It’s something that even a libertarian like me can love.
One other thought to throw into the mix: The status quo represents perhaps the most socialistic option of all. As any CIO will attest, email is, in fact, not the least bit free (companies spend millions on email-related infrastructure and support). But email usage in most organizations tends to reflect the Marxist principle of "each according to his needs."
ReplyDeleteWith many IT organizations making the move to activity-based costing, there may come a day when IT shops will begin calculating chargebacks for departments based on the specific number of emails they produce.
Jeff Grimshaw [jgrimshaw@crainc.com]