I don't want to start a whole big thing here, but I can't help but connect who I guess are conservative-leaning people defending HOAs...aren't HOAs just a smaller version of paying higher taxes for a big gov't? Am I off on that?
Wouldn't a conservative person who wants access to a pool use his own money and install a pool into his own back yard? Not relying on the HOA fees being 'pooled' together for a community pool? Can I say it seems hypocritical without seeming like I'm attacking anyone and thus, no one needing to get defensive?
I'm just sharing ideas that have occurred to me. Not trying to insult or be a jerk or offend.
Well, there are a lot of things to unpack in this... "Conservatives" as a general rule are not opposed to government. They are very concerned about "big government", i.e. a behemoth that becomes and entity unto itself and is driven by its own goals and needs and is no longer accountable.
When you talk about government, there are two basic methods by which people can influence government, "Voice" and "Exit". Voice is basically democracy, how much control each of us has through our speech and our votes. Exit is our ability to leave and find a government more amenable to our preferences. I.e. every time Badge talks about how horrible Illinois is and how he's planning to leave for a better-run state, that's exit--he knows he can't change Illinois, so he might as well go somewhere better.
The smaller the unit of government is, the more your voice carries and the lower the costs of exit.
An HOA is generally small enough that there is a high responsiveness to voice and a relatively easy exit. Now, that doesn't mean they're all good. In fact, a lot of them are terrible, because the people who tend to be attracted to them are the ones who are MOST interested in controlling others' lives. It's REALLY easy to go from "we want to maintain property values so nobody is allowed to put their rusted pickup truck up on blocks in the front yard" to "that's the wrong shade of beige, Susan, so you need to repaint your house or we'll fine you". But in theory, a well-run HOA is both responsive to the residents of the community while not oppressive to them, and as such it protects the interests of the entire community from bad apples.
The Federal government is pretty much the opposite, in that voice is largely ineffectual [your vote basically doesn't matter], and the cost of exit is enormous. All those celebrities who said they were moving to Canada or Europe if Trump was elected are still here, because leaving your home country is MUCH more difficult than just moving to a new neighborhood, or a few towns over, or even to another state within the US. So Voice and Exit are largely ineffectual. And when Voice and Exit are ineffectual, it's hard to have any control over good vs bad policies.
Most conservatives [and even most libertarians] will generally say that the best way to restrain government is through devolving as much as possible to the state or local level. The reason for this is that it maximizes Voice and reduces the cost of Exit. If you believe you can change your local government, and if HOAs/towns/states are able to compete for residents [and thus taxes] based upon the quality of their governance, the theory is that good practices will out-compete bad practices and eventually government will approach best practices.
Do we have any anarchists here?
I've studied anarcho-capitalism in some depth. I don't think you can achieve a long-term stable anarcho-capitalist world. But I think it is a very useful construct to study to look at ways that we could improve our existing governments and make them more effective, more efficient, and more responsive to the needs of citizens.
"Anarchist" can be a loaded word, as a lot of people think that "anarchists" are basically people who dress in black and like to break stuff. But just like the conservatives that wanted to get the government to keep their hands off their Medicare, a lot of those "anarchists" are basically just protesting WHAT the government is doing, not its existence.
