More production or rationing what we have?

I was considering this recently in light of two different factors, that are acted on by the same forces of supply and demand.

Consider water supplies. As you probably know, large parts of Britain were subject to de facto water rationing this summer. Now it takes a special kind of genius to become short of water on this wind and rain swept isle, but there are reasons for this other than just climatic ones. Sure rainfall helps, but you surely cannot be surprised that water becomes short when we use more (dishwashers, more showers etc) than before, and there are more of us through birth rate and immigration.

So even if the climate is totally stable (lets not do that one here) demand goes up and supplies are stretched. Here’s where different approached to the problem come in.

Capitalists like me say “We have money, resources and capability to satisfy our needs, lets build some more reservoirs”

Lefties and environmentalists say “We cannot build more because it will hurt bird habitats or destroy water courses (or whatever) therefore let’s ration what we have”

This is insanity. We do not progress as a species by sharing the one buffalo we killed, we dreamed up better weapons and hunting techniques to get more meat, we thought about farming not foraging to create more. We move forward as a race by seeing what we need and getting it. If we had employed rationing years ago, we’d still be shivering, with a life expectancy of 25 arguing about who gets the last bit of meat.

Similarly roads. The private motorcar is fantastic. It gives you total freedom. But given that we have more or less the same number of roads now that we had in 1980, but twice the cars, is it surprising they are becoming congested? Again, I say, build more roads, the greens say “Building more roads just encourages traffic” without realising that all they are really confirming is that latent demand exists. So they want to ration roads by congestion charges, I want to build more.

Decide for yourself what sort of world you want to live in, a world of plenty or a world where everything is rationed according to government whim (but they won’t be subject to the rationing of course, you will).

Which is better?