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there is no public good afforded by violating parking restrictions. the public good comes from enforcing them, so that parking spaces turn over quickly and remain as available as possible.

circumvention of the rules for a priveleged few (like those who know how to surveil the enforcement officers) is actual corruption. this service doesn't expose corruption, it enables it.



I have some sympathies for your argument, but I suspect you are trying to prove too much: your argument could more or less justify an infinitely large fee for parking violations (or even imprisonment). Most people seem happier with small, finite amounts for these things?

As a second point, I don't think parking and public goods have anything in common. Parking is _not_ a public good, and shouldn't be treated as such. Parking spaces are rivalrous and excludable. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good for the background.) They should be provided by the private market just as any other good and service, instead of being heavily regulated and partially being provided free-to-the-user at the cost of tax payers and business owners.


How did you go from an argument for enforcing parking laws to infinite fees and imprisonment? Where is there such a parking law?


> there is no public good afforded by violating parking restrictions.

Apparently there must be some upside to allowing parking violations, if the perpetrator values it more than whatever low 'punishment' fee is set. Otherwise society would increase the fee to get the right behaviour.


from context, it should be clear that we're talking about "good" meaning benefit, not good meaning product.




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