172 THE MODERN MILK PROBLEM 



contend with the individualistic attitude of retailers 

 in competition. 



Those who advocate the extreme of municipaliza- 

 tion for instance, Nathan Straus 7 draw a parallel 

 between water supplies and milk supplies, and argue 

 that, as municipalities have had to own the former, so 

 they will have to come to owning the latter. The basis 

 of the parallel is that milk, like water, is distributed 

 in larger quantities and bears an important relation 

 to public health, and that milk supply cannot be satis- 

 factorily controlled by public authority acting in a 

 simply supervisory capacity. The mere condemnation 

 of the idea as " socialistic" is, of course, superficial; 

 it should be examined on its actual desirability. 



The proposition comes into relation with the general 

 idea of municipal management of public utilities. It 

 may be taken as a principle of political economy that 

 such management, in general, should not be under- 

 taken unless public regulation has proved to be a failure. 

 Such failure is most likely to occur in connection with 

 monopolies, and the argument is strongest in the case 

 of natural monopolies, such as water supply. But 

 in the case of milk supplies, monopoly is seldom ad- 

 vanced as a reason, the proposal of municipalization 

 being based upon desired expediency of regulation or 

 efficiency of operation. 



As a general principle, " reasonably successful regula- 

 tion, " writes the economist Taussig, 8 "is more easy 

 to attain than reasonably successful public manage- 

 ment," and under conditions in the United States there 

 has been a marked and justifiable tendency to rely 

 upon private enterprise for the performance of even 



