Brief Thoughts on Public Order

It is an obvious good worth achieving

This post is expanded from this tweet.

One category of post I'm finally turning to this year, after many of them sitting in my head or the drafts pile: the politics of upholding high standards of personal conduct in public spaces, or: combatting anti-social behavior that pollutes the commons.

These kinds of issues can be touchy, but I think most people are on the same page: public order is good, and creates positive externalities. Public disorder is bad, and creates negative externalities.

My goal in writing about them is to help others have the courage to explicitly hold the line above in casual conversations with others, and to help them do so as productively as possible. No one should feel guilty for wanting public order, and people should feel proud to uphold it.

Some people want the point of contention to be about whether or not public order is “worth” doing what's required to achieve and maintain it. I don't think this is correct. Public order is worth achieving, and I think this is about as obvious as saying “good nutrition is worth achieving.” We want it, it is good, and it creates tons of positive feedback loops in many other places.

The interesting question is the actual policy: what are the best ways to get and sustain public order? Laws are a component, culture is a component, technology is a component, etc. Again, the interesting thing is not “should we have a policy that we expeditiously pursue for public order.” Obviously we should. Public order is not something you should sacrifice on the alter of timidity or letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The interesting part is thinking through policy and monitoring implementation.

Another interesting component is looking to the past when NYC had problems with public order, and how it solved them then. One of my favorite lines about PO comes from a 1905 NYT letter to the editor excoriating spitting on the subway: “The law should not be violated daily...constant neglect of the law breeds contempt of the law. The health of those whom necessity compels to use public thoroughfares...should not be endangered through the selfish carelessness of bad citizens.”

I’ve also written about how administrative reform can go a long way to create public order.

A final interesting component is defining what “public order” means. You can define it negatively: no turnstile jumping, no littering, no retail theft, no playing unpleasant music without headphones, no violent behavior, no shampoo locked on shelves, no extremely erratic behavior, no open drug use, no allowing your dogs to excrete where they shouldn’t, etc. You can define it positively: clean streets, well-lit thoroughfares, the easy presence of vulnerable populations like children and the disabled (and we are all both of the latter at some point), polite negotiation of everyday conflict like rights-of-way, and uninterrupted peace in places like public libraries.

Many people online get locked into a diminished version of this discussion—it becomes about authoritarian police state surveillance versus anarchy. If someone tries to pull you in that direction, tell them they're doing it, and that this is a false dichotomy.

Public order can coexist with liberty and fairness—in fact, I think public order is the best way to achieve both of those things. The public deserves temples, beauty, comfort, and security. If you feel nervous around this topic, you don't have to be nervous around me. Even if you think we'll disagree, that's OK. I'm your politics friend. We can figure it out.

If you want to do work in this area, drop me a note via email (daniel@maximumnewyork.com), DM on X, or DM on Substack.