The great challenge of NY City Council

 
    Economic Calculus and Social Calculus.
    In economics, we assert that for a market to function properly, economic calculus must be permitted; this means that there should be freedom of price formation with minimal interference from public authorities. But have social scientists developed any mechanism that allows for social calculus? In other words, can civil society freely intervene in the creation of rules for its social environment, with minimal interference from public administration? 

    Civil society and municipal management.
    Morality is that which a group mostly considers what is right or wrong. To ensure that morality is synchronized with the law for certain civil and economic matters, we need the integration of civil society. As society and the economy become more complex, this need becomes more obvious and pressing. The State is designed for problems of scale: for certain matters, it is too slow and expensive. The State is not a useful tool for performing legal microsurgery. When the State fails to keep morality and the law synchronized, justice becomes unjust, and we judicialize externalities.    Civil society is demanding with silent screams a greater degree of participation in political decisions, that is, social calculus.

    The Governance Participatory has gained increasing notoriety in political science literature during the last quarter of the 20th  century.  The city of Porto Alegre, one of Brazil's largest cities, with a population of one and a half million, has been operating since 1989 with the so-called Municipal Participatory Budget, which allows for "direct social participation and a pyramid of social representation that co-governs with the municipal government, deciding public policies and allocating the municipal budget under a concept of distributive justice."  This form of participation is limited almost exclusively to determining the allocation of a portion of the municipal budget, between 15% and 25%. However, citizens do not participate in shaping the legal framework.

In Spain, an example of civil society integration is the Urban Planning Entity for the Conservation and Maintenance of the Cobo Calleja Industrial Estate in the Municipality of Fuenlabrada. This urban planning entity has signed an agreement with the municipal government to be responsible for: a) Increasing security in the industrial area by contracting private security services; b) Urban solid waste collection services; c) Street cleaning services; d) Maintenance and upkeep of the lighting network; e) Maintenance and upkeep of green areas; f) Rat extermination and disinfection of public streets.  

    It is the business community that, according to its criteria, establishes the services and assumes their costs, without the need for a municipal bureaucrat to intervene, planning and slowing down decision-making. This way, the City Council saves money, avoids liability, and businesses can flexibly adjust their services to their needs and financial capabilities. The result is that one of the largest industrial estates in Spain is one of the cleanest and safest in Europe. Therefore, it is the private regulator that determines and has the power to implement the community's operating rules, assuming its costs.

        These two embryonic examples of social calculus demonstrate the different ways in which citizens can participate in public management.  
    Sometimes civil society is forced to organize itself spontaneously to cover up the failings of public administration. I will give three examples:

1. In September 2025, the residents of a Parla (Madrid) neighborhood decided to pick up the trash from their streets: "They have abandoned us for 21 years." Fed up with the filth, the residents decided to go out and clean their street themselves.
   
2. In July 2025, residents of a Málaga neighborhood were also forced to clean their sidewalks.
3. In 2017, residents of the Madrid neighborhood of Alameda de Osuna organized a second time to clean the streets in an "awareness campaign aimed at children," with the support of volunteers from Madrid City Council and the Municipal Police. 

The question is obligatory: could these models and initiatives of civic integration be applied to certain aspects of municipal management on an experimental basis? Could NY City Council allow a neighborhood association to take over street cleaning management in a particular neighborhood?

    It seems reasonable for a modern and dynamic city council, like NY City Council, to ask this question, given that no two streets in the same neighborhood are alike. There are streets that, due to pedestrian traffic, due to their commercial activity, the type of trees, etc., they require two or three cleanings a day. On the other hand, "back streets" require just one cleaning a day. Who determines the number, size, location, and frequency of emptying of municipal waste bins? Why are hundreds of doormen forced to clean the front of their buildings every day? Why do many businesses clean the front of their establishments? Why do residents sometimes misuse the communal containers for glass and cardboard?

    It seems difficult for the City Council to manage efficiently and effectively by applying a quasi-uniform approach to both services and fees for the same district.
    A modern city council should give residents willing to pay for a double cleaning service the opportunity to exercise this right. We should also allow other citizens to pay lower social taxes when the characteristics of their streets warrant it.
    
    Operation of associations.
    But how would an idea that, on paper, seems reasonable be implemented? How would these associations be formed? How many associations would there be? What regulatory and executive capacity could they develop? Who would bear the costs of the services? How would potential conflicts between the different associations be resolved? What are the pros and cons of the experiment?

    The residents of the hypothetical experimental district could join together to form an urban cleaning regulatory body. A minimum of 25 members was required. A minimum number of members should be required because we must encourage debate within the regulatory body itself and avoid oligarchic control.

    Upon the establishment of the Regulator, the partners will statutorily determine the territory of guardianship, the operating rules, and the decision-making system.
    The partners of a Regulator must remain associated with the entity for two years, to avoid a constant against defection among the regulators of the territory that could distort the formation of the popular will.

    It is possible that two regulators may overlap over the same territory or street. To determine which regulatory criterion will prevail over the different regulatory proposals, the concurrent majority (or most of the majorities) will determine the winning standard or criterion.

    Social calculus and conflicts of interest.
    How does the concurrent majority work? Let's consider a simple example with just two regulators, although there could be multiple overlaps. Imagine there is one regulator solely responsible for cleaning Wall Street.  This street is located in the Lower Manhattan district.  Similarly, let's assume there is another regulator responsible for the whole of the Lower Manhattan district.

    Suppose the Wall Street regulator determines that street cleaning should be carried out three times a day, including Saturdays and Sundays, with an 85% quorum of its assembly. However, the Lower Manhattan regulator agrees that it should only be done twice a day: once on Saturdays and once on Sundays. This decision was made with the support of 80% of the Lower Manhattan assembly.    

    As the level of consensus in the Wall Street Regulator is higher than in the Lower Manhattan Regulator, residents of Wall Street will have three cleaning services per day, and the rest of the Lower Manhattan District will have one. In other words, the rules of the Lower Manhattan Regulator will apply to the rest of the Lower Manhattan District.
    In case of a tie in decision making the opinion of the Regulator with the highest absolute number of voters shall prevail.

    There will be a Registry of Regulatory Proposals that will coordinate the changes proposed by the different associations. The objective of this entity is, among other things, to inform the other concurrent associations of the new regulatory proposals to be voted on, in their various assemblies, on the same day.

    The Lower Manhattan District Municipal Board may also make decisions within the scope of institutional competition. For example, it will use social calculus to obtain a majority vote and impose minimum urban planning criteria if it deems that regulators are not providing an adequate service to citizens.

    The determined winning concurrent standard, it will be valid for a minimum of 6 months, unless all units involved unanimously agree otherwise or accept the duration of the regulatory proposal.

    The social calculus Minimizes the Iron Law of Oligarchy, avoiding abuses by maximizing minorities. The Iron Law of Oligarchy states that in both autocracy and democracy, a maximizing minority will always govern. According to Robert Michels, every organization eventually becomes oligarchic.  With the proposed new organizational system, the Iron Law of Oligarchy will continue to be fulfilled in the normative units, but this law will be irrelevant given that social calculus outweighs the institutionalized oligarchs. Their opinions will be trivial if they fail to achieve a majority vote, if they fail to secure the support of the largest number of members of a Regulator. The oligarchs will have to transform themselves into true natural leaders.

    At the same time, social calculus limits corruption in public administration, given that, without a single decision-making unit, a service provider would have to position itself appropriately with all regulators to ensure an adequate economic return, thereby greatly reducing the effectiveness of bribery.

    By allowing the creation of multiple regulators that may even overlap, we will avoid, for example, The Urban Conservation and Maintenance Entity of the Cobo Calleja Industrial Estate could fall into the hands of a corrupt or incompetent manager who does not dynamically update regulations according to business needs. Suppose a group of jewelers who happen to be located in a corner of the industrial estate wanted special security, and their demands were not met by hidden interests. Using the tool of Institutional Competition, they could create their own regulator and compete regulatory with the territorially superior entity.

    The services provided by each Regulator will be paid for by all residents who benefit from them. The costs of the Regulator will be paid exclusively by the partners.
    
    Advantages and Risks of this decision.
Among the positive aspects we can mention the following:[/url]

-    A substantial improvement in community services is expected, as they will be adequately tailored to social needs. It seems reasonable to expect that the streets will be cleaner, residents will be happier, and they will identify with the management of their surroundings.

-    By bringing public management closer to civil society, pedestrians in these districts will be more careful when using a public resource or throwing paper, cigarette butts, gum, etc. outside of a trash can or ashtray. But residents will also be wary of leaving prohibited objects on public streets. This is extremely common in all cities because the citizen is controlled by an ethereal being, distant from the neighborhood. If the impersonal being is replaced by people who live close to the incident, the offender will be more careful, and the feeling of guilt will increase exponentially. Therefore, it is also foreseeable that the civic level will increase.

-    The savings on garbage fees could be allocated to contracting these services, making them more cost-effective. The cleaning service could be performed by the building's own janitors, as they have some "downtime." In fact, this is already done every morning by many janitors, who clean the front of their buildings. Furthermore, certain buildings that lack a janitor service might be encouraged to hire a janitor or share one janitor among several nearby buildings, as it would make more sense to do so. The social network of neighbors, janitors, and passersby would become more cohesive.

-    By delegating management, NY City Council would have a more comfortable political position if everything works properly. Public administrations are often pressured by strikes by workers at the contracted cleaning company. By fragmenting this service across multiple companies, in addition to fostering business competition to improve services, the City Council will avoid these types of critical situations, which are sometimes difficult to resolve and unnecessarily protracted .

    The only potential risk in this social experiment would be that the Regulator holding the majority of the vote fails to honor its commitments.  In that case, the NY Municipal Board would consider the majority vote invalid, revoke the Regulator's license, and sanction those responsible. It would then proceed with the appointment of the Regulator who received the second-highest number of votes. Alternatively, if there were no second Regulator, the Municipal Board would assume responsibility for providing the service according to the criteria established by its assembly. 

    In short, social calculus is about adapting standards to social needs as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The concurrent majority is a new legal concept that will revolutionize all social sciences, allowing the State and the market to function better.

    As I indicate in my books, creative destruction (Schumpeter) must be accompanied by normative destruction (Pedro Gómez), otherwise justice becomes unjust and we judicialise externalities.

NY City Council would be the first municipal corporation in the world to operate in a more logical and dynamic manner, based on social calculus.

It's ridiculous that all we citizens do to build the legal system is vote once every four years. For the State and the market to function better, civil society must actively participate in the design of the complex regulatory framework. Relying exclusively on the state bureaucratic apparatus is inadequate for addressing humanity's greatest challenge: AI-powered robotics.

Pedro Gómez.
Lawyer & Professor
Department of Economics and Social Sciences.
Technical University of Valencia.


Books:
-    The Interest Pattern.
Second edition ISBN 978-84-09-70448-4 in Spanish         k3s.editor@gmail.com
Second edition 978-84-09-70447-7 in English             k3s.editor@gmail.com
-    Regulatory Institutional Competition
Second edition ISBN 978-84-09-70452-1 in Spanish         k3s.editor@gmail.com     
-    The America Plan.(ISBN: 9788409557349 in Spanish)            k3s.editor@gmail.com
-    The Right of Secession(ISBN: 9788411370905 in Spanish)
-    The Wealth of Nations in the 21st Century (ISBN: 9788413385983 in Spanish) (ISBN: 9788413385976 in English)