Burning Man’s libertarian dream gets reality check

NEW YORK, Sept 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - “Exodus Operations have officially begun” is the self-important way organizers described allowing over 60,000 mud-bound attendees to leave Burning Man on Monday. The anarcho-arts festival’s rain-soaked disaster highlights the tension between its founding libertarian ethos and smoothly running operations of this size.

Poorly operated festivals, like Woodstock, have degenerated into muddy chaos in the past. Burning Man is the latest, after freak rainstorms turned its usually arid desert venue into a mud-pit on Saturday, necessitating a shelter-in-place order.

Among the festival’s guiding principles is “Radical Self-Reliance,” a utopian dream that resonated first among punks, but has since taken root among free-market supporting billionaires like Elon Musk and Ray Dalio or anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. Underfunded decentralization, though, isn’t the best way to maintain roads or provide emergency aid in disasters like these. Such services are typically provided by the state because they are public goods: that is, benefits accrue to all, rather than promising fat financial returns for a few, making them a poor fit for the private sector.

As the climate warms, intense rain storms are becoming stronger and more common. That means muddier future festivals. Self-reliance is an appealing idea, but its chief showcase might be reaching its limits. (By Robert Cyran)

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are their own.)

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