I made a joke on Facebook about government stealing our time too now. Someone commented that the government is merely "borrowing" it. I responded that the government has no business in managing time. My friend responded:
Really? The government has no business declaring time? Isn't that one of the most useful things they do - standardizing time? Doesn't it facilitate business between different areas of the country and help life run more smoothly?(People do not manage time perfectly well on their own - well maybe farmers that only interact with people on their own farm).
I responded that there is no reason why private competing agencies cannot provide the same service of time standardization.
But I was thinking: with time, it does seem like we need one single standard. It doesn't need to be set by the organization with most guns, but it seems like it needs to be set by a monopoly, doesn't it? Otherwise, if you have three or four organization deciding when the time shift should occur, different businesses across the world may decide to follow different organizations. (Of course, it doesn't mean that once I follow an organization's standard, I cannot synchronize it with a business partner in Tokyo who follows a different standard, but without knowing in advance who follows which standard, things may get messy.)
As I understand, the argument in favor of time reckoning shifts is that beginning of the work day should be adjusted to the beginning of the light day because of most people's circadian rhythms. Of course, businesses could decide privately when the business day starts...
Well to your original example of time, it was the railroads that first developed time zones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time
Anyway, I suppose my question was (besides what people think about this issue in general): are there examples of private businesses (perhaps some sort of standardizing agencies) managing a service that seems to be in need of a monopoly?
Also, there would obviously be an incentive to have uniform time. Businesses would just switch to a uniform time to make things easier. It makes no sense to choose a really weird time for your business. I guess the question is then "who sets the time?" I'm sure the market will find an answer.
Coordinating conventions - what side of the road do you drive on? what standard of time do you follow? - are largely self-enforcing, as the only benefit to the convention is that everyone else is adhering to the convention as well. Why wouldn't people agree to a certain standard, so long as it functions marginally well? Why wouldn't a standard (or a company managing a standard) that is "messy" lose out to more logical standards? Hasn't this already happened? Your list of potential problems represent transaction costs that people would want to avoid when choosing to adopt a standard.
And see, for instance, the private, non-profit group American National Standards Institute, which sets standards for things like film, batteries, paper sizes, etc. No one forced Canon or Fuji to make their cameras accept 35mm film and AA batteries, yet they do anyway.
Crap, we need to make sure people do the only logical thing. Quick, form a monopoly on coercion!
Thanks! Great examples. I guess also the private companies that check for equipment or food safety (or religious status, like kashrut) also set independent standards.