Walking from Southfields Tube station to watch Carlos Alcaraz and his liquid forehand last month, I passed banner after irate banner objecting to the proposed expansion of the Wimbledon site. The High Court later issued a ruling that allowed the development to go ahead. (“You cannot be serious”, read the best of the signs outside). Still, this tussle with local residents has cost the All England Club years and unknown fortunes.
Those who stand to benefit from killing the expansion can identify themselves and each other, right down to the household. No wonder they are so well organised. The potential losers — those who might be able to watch live tennis for the first time at a bigger Wimbledon, or give the sport a go themselves, or get a job from the extra business generated — are an unconscious blob of people spread around London and further afield. No wonder they are so unorganised.
In their poetic style, economists refer to this problem as one of “concentrated benefits and diffuse costs”. In a contest between a small group with lots at stake and a wider society in which everyone has a little at stake, the former tends to win, at least in a liberal democracy. (More on that later).