It's the difference between a monopoly by law rather than by economics.
If the local power utility is a private monopolist, there is still a limit to how abusive they can be before people will e.g. install solar panels, or buy a generator.
There is no limit to how abusive the local licensing bureaucracy can be because no matter what they do to you, no one can set up a competing licensing system that you can use instead. There is no equivalent to generating your own power.
And voting doesn't work when the affected people are a minority of the voters. The government could imprison everyone in the state of Nebraska and no one in Nebraska could do anything about it if the people in California don't care enough to vote in somebody else. They are in fact already incarcerating more than that many people without anybody stopping them.
It also doesn't work when the voters are misinformed. For example, the people of New York (and several other blue states) consistently pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal programs, yet their representatives continue to support high federal tax rates. Even if you support those programs, those constituents would be significantly better off if they were state rather than federal programs, and don't seem to notice this.
Of course everyone notices this. The willingness to pay taxes to benefit people beside yourself is the basic divide between left and right, so it’s not a coincidence that a more lefty state like NY elects representatives who support it.
Local taxes pay for roads and schools. Federal taxes pay for the F-35 and corn subsidies. The "people beside yourself" who "benefit" are the likes of Lockheed Martin and Monsanto.
If the local power utility is a private monopolist, there is still a limit to how abusive they can be before people will e.g. install solar panels, or buy a generator.
There is no limit to how abusive the local licensing bureaucracy can be because no matter what they do to you, no one can set up a competing licensing system that you can use instead. There is no equivalent to generating your own power.
And voting doesn't work when the affected people are a minority of the voters. The government could imprison everyone in the state of Nebraska and no one in Nebraska could do anything about it if the people in California don't care enough to vote in somebody else. They are in fact already incarcerating more than that many people without anybody stopping them.
It also doesn't work when the voters are misinformed. For example, the people of New York (and several other blue states) consistently pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal programs, yet their representatives continue to support high federal tax rates. Even if you support those programs, those constituents would be significantly better off if they were state rather than federal programs, and don't seem to notice this.