NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/talk/environm/2898

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-22 | 3.0 KB

Xref: sparky talk.environment:2898 sci.environment:9775 alt.politics.marrou:123
Newsgroups: talk.environment,sci.environment,alt.politics.marrou
Path: sparky!uunet!usc!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!vexcel!dean
From: [e-mail] (dean alaska)
Subject: Re: Libertarians & the environment
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 18:53:39 GMT
Lines: 46

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Nick Szabo) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (V Headshape) writes:
>>I am Libertarian on most issues, but their stance on the environment
>>does little for me.
>
>Unfortuneately, the environmental movement has allowed itself to become
>dominated by socialists like Al Gore, who thinks that government
>intervention is _a priori_ the answer to new problems.  It is much
>easier to say "ban it!", or dump the problem on distant bureacrats,
>than to think up good solutions to problems.  Libertarians observe
>that people who own things have the incentive to think of and
>implement such solutions.
>
>--
>[e-mail]  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
>Public Access UNIX and Internet at [phone] (1200/2400, N81)

There are two problems here.  The first is that an examination of
maximum yield for an investment will often show that it will be more
profitable to use up an environmental resource for its cash value now
and then move your capital to some other resource and do the same there.
Though preservation of environmental resources may preserve the capital,
it is analogous to putting your money in a guaranteed passbook savings,
rather than investing it in a growth-type investment.

Secondly, many of the costs for using environmental resources are externalized
so that others pay for your profit.  It is a common tactic to
maximize ones profit by minimizing ones expense, which can be done by
maximizing someone elses expense.  The delayed nature of the expense
of environmental degradation means that private property owners can
pollute now, profit now, and the rest of us pay later.  Some obvious
egregious examples like toxic wastes are illegal, but these costs are
difficult to determine, and are often discovered after the fact.

All of this shouldn't be taken to mean that I am a supporter of the
government ban form of environmental protection.  It is shown to be
ineffective.  At best it lessens some damage with a very low efficiency.

I cannot point to some miracle solution to this problem, but the private
ownership solution touted by Libertarians is simplistic.  I do support
the Libertarian concept of litigation for environmental damage AS LONG
AS it includes criminal prosecution and the use of governmental action
to prevent obvious damage, as the police would prevent a mugging.
--

        dingo in boulder    ([e-mail])