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- Xref: sparky talk.environment:2906 sci.environment:9808 alt.politics.marrou:128
- Newsgroups: talk.environment,sci.environment,alt.politics.marrou
- Path: sparky!uunet!shearson.com!snark!pmetzger
- From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
- Subject: Re: Libertarians & the environment
- Message-ID: <1992Jul22.220950.15339@shearson.com>
- Sender: news@shearson.com (News)
- Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
- References: <1992Jul21.035335.25089@reed.edu> <1992Jul21.213229.4946@techbook.com> <1992Jul22.011657.3102@reed.edu>
- Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:09:50 GMT
- Lines: 39
-
- In article <1992Jul22.011657.3102@reed.edu> sharvy@reed.edu (V Headshape) writes:
- >In article <1992Jul21.213229.4946@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:
- >>... 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.
- >
- >People who own things have incentive to think up solutions when the "problem"
- >is a threat to their ownership. The only reason property owners might
- >try to think up environmental solutions is that if they don't, they
- >may lose their "property rights," and THAT incentive is provided by the
- >threat of government intervention.
-
- Proof by counterexample:
-
- There is a fire in your home. The government will not prosecute you if
- you let it burn the house down. Do you
-
- a) Leave your house to burn down because "the problem isn't a threat
- to your ownership"?
-
- b) Stop it before you lose lots of the value of your property.
-
- Most homeowners aren't going to let their next door neighbor pollute
- their well, because they don't like the idea of drinking poisoned well
- water and being unable to sell their house because no one will want a
- home with poisoned well water.
-
- This is the point of the libertarian position: if property rights are
- enforced, lots of people suddenly have a direct ability to keep their
- own land and water clean, without depending on the good graces of
- bureaucrats.
-
- --
- Perry Metzger pmetzger@shearson.com
- --
- Just say "NO!" to death and taxes.
- Extropian and Proud.
-