NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/talk/environm/2942

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-23 | 3.1 KB

Xref: sparky talk.environment:2942 alt.politics.marrou:154 misc.invest.real-estate:286
Path: sparky!uunet!sun-barr!ames!network.ucsd.edu!ogicse!qiclab!nosun!techbook!szabo
From: [e-mail] (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: talk.environment,alt.politics.marrou,misc.invest.real-estate
Subject: Re: Libertarians & the environment
Summary: Genetic rights, based on concept of mineral rights
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:35:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Jul22.193524.5598
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- [phone]
Lines: 42

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Timothy Freeman) writes:

>3. The forest is useful because we may have a use for its genetic
>   information someday.  In that case a speculator would find it
>   worthwhile to buy it and save it, in hopes that it would increase in
>   value when technology advances to the point where it becomes useful.
>   Unfortunately this doesn't work because the speculator gets stuck
>   in the inflation/tax squeeze:  Even if the real value of the land
>   doesn't change, he has to pay property taxes and capital gains taxes
>   on the illusory increase in value caused by inflation.
>   Libertarians call for tax abolition and currency reform, so the
>   speculator would have a chance if we had a libertarian government...

Another libertarian idea, which addresses this problem and the problem of
original ownership, is to create a concept of "genetic rights" based
on the concept of the mineral rights.  Many pieces of rural land were
originally owned by extraction companies, and when they sold the land
it was with the caveat that they retained right to any minerals
discovered in the future on that land, including the right to reclaim
the land for extraction activities.  These mineral rights are mantained
indefinitely whoever owns the land, unless the mineral company itself
comes back and sells it.

Genetic rights would work similarly: when the Feds, a private biotech
company, Nature Conservancy, etc. sell these lands, the contract can
include genetics rights clauses, which give the original owner a right to
preserve ecosystems if an endangered species is threatened (as specifically
defined in the contract). This would in effect be a private-enterprise
version of the Endangered Species Act.  This will decrease the monetary
value of the lands, but we now have a good method of accounting for the
cost of maintaining these species, and specific definitions of genetic
rights that the purchaser will know about when buying the land, instead
of having post-hoc devaluations of his property handed down from bureaucrats
in D.C.  Best of all for environmentalists, it gives them direct control
over endangered species instead of having to go through expensive,
wasteful contortions trying to lobby an Administration and bureacracy
that may or may not agree with their goals.


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