The case for recycling

[JayTee]

moorobot,

There is no precedent in law to address your questions, precisely because water privatization has never been considered. Not being able to currently answer every question about water privatization isn't a reason to disregard it.

an excerpt for those that don't read the article:

[ QUOTE ]
On land, man went through the hunting and gathering stage, during which his standard of
living was appropriate to the stone age. When he graduated from this precarious existence to one
of farming, his standard of living exploded in an upward direction, as did sustainable population
size. After that came manufacturing, and then the information age, with similar upward spurts in
how well man could live, and how many of this species could be supported.

As far as the seas are concerned, however, we are still back in a cave man type of
development, where hunting and gathering are in the main the only avenues open to us. It was
not until the institution of private property took hold on the land that farming, herding and later
developments could be supported. It is a well known fact, at least within the free market
environmental community38, that the cow prospered, due to private property rights which could
avert the tragedy of the commons, while the bison almost perished as a species due to lack of
same. Nowadays, happily, this problem has been remedied with regard to the buffalo.39 But the
whale, the porpoise, edible fish and other sea species are dealt with, at present, in precisely the
same manner which almost accounted for the disappearance of the bison.

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[moorobot]

I don't see how this reply is relevant to my reply. My comment did not claim there was "no precedent" for this in law, but that it simply isn't feasible for people to own the oceans, nor is his proposed "labor mixing" idea feasible as the basis of private property appropriation, at least in many important cases. Right now you are claiming that water privatization is a good idea, as is the person whose essay you quoted, and if you want to persuade anybody who is opposed to it because it isn't feasible, you simply are going to have to explain how it is in fact feasible.

[BCPVP]

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What if I dump some liquid which has some minor improvment (or maybe not even an improvement) on a large area?

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IIRC, someone famous (Nozick?) mentions something like this and says that there is a difference between mixing one's labor and wasting ones labor. I agree with that, but it's a little fuzzy. It's difficult to make the moral argument that you own the entire ocean because there's a molecule or two of tomato juice from a can you poured out. And I don't see how one could make a non-absurd utilitarian argument for such a strategy.

[tame_deuces]

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tame_deuces,

I don't see why you can't understand pvn's point. If people care about the polluting of oceans then that means it has value. Allow people to own something with value and it is in their best interest to protect that value. If you own a home it is in your best interest to preserve it, to protect your investment, to protect its value. If no one owns it but everyone has access to use it, it is in my best interest to steal the appliances and rip out the copper pipes. Do you understand the point?

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I understand the point perfectly, it is a very simple point and I am certain my 5 year old niece would understand it perfectly also.


Unfortunately its practical value is nil in this case. The ocean isn't a case of 'if you treat your little spot fine, then it will be fine', migration of species means if someone overfishes in their properties then your spot will be hurt as well. And when someone overfishes in _their_ property, your profits can drop rapidly unless you overfish as well - can you imagine where that leads?

Secondly, overfishing and irresponsible fishing techniques (lesser masks, bottom trawling, fishing out of season) are _incredibly_ profitable over a short term, and when that short term ends and overfishing is a fact - the these same exploitative techniques will be the _only_ profitable way to fish until the resource is all but destroyed. The incredible ( and I do mean incredible, this isn't small stakes - we can be talking oil industry numbers ) bursts of short-term profit will also indirectly yield you a a lot of power.

And if anyone does this within _their_ property, then _your_ property will be destroyed as well.

The closest analogy is looking at some big piece of land containing 500 farms. If 5-10 of those farms chose the most very high short-term profit way of farming, they will destroy the long-term profitability (and survivability of hundreds of millions of people, but that's another issue) of all the other farms. But at the same time, if they do, they can get very rich and very powerful.


And it happens today. And ofcourse it isn't all capitalistic greed, I'm not stupid or fanatic - I'm a pragmatic. You have government stupidity ('people must keep their jobs' & 'abundance of food today is ok if the price is only starvation tomorrow') and capitalistic greed ('I'll be rich enough for my lifetime, damn the rest') working in beautiful tandem.

[ianlippert]

[ QUOTE ]
The ocean isn't a case of 'if you treat your little spot fine, then it will be fine', migration of species means if someone overfishes in their properties then your spot will be hurt as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

If there are profits to be made people will come up with ways to protect their profits. I'm sure there are many ways to prevent your fish from leaving your property.

[tame_deuces]

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[ QUOTE ]
The ocean isn't a case of 'if you treat your little spot fine, then it will be fine', migration of species means if someone overfishes in their properties then your spot will be hurt as well.

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If there are profits to be made people will come up with ways to protect their profits. I'm sure there are many ways to prevent your fish from leaving your property.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fish farming has its own dangers too numerous too mention them all here, I don't want to write a paper on this stuff. Fish epidemics, pollution of other natural resources, fish growth rate affecting profitability, fish farming will also increase the strain on wild fishing of many other fish species - only moving the problem along the foodchain.

Anyway, it is a digression - and I'm not particularly interested in it. Fish farming's relevance to this issue is only that it is an alternative to overfishing which is less profitable, more prone to collapse, and has environmental issues and profitability issues of its own. Nothing points to fish farming 'saving the oceans' in any foreseeable future.

[mosdef]

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If I wasn't clear in my post what I witnessed was violations that had to be stopped by force

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Violations of what?

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Violations of sound regulations (though more are certainly needed) to ensure that a naturally renewing resource isn't destroyed.

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I don't see this getting very far - if they're already ignoring "regulations", adding more regulations isn't going to accomplish much. I guess you could make pollution a capital crime or something, but I have serious doubts about:

a) whether your new prohibition rules are going to succeed where the existing ones fail; and

b) whether of not the cost of trying to enforce new rules is going to be worth it.

Experience tells me that heavy handed prohibition rules that are followed up with heavier handed prohibition rules and policing add increasing marginal costs at decreasing marginal effectiveness.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately its practical value is nil in this case. The ocean isn't a case of 'if you treat your little spot fine, then it will be fine', migration of species means if someone overfishes in their properties then your spot will be hurt as well. And when someone overfishes in _their_ property, your profits can drop rapidly unless you overfish as well - can you imagine where that leads?

[/ QUOTE ]

Who owns the fish? If they are unowned, how can you object when someone else takes them? How can you object when you don't get to grab any yourself?

If they ARE owned, then the owner has an actionable damages claim.

Do you find it odd that cows, pigs, and chickens are not extinct?

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And if anyone does this within _their_ property, then _your_ property will be destroyed as well.

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So the fish ARE owned? In which case, why do you think there won't be liability for damages?

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The closest analogy is looking at some big piece of land containing 500 farms. If 5-10 of those farms chose the most very high short-term profit way of farming, they will destroy the long-term profitability (and survivability of hundreds of millions of people, but that's another issue) of all the other farms. But at the same time, if they do, they can get very rich and very powerful.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is the concept of damages difficult for you to grasp?

[tame_deuces]

You are suggesting ownership of the fish? Only way to do that is with quotas, which afaik, is the way it is done today.

[Money2Burn]

[ QUOTE ]
The closest analogy is looking at some big piece of land containing 500 farms. If 5-10 of those farms chose the most very high short-term profit way of farming, they will destroy the long-term profitability (and survivability of hundreds of millions of people, but that's another issue) of all the other farms. But at the same time, if they do, they can get very rich and very powerful.


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I don't think this is a realistic analogy. I'm not sure what type of farming practices you are talking about here, but if there was a way for a farmer to get 'rich and powerful' from changing some of his farming practices, most farmers wouldn't hesitate to do this.