A Question I got via PM

[Borodog]

I got this question via PM:

[ QUOTE ]

How would an anarchist society deal with environmental concerns? Take pollution leading to global warming/other problems. What force in the market would hold companies responsible for not creating harm to the environment. I think pollution has a cost to it, but it's not one that the offending company has to bear. It's likely that the current generation wouldn't even be affected by it.


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This was my response:

While I don't have time to write a treatise, it comes down to the same thing that all worsening problems come down to: it's the government's fault. It used to be that you could sue over air pollution, and because property rights were respected, the courts would find in the favor of people who's property had been damaged from pollution. This was the norm through the first half of the 19th century, and the effect was that the costs of pollution were internalized. Simple market competition then acted to minimize pollution, just as it acts to minimize all costs. Fast forward to the latter half of the 19th century when activist judges, influenced by progressive pro-industrial nationalism, began finding that pollution was not actionable, as industry was "in the common good". Hence pollution costs were no longer internalized, and were in fact explicitly externalized (if not outright subsidized, as happened largely during wars, as government printed money to gain access to factory capacity to build tanks and destroyers and such, and cared not a whit for pollution), so of course pollution increased greatly.

Fast forward again to post WWII, when government protected externalization of pollution and pollution subsidy had really made quite a mess. As productive capacity was re-directed to the private sector, the environmental outcry from consumers began to be felt, and companies began responding by cleaning up their acts (purely in response to consumer preferences in the market mind you; it was still illegal to sue over air pollution). Well, this same outcry inspired government Johnny-come-latelies to began passing environmental regulations. Mind you, they didn't simply make it legal to sue over pollution; rather they claimed that the market had "failed" and instituted a bizarre system of pollution quotas, wherein some level of pollution, i.e. violation of someone else's property, is "ok", and does not have to be paid for, but above that level fines must be paid (which do not go to the damaged parties; oh no, they get spent on government programs).

Another effect is government refusal to allow private property rights to form or to recognize them in government monopoly courts, resulting in tragedies of the commons. In America, rivers and waterways cannot be privately owned; hence they became very polluted. Contrast this with the UK, where fishing rights to waterways could be privately owned, making pollution of them actionable, leading to UK waterways being very clean; with the notable exception of those waterways where the rights were NOT privately owned, for example the Thames.

Add to this that the largest polluter in the US is, by far, the Federal government itself. It exempts itself from all of the regulations it foists on everyone else, of course.

Then there is the public road system, especially the system of freeways around urban centers. By building roads that are supposedly "free", people are of course incentivized to drive (duh). The problem is that the gas tax on gasoline, while being far too high in most places, is actually much too *low* to internalize costs around major urban centers. So what you get is capitalist provided cars on "free" socialist provided roads, with the result that people sit in traffic jams wasting gasoline and churning out smog in the cities.

There are many other arguments and mountains of evidence, but this should at least get you thinking about the fact that the entire purpose of competition is to minimize costs, that this is the purpose of property rights, and that when the market is allowed to operate correctly, costs are internalized via property rights and then minimized by competition.

Here's an entertaining lecture by Walter Block on the topic:

http://www.mises.org/multimedia/block/Block-CKVU.wmv

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I realize that I did not specifically address global warming, but that takes basically a different argument, since people aren't going to be suing over increased C02 content in the air. I do have an answer for this, but I don't have time to write it up right now, so it will have to be a separate OP.

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's an entertaining lecture by Walter Block on the topic:

http://www.mises.org/multimedia/block/Block-CKVU.wmv

[/ QUOTE ]


See also:

Stefan Molyneux - Environmental Protection Without the State [Live Speech]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j27XJ0vjr0Y
69m10s

[Thug Bubbles]

When you have time, I would love to hear what you have to say about AC response to Global Warming. BTW, I appreciate your lengthy posts in here. Very informative.

[zasterguava]

Or read any books by Murray Bookchin on eco-anarchism. Certainly provides a more viable and realistic anarchist society in harmony with nature then the catastrophic teachings of anarcho-capitalism.

[iron81]

Borodog's summary of the history differs from my understanding. I'm not familiar with any judicial decisions restricting the right to sue for pollution, but I do know that it is possible to sue under common law nuisance and trespass "causes of action" for pollution to this day. I'm unsure how recent this is, but the common law dates back hundreds of years to colonial times. It is most definately possible to sue over the types of "pollution" problems someone in the 18th century would encounter: someone spilled their crap on my yard, someone makes too much noise, etc. It seems to me that lawsuits have been a potential remedy all through the 19th and 20th centuries. Indeed, government has made it much easier to sue for polluting by passing statutes designed to encourage those types of lawsuits.

Second, it is false to say that the government exempts itself from environmental regulations. I would say that the government is much more conscious of the environment than private industry. It lets huge tracts of the West lie fallow to protect the environment. It buys hybrid and natural gas cars at a much higher rate than the private sector and spends billions on. When I was working for the feds, we spent most of our time complying with state regulations that under the supremacy clause we didn't even have to comply with. The reason why the feds are the biggest polluter is not because they don't care, they are simply the biggest organization in the country.

Third, everything that Borodog likes to claim about how ownership of resources solves the problem can be applied to government as owner. Essentially, the government owns resources like the atmosphere, rivers, etc. And unlike a private landowner, the government's actual goal is protection of the resource.

Finally, determining who is responsible for pollution and therefore prosecuting a lawsuit is very difficult. See this post for more on that.

[tolbiny]

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Second, it is false to say that the government exempts itself from environmental regulations. I would say that the government is much more conscious of the environment than private industry.

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Go to the gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah Kentucky, then the Lowry landfill outside of Denver, the to Ft Lewis in Wa. These three sites are each larger than any private ground water cleanup I have ever heard about by orders of magnitude in the amount of waste in the ground and volume that needs to be treated.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
Third, everything that Borodog likes to claim about how ownership of resources solves the problem can be applied to government as owner. Essentially, the government owns resources like the atmosphere, rivers, etc. And unlike a private landowner, the government's actual goal is protection of the resource.

[/ QUOTE ]
The government may act as an owner by denying others the ability to own the resources, but that doesn't mean those running the government have the same types of incentives as an owner does and the fact that this isn't clear to you is a bit scary. Elected officials can be out of office after only one term so the incentive can be to plunder what you can while you can. Private owners have the incentive to preserve their resources either for their own consumption or to sell to someone down the line. Government officials do not bear the direct consequences of their actions upon the resources they "own" as private owners do. There's no internalization of the costs of government action. How can this not be clear after 30 seconds of thinking about it?

[tomdemaine]

election cycles leave about an 18 month window to do any governing. Government is short termist by design. A week is a ong time in politics and to solve the problem of global warming you need to think in terms of hundreds of thousands of years. It's 100% incompatible.

[iron81]

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How can this not be clear after 30 seconds of thinking about it?

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Because while there is value in preserving a resource, there is often much greater value in exploiting it. When a forest is controlled by a private landowner, he may see the forest as nothing but valuable lumber. If he sells the lumber, he will become wealthy. If a regulator sells the lumber, he doesn't even get a bonus (barring corruption).

The private landowner may choose to preserve the forest for future sale and hope the asset appreciates, but the value of that forest is likely tied up in the lumber available, so the next owner will also have strong incentive to exploit it.

As far as global warming goes, I'm usually able to predict what the anarchist arguments will be, particularly on a topic I'm interested in like the environment and I have no idea where Borodog is going with that.

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How can this not be clear after 30 seconds of thinking about it?

[/ QUOTE ]
Because while there is value in preserving a resource, there is often much greater value in exploiting it. When a forest is controlled by a private landowner, he may see the forest as nothing but valuable lumber. If he sells the lumber, he will become wealthy. If a regulator sells the lumber, he doesn't even get a bonus (barring corruption).

[/ QUOTE ]


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