Thank God for state intervention protecting and regulating our land

[zasterguava]

The alternative to private ownership is that the land is democratically owned and thus its owners are obligated to treat it with public interests in mind. State ownership is the lesser of the two evils assuming these are the only 2 alternatives (there are more).

[Borodog]

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The alternative to private ownership is that the land is democratically owned and thus its owners are obligated to treat it with public interests in mind.

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Obligated how? By what mechanisms do you propose that those in the state be compelled to do this, since they have control of all the resources?

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State ownership is the lesser of the two evils assuming these are the only 2 alternatives (there are more).

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Please show this. I provided a simple explanation for how state ownership and private ownership is largely indistinguishable, with the exception that state owners have no incentive beyond the political to preserve the capital value of the resource. Please show how this is mistaken.

[adanthar]

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I provided a simple explanation for how state ownership and private ownership is largely indistinguishable, with the exception that state owners have no incentive beyond the political to preserve the capital value of the resource.

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Even if you take the first part of your premise as a given, political incentive seems like a much stronger rationale to - for example - preserve Yellowstone National Park than any given private individual's motivation to do the same.

The fact that there's even still a debate about drilling in the ANWR seems to suggest that that incentive is incredibly strong. (In that particular example, it might even be too strong. Your point, however, has consistently been that it practically doesn't exist, not that it's overwhelming.)

[Borodog]

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I provided a simple explanation for how state ownership and private ownership is largely indistinguishable, with the exception that state owners have no incentive beyond the political to preserve the capital value of the resource.

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Even if you take the first part of your premise as a given, political incentive seems like a much stronger rationale to - for example - preserve Yellowstone National Park than any given private individual's motivation to do the same.

The fact that there's even still a debate about drilling in the ANWR seems to suggest that that incentive is incredibly strong. (In that particular example, it might even be too strong. Your point, however, has consistently been that it practically doesn't exist, not that it's overwhelming.)

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Just wait for the price of oil to hit $80 or $100 per barrel and get back to me on what happens to ANWR.

[Phil153]

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In the absence of private ownership then, to avoid this tragedy of the commons, a political elite must seize control of the resource and forceably exclude the majority of people from using it as they wish.

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You use forceful language to make your point, but it doesn't really represent the situation. Firstly, there is no political elite. Any person can run for a position in the lawmaking or executive body of the government. Any person. All he needs is to get the VOLUNTARY agreement of enough people in the area where he lives. If you claim that this system is distorted, then you have to accept that any system which is based on similar first principles of voluntary actions can suffer distortions as well.

Anyway, do you really believe ONE PERSON should own something as valuable as Yellowstone National Park? If the price of timber goes up (or minerals, or oil), and that one person decides that he wants to cut down every tree in the park to make a fortune (so he can get wealthy fast, and buy other land that he wants more), there is nothing to stand in his way. That things so important rest on the assumption of long term rationality of a single individual is utterly retarded to me. Yet this is what your total private ownership scenario entails. I am well aware that it could be managed by private trusts, but there is zero guarantee of that - and you run into the same problem (see below).

To come back to your " a political elite must seize control of the resource and forceably exclude the majority of people from using it as they wish." point, if Yellowstone (or any other area) was legitimately bought by a group of people or person who entrusted it voluntarily to the government, would government control of that area (to the forcible exclusion of all others) be valid?

This is the thing that your rhetoric masks - any private ownership of land is "forcible exclusion of the majority of people". Government ownership just attempts to do it in the public interest. I can visit the wonder of Yellowstone any time I like without being subject to arbitrary whims and fees of an individual (who can keep me out of that area at the point gun at his whim, like the jack booted thug that he is).

[Borodog]

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In the absence of private ownership then, to avoid this tragedy of the commons, a political elite must seize control of the resource and forceably exclude the majority of people from using it as they wish.

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You use forceful language to make your point, but it doesn't really represent the situation. Firstly, there is no political elite. Any person can run for a position in the lawmaking or executive body of the government. Any person.

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Just because anyone may be a member of the political elite does not mean there is no political elite. All representative government accomplishes is to replace personal priveleges with functional priveleges. In either case, human beings are still the holders and benificiaries of those privileges.

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All he needs is to get the VOLUNTARY agreement of enough people in the area where he lives. If you claim that this system is distorted, then you have to accept that any system which is based on similar first principles of voluntary actions can suffer distortions as well.

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Your capitalization of the word "voluntary" does not change the fact that what the parties involved are voluntarily agreeing to do is get together and coerce someone else, which, even if I grant arguendo that this kind of contract is legitimate, is emphatically not analogous to the market, where all legitimate transaction is actually voluntary.

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Anyway, do you really believe ONE PERSON should own something as valuable as Yellowstone National Park? If the price of timber goes up (or minerals, or oil), and that one person decides that he wants to cut down every tree in the park to make a fortune (so he can get wealthy fast, and buy other land that he wants more), there is nothing to stand in his way. That things so important rest on the assumption of long term rationality of a single individual is utterly retarded to me. Yet this is what your total private ownership scenario entails. I am well aware that it could be managed by private trusts, but there is zero guarantee of that - and you run into the same problem (see below).

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Do you really believe that the highest and best use of Yellowstone could ever possibly be for its timber? There are vast millions of acres of timber farmland. Or perhaps strip mining? How about as a toxic waste dump? Where do you get this stuff? The highest and best use of Yellowstone is clearly as a park; it is in fact ideally suited for exactly this purpose. There are many, many wildlife preserves that are privately owned. Yet you just assume that they either can't exist, or that the people who own them will magically one day decide to plow them under to make parking lots or something, because apparently they can't be trusted to care as much about nature as you and the indefinite stream of infallible bureaucrats stretching off into the distant future that you so blithely put your trust in. People like nature and parks. They are willing to pay to patronize and preserve them because they value them as parks in their natural states. That's their highest and best use. Claiming that relying on the "long term rationality" of the owner, who has his own self-interest tied to the preservation of the long term capital value of the asset, is "retarded" while relying on the long term rationality of a short-term politico whose self-interest is tied to the immediate plunder of the asset but who has no interest in the capital value of the asset at all is what is actually retarded.

If the price of timber DID go up to the point where it's best use was to be clear cut, do you honestly believe that some timber company wouldn't just make a big enough campaign contribution to be granted the timber rights to clear cut the place? How naive are you? Have you read nothing about the history of the government? This *exact* thing has happened time after time. Privately owned timber land is carefully managed to preserve its value, but government timber land, with its short term leases to the maximum bidder, is clear cut and mismanaged, causing terrible harm to the public forests. Or the public lands are neglected, underbrush is allowed to accumulate, become dry and turn into tinder, turning the public lands into giant fire hazards, decimating the public lands with massive wild fires. Why don't you actually check into how your precious government actually manages the lands under its control compared to comparable private lands before you jump head first into these arguments?

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To come back to your " a political elite must seize control of the resource and forceably exclude the majority of people from using it as they wish." point, if Yellowstone (or any other area) was legitimately bought by a group of people or person who entrusted it voluntarily to the government, would government control of that area (to the forcible exclusion of all others) be valid?

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Who cares?

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This is the thing that your rhetoric masks - any private ownership of land is "forcible exclusion of the majority of people".

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Yes. Exactly correct.

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Government ownership just attempts to do it in the public interest. I can visit the wonder of Yellowstone any time I like without being subject to arbitrary whims and fees of an individual (who can keep me out of that area at the point gun at his whim, like the jack booted thug that he is).

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The entire point of the argument is that government ownership of land is exactly like the private ownership of land that you hate so much, with the sole difference that private owners are interested in preserving the capital value of the land whereas those in government do not.

You simply assume that governments will preserve lands and grant you access while assuming that private owners are morons who will destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs. I.e., you assume your entire argument.

[Phil153]

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The entire point of the argument is that government ownership of land is exactly like the private ownership of land that you hate so much, with the sole difference that private owners are interested in preserving the capital value of the land whereas those in government do not.

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It's good that you say this because this is the point at which we disagree. I and others do not think that private owners are interested in the preserving the long term capital of certain types of goods and land. I think the Amazon (and yes, guaranteed ownership does indeed exist there, very similar to an AC system, in fact) makes that a slam dunk win for me. I also think that markets fail when confronted with ecosystems that require preservation. But this requires a well referenced argument to make a case, which I don't have time for immediately.

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You simply assume that governments will preserve lands and grant you access while assuming that private owners are morons who will destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs. I.e., you assume your entire argument.

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Are you familiar with the golden goose story? This is actually a good analogy for the preservation vs plunder situation. You have a goose that lives forever, and lays a golden egg a week, worth $1000. Or, you can kill the goose and retrieve a diamond egg from its belly, worth $10,000,000. Put 1000 of these in the hands of private owners. What percentage of golden geese still exist after a year? After 10 years? After a century? I think not many.

The fact is that the immediate economic value of many types of land is very low when preserved. For example, companies clear fell large areas of land they actually own, despite huge amounts of evidence that such activities are less profitable and far worse environmentally in the long run compared to managed extraction. WHY??? The answer is because the owners of these businesses want to be wealthy, NOW. Not in 50 years time. And when land is cheap, as it is in many places, exploiting large areas of it quickly is the best way to make a fortune and hurt your competitor. Your theory of private rationality fails miserably in this regard, or at least, fails to take into account people's massive preference for quick profit over very long term gain. And in fact, the market selects for these kind of people by giving them wealth, and makes them land owners in the short term (under a century). This is the core of the reason why capitalism fails dismally at protecting land.

Further to this, the timber industry is an excellent example of governments doing a better job than private businesses at preservation. Governments generally preserve state forests for managed timber extraction and other uses (at least, they do in Australia); they rarely clear fell any area. This is in spite of the disincentives you claim politicians have.

So I think your case is weak. There are many more points to add to the one above, and I agree that more rigor is required to fully debunk it.

[TomCollins]

A golden goose that has $10,000,000 inside of it thats only paying $52,000 interest a year won't survive because its foolish to keep it alive. Just kill the damn thing and invest it in ANYTHING and make better than the .5% interest rate the goose is giving you. Even social security is a better investment than this goose.

[Borodog]

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The entire point of the argument is that government ownership of land is exactly like the private ownership of land that you hate so much, with the sole difference that private owners are interested in preserving the capital value of the land whereas those in government do not.

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It's good that you say this because this is the point at which we disagree. I and others do not think that private owners are interested in the preserving the long term capital of certain types of goods and land.

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This flies in the face of common sense and hundreds of years of long-settled economic theory. Owners have no interest in the value of their capital?

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I think the Amazon (and yes, guaranteed ownership does indeed exist there, very similar to an AC system, in fact) makes that a slam dunk win for me.

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Lol! You mean the same Amazon where the government is taking the land away from the natives and giving it to timber companies and subsidizing slash and burn agriculture and colonization? What a slam dunk!

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I also think that markets fail when confronted with ecosystems that require preservation. But this requires a well referenced argument to make a case, which I don't have time for immediately.

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You simply assume that governments will preserve lands and grant you access while assuming that private owners are morons who will destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs. I.e., you assume your entire argument.

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Are you familiar with the golden goose story? This is actually a good analogy for the preservation vs plunder situation. You have a goose that lives forever, and lays a golden egg a week, worth $1000. Or, you can kill the goose and retrieve a diamond egg from its belly, worth $10,000,000. Put 1000 of these in the hands of private owners. What percentage of golden geese still exist after a year? After 10 years? After a century? I think not many.

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Argument by mythical creatures and made up numbers.

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The fact is that the immediate economic value of many types of land is very low when preserved. For example, companies clear fell large areas of land they actually own, despite huge amounts of evidence that such activities are less profitable and far worse environmentally in the long run compared to managed extraction. WHY??? The answer is because the owners of these businesses want to be wealthy, NOW. Not in 50 years time. And when land is cheap, as it is in many places, exploiting large areas of it quickly is the best way to make a fortune and hurt your competitor. Your theory of private rationality fails miserably in this regard, or at least, fails to take into account people's massive preference for quick profit over very long term gain. And in fact, the market selects for these kind of people by giving them wealth, and makes them land owners in the short term (under a century). This is the core of the reason why capitalism fails dismally at protecting land.

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Support any of this. It is complete and total bunk.

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Further to this, the timber industry is an excellent example of governments doing a better job than private businesses at preservation. Governments generally preserve state forests for managed timber extraction and other uses (at least, they do in Australia); they rarely clear fell any area. This is in spite of the disincentives you claim politicians have.

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Again. Support any of this. The record of public vs. private land conservation is clear.

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The federal government owns approximately one third of the land in the United States, and its land policies in the West, where most of its property is located, have led to the steady deterioration of the land and its wildlife . . . The quality of management of private lands in contrast to that of public lands—whether federal, state or local—bears this out: There are few if any clear-cutting, depletion, or soil erosion problems on Boise Cascade’s properties or other private forests. There are few if any overgrazing problems on private ranches. And there is far less poaching on private lands than in public parks.
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Those close to the land—whether in a commercial sense or even in terms of a cause—are far better stewards than bureaucrats, whose management of the “commons” ensures abuse since they possess few incentives to protect the land. Since their revenues are extracted from the citizenry by the force of taxation, bureaucratic managers have no way of telling whether they administrate resources in ways beneficial to the public or not.
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Where in a market economy, disenchanted consumers are free to shop elsewhere, no such opportunity exists under the domain of a bureaucracy with monopoly powers.
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Guaranteed revenues almost regardless of how they perform, bureaucrats actually have every incentive to mismanage resources in order to justify their jobs and their agency’s ever expanded existence. Even If bureaucrats were angels with perfect ambitions to do only good, the dilemma of their ignorance in being shielded from the verdict of customers (the citizenry), prevents them from acting in ways to protect and enhance resources.
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In contrast, the quality of land management for wildlife by privatizing federal lands is well illustrated by hundreds of successful private preserves operated throughout the United States, many of which help boost the populations of threatened and endangered species.
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For example, the Audubon Society’s Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary in Vermilion Pariah, La., owns and carefully manages the land for wildlife and for oil production. In order to maximize its value, the Audubon Society carefully investigated and weighed the use of its land and discovered that there is no necessary conflict between the pursuit of both economic and environmental goals.
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The Nature Conservancy, another major environmental group, similarly accomplishes many of its goals—setting aside land for species—very effectively by buying property and keeping it out of the hands of the government . . .
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On privatized lands, ranchers, and mining lumber concerns would be forced to consider not just grazing, extraction and harvesting (now at low costs), but reforestation, remediation, and land rotation if they wanted to remain profitable in the future.
-- David J. Theroux, Independence Institute

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I could go on for dozens of pages citing government created tragedies of the commons:

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One example has been timber resources. In the American West and in Canada, most of the forests are owned, not by private owners but by the federal (or provincial) government. The government then leases their use to private timber companies. In short, private property is per*mitted only in the annual use of the resource, but not in the forest, the resource, itself. In this situation, the private timber company does not own the capital value, and therefore does not have to worry about depletion of the resource itself. The timber company has no economic incentive to conserve the resource, replant trees, etc. Its only incentive is to cut as many trees as quickly as possible, since there is no economic value to the timber company in maintaining the capital value of the forest. In Europe, where private ownership of forests is far more com*mon, there is little complaint of destruction of timber resources. For wherever private property is allowed in the forest itself, it is to the benefit of the owner to preserve and restore tree growth while he is cutting timber, so as to avoid depletion of the forest's capital value.8
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Thus, in the United States, a major culprit has been the Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which owns forests and leases annual rights to cut timber, with resulting devastation of the trees. In contrast, private forests such as those owned by large lumber firms like Georgia-Pacific and U.S. Plywood scientifically cut and reforest their trees in order to maintain their future supply.9
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Another unhappy consequence of the American government's failure to allow private property in a resource was the destruction of the West*ern grasslands in the late nineteenth century. Every viewer of "Western" movies is familiar with the mystique of the "open range and the often violent "wars" among cattlemen, sheepmen, and farmers over parcels of ranch land. The "open range" was the failure of the federal govern*ment to apply the policy of homesteading to the changed conditions of the drier climate west of the Mississippi. In the East, the 160 acres granted free to homesteading farmers on government land constituted a viable technological unit for farming in a wetter climate. But in the dry climate of the West, no successful cattle or sheep ranch could be organized on a mere 160 acres. But the federal government refused to expand the 160-acre unit to allow the "homesteading" of larger cattle ranches. Hence, the "open range," on which private cattle and sheep owners were able to roam unchecked on government-owned pasture land. But this meant that no one owned the pasture, the land itself; it was therefore to the economic advantage of every cattle or sheep owner to graze the land and use up the grass as quickly as possible, otherwise the grass would be grazed by some other sheep or cattle owner. The result of this tragically shortsighted refusal to allow private property in grazing land itself was an overgrazing of the land, the ruining of the grassland by grazing too early in the season, and the failure of anyone to restore or replant the grass?anyone who bothered to restore the grass would have had to look on helplessly while someone else grazed his cattle or sheep. Hence the overgrazing of the West, and the onset of the "dust bowl." Hence also the illegal attempts by numerous cattle*men, farmers, and sheepmen to take the law into their own hands and fence off the land into private property?and the range wars that often followed.
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Professor Samuel P. Hays, in his authoritative account of the conserva*tion movement in America, writes of the range problem:
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Much of the Western livestock industry depended for its forage upon the "open" range, owned by the federal government, but free for anyone to use?. Con*gress had never provided legislation regulating grazing or permitting stockmen to acquire range lands. Cattle and sheepmen roamed the public domain?. Cattlemen fenced range for their exclusive use, but competitors cut the wire. Resorting to force and violence, sheepherders and cowboys "solved" their dis*putes over grazing lands by slaughtering rival livestock and murdering rival stockmen?. Absence of the most elementary institutions of property law created confusion, bitterness, and destruction.
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Amid this turmoil the public range rapidly deteriorated. Originally plentiful and lush, the forage supply was subjected to intense pressure by increasing use?. The public domain became stocked with more animals than the range could support. Since each stockman feared that others would beat him to the available forage, he grazed early in the year and did not permit the young grass to mature and reseed. Under such conditions the quality and quantity of available forage rapidly decreased; vigorous perennials gave way to annuals and annuals to weeds.10

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Hays concludes that public-domain range lands may have been depleted by over two-thirds by this process, as compared to their virgin condition.
-- Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty


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How about I go into how ocean fish stocks are being "protected" into oblivion by the tragedy of the commons that results from governments refusing to allow property rights to develop in ocean fisheries? Or how African countries that tried to protect elephants as public resources saw their populations decimated but nations that simply gave the elephants to the local tribes to do with as they saw fit saw their populations steadily increase? Given that even poor, ignorant African tribesman were apparently smart enough to care about their long term capital value, doesn't that tend to belie your "all non-bureaucrats are short-sighted nimrods" theory?

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So I think your case is weak. There are many more points to add to the one above, and I agree that more rigor is required to fully debunk it.

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I don't think your moronic-private-owner/angelic-bureaucrat theory is going to be debunking anything.

[tolbiny]

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This is the thing that your rhetoric masks - any private ownership of land is "forcible exclusion of the majority of people". Government ownership just attempts to do it in the public interest. I can visit the wonder of Yellowstone any time I like without being subject to arbitrary whims and fees of an individual

[/ QUOTE ]

This is what is so amusing about you Phil, how you manage to display your ignorance so gracefully. If you knew anything about the history of Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon, or anyone of a number of national parks in the US. Did you know that there actually was a time when these areas of land were designated national parks AND people really could walk about the freely without fees or whims of individuals running them? Perhaps if you did you would know that the government spent tens of millions of dollars cleaning up the parks because they were trashed. Trails were worn down to bedrock which is both dangerous for the hiker as rocks are slippery, but further increases the rate of erosion. Animals were hunted out of the park (wolves, grizzles, elk) because the government paid no attention to their numbers. Trash and litter were spread quite liberally throughout the parks because there were no rangers, or trashcans or signs gently asking people to remove it from the park. It is hilarious that you post this crap when in actual fact that it was only when the government started limiting visitors and charging fees that these conditions improved. It is only when they stopped things like this "I can visit the wonder of Yellowstone any time I like without being subject to arbitrary whims and fees of an individual" that the very things you are so concerned with stopped occurring. But what is most amusing is the fact that there are probably dozens to hundreds of books on the history of the Grand Canyon, or Yellowstone which dedicate many words describing these very facts.