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#1
08-19-2006, 06:14 PM
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How would an AC society deal with Chilean Sea Bass?
Because of over fishing Chilean Sea Bass populations are 10% of what it was 50 years ago. Because of this there are regulations imposed by governments who have coast lines where it is fished to limit its yearly catch. If this didn't exist the Chilean Sea Bass would go extinct. So how do resources like the Sea Bass get protected in an AC society?
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#3
08-19-2006, 06:47 PM
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Re: How would an AC society deal with Chilean Sea Bass?
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Short answer: ownership. With it comes the incentive to maintain the property. [/ QUOTE ] You would have ownership of the ocean? Who would sell it or how would property rights be distributed?
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#4
08-19-2006, 06:50 PM
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Re: How would an AC society deal with Chilean Sea Bass?
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[ QUOTE ] Short answer: ownership. With it comes the incentive to maintain the property. [/ QUOTE ] You would have ownership of the ocean? Who would sell it or how would property rights be distributed? [/ QUOTE ] Sure, but I'm skeptical that every species would be protected. Most likely, I think species like that sea bass would be in danger. It depends on how much incentive the company has to protect them (say, monetary or in public opinion, etc.). It could be sold like any other government owned buildings or land, I presume.
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#5
08-19-2006, 06:53 PM
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Re: How would an AC society deal with Chilean Sea Bass?
"There is a vitally important area in which the absence of private property in the resource has been and is causing, not only depletion of resources, but also a complete failure to develop vast potential re*sources. This is the potentially enormously productive ocean resource. The oceans are in the international public domain, i.e., no person, com*pany, or even national government is allowed property rights in parts of the ocean. As a result, the oceans have remained in the same primitive state as was the land in the precivilized days before the development of agriculture. The way of production for primitive man was "hunting-and-gathering": the hunting of wild animals and the gathering of fruits, berries, nuts, and wild seeds and vegetables. Primitive man worked pas*sively within his environment instead of acting to transform it; hence he just lived off the land without attempting to remould it. As a result, the land was unproductive, and only a relatively few tribesmen could exist at a bare subsistence level. It was only with the development of agriculture, the farming of the soil, and the transformation of the land through farming that productivity and living standards could take giant leaps forward. And it was only with agriculture that civilization could begin. But to permit the development of agriculture there had to be private property rights, first in the fields and crops, and then in the land itself.
With respect to the ocean, however, we are still in the primitive, unproductive hunting and gathering stage. Anyone can capture fish in the ocean, or extract its resources, but only on the run, only as hunters and gatherers. No one can farm the ocean, no one can engage in aquaculture. In this way we are deprived of the use of the immense fish and mineral resources of the seas. For example, if anyone tried to farm the sea and to increase the productivity of the fisheries by fertilizers, he would immediately be deprived of the fruits of his efforts because he could not keep other fishermen from rushing in and seizing the fish. And so no one tries to fertilize the oceans as the land is fertilized. Fur*thermore, there is no economic incentive—in fact, there is every dis*incentive—for anyone to engage in technological research in the ways and means of improving the productivity of the fisheries, or in extracting the mineral resources of the oceans. There will only be such incentive when property rights in parts of the ocean are as fully allowed as prop*erty rights in the land. Even now there is a simple but effective technique that could be used for increasing fish productivity: parts of the ocean could be fenced off electronically, and through this readily available electronic fencing, fish could be segregated by size. By preventing big fish from eating smaller fish, the production of fish could be increased enormously. And if private property in parts of the ocean were permit*ted, a vast flowering of aquaculture would create and multiply ocean resources in numerous ways we cannot now even foresee. National governments have tried vainly to cope with the problem of fish depletion by placing irrational and uneconomic restrictions on the total size of the catch, or on the length of the allowable season. In the cases of salmon, tuna, and halibut, technological methods of fishing have thereby been kept primitive and unproductive by unduly short*ening the season and injuring the quality of the catch and by stimu*lating overproduction—and underuse during the year—of the fishing fleets. And of course such governmental restrictions do nothing at all to stimulate the growth of aquaculture. As Professors North and Miller write: "Fishermen are poor because they are forced to use inefficient equipment and to fish only a small fraction of the time [by the governmental regulations] and of course there are far too many of them. The consumer pays a much higher price for red salmon than would be necessary if efficient methods were used. Despite the ever-growing intertwining bonds of regulations, the preservation of the salmon run is still not assured. The root of the problem lies in the current non-ownership arrangement. It is not in the interests of any individual fisherman to concern himself with perpet*uation of the salmon run. Quite the contrary: It is rather in his interests to catch as many fish as he can during the season.11" In contrast, North and Miller point out that private property rights in the ocean, under which the owner would use the least costly and most efficient technology and preserve and make productive the resource itself, is now more feasible than ever: "The invention of modern elec*tronic sensing equipment has now made the policing of large bodies of water relatively cheap and easy."12 The growing international conflicts over parts of the ocean only fur*ther highlight the importance of private property rights in this vital area. For as the United States and other nations assert their sovereignty 200 miles from their shores, and as private companies and governments squabble over areas of the ocean; and as trawlers, fishing nets, oil drillers, and mineral diggers war over the same areas of the ocean—property rights become increasingly and patently more important. As Francis Christy writes: "… coal is mined in shafts below the sea floor, oil is drilled from platforms fixed to the bottom rising above the water, minerals can be dredged from the surface of the ocean bed… sedentary animals are scraped from the bed on which telephone cables may lie, bottom feeding animals are caught in traps or trawls, mid-water species may be taken by hook and line or by trawls which occasionally interfere with submarines, surface species are taken by net and harpoon, and the surface itself is used for shipping as well as the vessels engaged in extracting resources.13" This growing conflict leads Christy to predict that "the seas are in a stage of transition. They are moving from a condition in which property rights are almost nonexistent to a condition in which property rights of some form will become appropriated or made available." Eventually, concludes Christy, "as the sea's resources become more valuable, exclu*sive rights will be acquired." http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty12.asp
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#7
08-20-2006, 04:54 AM
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Re: How would an AC society deal with Chilean Sea Bass?
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Through evolution, new species are created by speciation — where new varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche — and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition. A typical species becomes extinct within 10 million years of its first appearance,[2] although some species, called living fossils, survive virtually unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. All but a tenth of one percent of species that have existed are extinct.[2] [/ QUOTE ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct Species have been going extinct since they first existed. It is the natural order of things. Why should it stop now?
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#8
08-20-2006, 09:50 AM
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Re: How would an AC society deal with Chilean Sea Bass?
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[ QUOTE ] Through evolution, new species are created by speciation — where new varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche — and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition. A typical species becomes extinct within 10 million years of its first appearance,[2] although some species, called living fossils, survive virtually unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. All but a tenth of one percent of species that have existed are extinct.[2] [/ QUOTE ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct Species have been going extinct since they first existed. It is the natural order of things. Why should it stop now? [/ QUOTE ] But what would the world be without the Chilean Sea Bass??
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#10
08-20-2006, 11:19 AM
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Re: How would an AC society deal with Chilean Sea Bass?
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Species have been going extinct since they first existed. It is the natural order of things. Why should it stop now? [/ QUOTE ] That attitude served the people of Easter Island really well. Link Basically they depleted their resources to the point where they nearly went extinct. Are you saying in AC land that overfishing would be allowed and seen as a natural evolutionary process?
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