The switch to unleaded fuel for ordinary road vehicles has already happened in many parts of the developed world, but this was achieved largely by government intervention in the form of differential taxes and eventually laws prohibiting the use of leaded fuel.
Given (but feel free to challenge any of these):
-There’s little incentive for engine manufacturers to design unleaded fuel engines when unleaded fuel is not in widespread distribution, and the presence of lead additives in fuel overcomes certain engineering challenges.
-There’s little incentive for fuel manufacturers to make and distribute unleaded fuel if no engines require it.
-Most end users probably want the removal of lead, but there’s little they can do, individually, to make that happen - end users probably recognise that removal of lead additives will only be effective if widespread, so their choice (assuming there’s even a choice available) is an insignificant drop in a very large ocean.
How would a free market effect the transition from leaded to unleaded fuels - and if it could, how completely and how quickly would it do it?
It’s going to depend on what you mean by a free market. Am I allowed to sue Big Lead for giving my kids brain damage? Is Big Lead responsible for environmental clean up? etc etc Free markets are only as free as the government lets them.
That’s a good question. How about if we posit a free market such as currently exists in North America (or substitute another country if you wish), except that it happens to be the case that the government simply doesn’t intervene in the form of legislation or tax pressure - it’s up to the market to sort it out.
For the record… was the switch to unleaded fuel achieved anywhere without explicit government intervention? That would serve as a neat example of how it could be done, if such an example exists.
The example of the UK gives good reason to think that the market alone, would not have resulted in the end of leaded petrol.
Even with goverment ‘interference’ in the 80s, ruling all new cars must be unleaded, and even with the knowledge of the effect that leaded petrol has on children, it remained very popular for many years until it was finally outlawed.
One final point: even if the Free Market could in itself solve problems like the use of lead in petrol, why should we wait for that to happen? (I’m not claiming that you’re evangelising the concept of a true Free Market, Mangetout, the question is aimed at those who do).
And if the manufacturers determine that the cost of lawsuits is less than the cost of environmentalism, they keep on with their old ways. A perfect example of the folly of libertarianism.
Perhaps in England you do not have lawyers who actively seek out clients in order to sue big businesses. Come to America and watch daytime TV and you’ll see that there are a variety of folks who make their living motivating people to sue businesses large and small for any perceived injury they may have suffered.
We have plenty of personal injury lawyers bottom-feeding for business on TV, however, they’re all touting for clearcut cases where your employer forgot to tell you not to stab yourself in the eye with scissors, or the local council accidentally dropped a piano on you - I’m not sure they’d be interested in, or capable of, organising a big lawsuit involving multiple claimants, against multiple entities, that might also involve the commissioning of independent research and evidence-gathering.
Also - who do you sue? ‘Big Oil’ - for putting the lead in the fuel? Aren’t they just going to pass the blame onto engine manufacturers, for building engines that require it? And if you sue the engine manufacturers, couldn’t they just weasel out by saying their engines are designed to run on fuels including, but by no means limited to leaded gasoline?
Obviously, this is just a variant of the problem of externalities, which can truly be a market failure. You don’t have to look at lead - big oil also hasn’t stopped CO2 emissions.
Regulations that correct for externalities are a legitimate form of government regulation to this libertarian. No one has a right to impose a cost on a 3rd party without their consent.
If that is the case then leaded fuel will continue because the cost is less, it’s not the folly of libertarianism, it’s the system of weighting morals based on economics and works for exactly what it is.
Hold people responsible for their actions, that is the libertarian way, that is what we are discussing here.
I think such system would allow lawyers to take class action law suits for these brain damaged children. The lawyers can set their own percentage in such a system so there is economic incentive to protect the brain damaged.
As for legislation, if the free market can come up with a fund to defray the costs, both health and environmental then there should be no need. If they refuse however perhaps a mandated fund to help pay for the mess they create may be needed.
Mangetout, you and I are roughly the same age, I think, and as such, we grew up breathing the intoxicating fumes of leaded gas. I think the harm done was below the threshold where a class-action lawsuit would have worked. Contrast this with asbestos, where serious and demonstrable harm was done to those with lots of exposure. The resulting class-action suits bankrupted most of the asbestos producers.
So without lawsuits as an effective deterrent, you’re left with consumer choice and the threat of boycotts. Either of those could have worked, eventually – but legislation is a heck of a lot faster.
While I don’t necessarily agree with the Libertarian position here, in practice this is not and essentially never is a viable option for a company, unless they’re sure no one will ever have cause to sue again on that same issue. An ongoing rpactice is extremely dangerous to them.
Basically, there’s no limit to their liability, and once the issue has been decided ,it will cost them oodles and oodles forever. Permanent lawyers billing mountains of money by the hour, plus anything for whatever they lose. And private parties (and their hungry, hungry lawyers) will be lining up around the block. The corporation may not lose any such lawsuits. But it will cost them nonetheless. It will also drain the lifeblood out of any organization.
Actually, on reflection, I’m pretty sure the car manufacturers will have done quite nicely out of the change - when I was a teenager - before the switch - it was not at all uncommon to see cars of every vintage on the road. Now that we’ve switched, all those cars are gone, replaced by new ones manufactured to run on unleaded.
Not sure the vehicle industry could have made this happen nearly so suddenly without legislation though.
But drawing from **Sal Ammoniac’s ** post, a lot of pollutants are such that you can’t definitively trace any particular case of illness to them. The air in LA is polluted, and this probably leads to an increase in asthma and lung cancer, but there’s no way for any litigant to prove that *his * case of asthma or lung cancer was caused by the air pollution. IANAL, but I don’t see how the courts could rule in favor of the litigants in cases like this. So I don’t think these problems can be solved in the civil courts.