Can you explain the difference between what a person wants and what he is willing to put up with? I mean in the context of this discussion?
Well, I see Lib has ignored my post. Howcome I´m not surprised?
Sometime back, Lib agreed to debate me on the subject, more or less, of ¨Resolved: Libertaria has no defenses against terrorism¨.
Then he disappeared for a while, and I let the matter drop.
My post above is on route towards some of the same ideas I would have gotten into had that debate come to pass.
Still up for it, Lib?
If you are, I would appreciate that you refrain from hurling accusations of ¨shrieking and flailing¨ or lying. Up for that?
By the way, I used to be a Libertarian. Only time in my life I got involved in politics. Volunteered to work in the campaign for governor of Hawaii, 1976 I think it was although my memory for dates isn´t what it used to be. Can´t remember the name of the Libertarian candidate, either. Before that I had been a Robert Heinlein fan, especially The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which embodies a lot of today´s libertarian thought (I think he even invented TANSTAAFL,which libertarians still argue about who said it first.) But eventually it occurred to me that all of Heinlein´s Libertopias depended on a deus ex machina to work - telepathetic Martians, all-knowing and benevolent computers, a secret race of semi-immortals, etc., which made me wonder about Libertopia´s practicality outside of science fiction. Anyway, getting involved in the campaign (all I did, mostly, was stuff envelopes and make coffee and the like) I thought I ought to know more about what I was getting involved in, so I read my way through about a foot thick stack of literature the candidate suggested, and the more I read the more like science fiction Libertopia seemed. The last straw, for me, was a speech the candidate gave trying to defend the idea that it was perfectly just and reasonable to put all of Hawaii´s beaches up for sale, since the native Hawaiians would have complete freedom to bid against the Zaibatsu-owned hotel chains that wanted to close the beaches to everyone but paying guests. Now, as some people have noticed Hawaii is a volcanic island, or several islands, and there aren´t very many beaches. The idea of the right of access to the sea, for everyone, is a lot older than the European presence in Hawaii, and is generally regarded as sacred by the local people (Google ¨Ahu pua´a¨ if you want to know more). Rich Christians have long since stolen the native people´s land (90-something percent of all private land belongs to the famous ¨five families¨ of missionary descendents, except for the largest privately owned ¨ranch¨ in the US which belongs to the King family of Texas.) The native people, mostly, get plenty nuthin. I was not impressed by the candidate´s argument, and I pretty much stopped being a True Believer.
But enough about me. Just don´t tell me ¨read Hayek¨ or ¨read Reason¨. Been there. Read that. Not impressed. Argument continues in next post.
The environment is protected by the government on behalf of the people for whom it matters most — those who own it. I think there is a popular misconception that enlightened governors have arisen from time to time and have led the masses to do things that are reasonable and prudent, when in fact it has been the other way around. It was individuals like John Muir, Gifford Pinchot (Teddy Roosevelt’s gardener), Ellen Swallow Richards, Jane Addams, Florence Kelly Alice Hamilton, and Henry David Thoreau who led the way to environmental conservation by their own activism and civil disobedience. Indeed, it has always been the case that people have had to demand of government that it ensure their safety and happiness. That’s why there were civil rights marches in the 1960s and why gays are struggling today simply for the right to marry the person they love. If you live to be old enough to see homosexuals given their freedom, you will be able to explain to your grandchildren that it did not come about by the noble actions of kind-hearted magistrates, but by the struggles of people for whom it mattered most. If you think that government is a good steward of the environment, just Google for “toxic dumps”. New York alone has some 800 chemical dumps in need of clean-up and 2,000 more in need of testing. (Cite.) Here is only one example of the chutzpah that government has: Chemical Dumps Make Good Homes For Poor Families. Why should people have to take to the streets and spend whole lifetimes trying to make government do what it should have done in the first place — protect their lives and property?
Who owns the air? If nobody owns it, does that mean everybody has a right to pollute it?
I disagree with the notion that government is ineffective in protecting the environment. Why has Lake Erie recovered in the last 20 years? Government intervention. Why do automobiles get better gas mileage and pollute less than they did 20 years ago? Government intervention. Why do coal burning plants put scrubbers on their smokestacks? Government intervention. Does anybody want to trade environments with Cold War East Germany? Or revert back to direct dumping of toxic wastes as in 19th century America?
pervert: Can you explain the difference between what a person wants and what he is willing to put up with? I mean in the context of this discussion?
I don’t know if I can “explain” it, but I can illustrate it. Using the earlier example about the hypothetical entrepreneur “John” and his business practices, what his customers want is low-priced, high-quality goods with excellent service. However, they will put up with high-priced crap with lousy service if that’s all they can get.
You are right that “wanting” and “putting up with” are just two points on a continuum of consumer desire, rather than being intrinsically opposed to each other (at least, I think that’s the point you’re trying to make here). However, I think it’s nonsense to argue that therefore, there isn’t any meaningful difference between what consumers are willing to buy and what they really want.
Yes, in a perfect free market, there are theoretically always hordes of competitive producers able and eager to jump in to exploit any and all marketing opportunities represented by consumer desires, so under those ideal circumstances it’s reasonable to assume that consumers are always getting pretty much what they want. But in a semi-free market that is very imperfectly competitive and substantially influenced by “demand management” in the form of marketing, the concept of the “sovereign consumer” is much less convincing.
A fair question, and I understand what you’re getting at, but it isn’t a matter of polluting the air, it is a matter of polluting your lungs, and you own them.
Well sure, but… Libertarianism calls upon government to intervene as well, except much sooner. Part of the reason it took so long to clean up Lake Erie, for example, is because no one owned it, and so no one could hold the government accountable to do its job. It was in fact the efforts of individuals like ecologist Kenneth Watt, Harvard biologist George Wald, Washington University biologist Barry Commoner, and Documentary Producer Fred Freed (remember 1969’s Who Killed Lake Eerie?) that led to marches, protests, and eventually Earth Day itself to grab government’s attention. When you’re busy administrating everything from poverty relief to mattress specifications, you can be a little slow to respond. But before you let government rest on its laurels with respect to Lake Erie, consult the residents of Port Colborne, Ontario.
That’s ridiculous.
Not me. I advocate responsive government that makes its business the security of my rights and property.
Thanks for the reply. What I’m having a hard time trying to see is where a Libertarian government would be more responsive to this sort of thing. Environmental regulations are a proactive type of action on the part of a government and it seems to me that from what I’ve read of theoretical Libertarian governments is that it is more reactive- you pollute, you clean up and give recompense to the offended. This is opposed to the idea that you just don’t pollute in the first place because there is a law forbidding it. What exactly would be the advantage of Libertarianism in environmental preservation that we don’t see with current governments?
I do recognize your point that our governments were not always forward-thinking in environmental protection, but to be fair this whole concept is only a few decades old. The environmentalists in the early 1960s were considered whackos, only in recent decades has it been part of the political mainstream.
Why do you say a Libertarian government would be reactive? Polluting would be a crime just as it is now, only it wouldn’t take a huge fight between controlling interests (environmental activists and business types) to make it so.
So, the advantage is that neither side would have a way to get “in” with the government because the government would be unable to grant special priviledges (tax breaks, etc) to any given industry or activist group.
From what I’ve read, Libertarian justice works in that you prove someone damages your property and then you collect damages. To me, that’s reactive. Someone steals my apples, I prove that he did and he makes me whole. Again, that’s reactive. Now extending this theory, you’re entitled to a clean environment because it harms your property, namely your body. Applying this same theory, you have to prove that you are damaged before you can collect or even insist that the behavior cease.
A Libertarian paradox iin my view: suppose there are no humans in the vicinity? Let’s say the north slope of Alaska was entirely devoid of human life- could we then drill for oil with no regard for the environment? Under Libertarian justice, I think you could. There is no property belonging to others for you to harm, therefore nobody has standing to challenge your right to pollute.
What type of justice system would allow you to collect damages if there was no proof that damage was done?
I think you are confusing the situation with “air” and “land”. There is no land that is not owned either individually or collectively.
Let’s imagine a company called HugeOilCo. HugeOilCo buys 100 million acres in Northern Alaska. They drill on their own property. Do they have the right to pollute it? As I understand it, as long as all environmental damage is contained in HugeOilCo’s property, then a Libertarian government would find no standing to step in, even if HugeOilCo’s lack of stewardship resulted in the death of wildlife that live within the HugeOilCo property. The animals themselves have no intrinsic right to a clean environment and even extinction of a species would be permissible, providing that all damage is contained within the property limits of HugeOilCo.
I think a large part of the confused picture comes from we libertarians ourselves. Part of the reason I stopped addressing hypotheticals (or at least, started insisting on being allowed to offer my own) is that these bizarre images kept emerging of libertarian governments as some sort of Keystone-cop firefighters running from fire to fire. But that was because that was how the scenarios were offered: what happens when Bob shoots a trespasser?; what happens when John buys all the property around you?; what happens when Linda spills toxic waste in a stream that flows onto your property?; and so on. But the thing that makes a government libertarian is that its sole duty is to protect and defend the rights and property of its citizens. So, it is the case that there is in fact a law against polluting someone else’s property — it’s just that the law is based on ethics rather than expedience. The underlying ethic is that, by polluting, you are depriving others of their enjoyment of their property and the pursuit of their happiness. But if the law is not ethically based, then you will make exceptions for expediency — Incorp may pollute a nominal amount, and everyone just has to live with it; or GiantCo has made a mess but you have to help pay to clean it up; and so forth. When the law is not ethically based, legislators enact laws that ensure their own survival as legislators. They do whatever they must do to facilitate re-election, and that means accepting money from people in exchange for favors. The audacity of a legislator’s poltical machinations is in inverse proportion to the vigilance of his electorate. Eventually, he learns to achieve a balance of promises made and actions taken so that he can come back to his district and say, “I’ve brought $X million dollars to our area,” when often it means only that he has favored X number of political constituents with windfalls. I’m not saying that every single legislator necessarily does this, and I’m not saying that libertarian government is immune to corruption. But I am saying that if law is based on the sound ethical principle that recognizes your inherent rights as a human being, you stand a better chance than if law is based on political expedience. This is why the Libertarian Party is not supported by wealthy people. The reduction in money alone that sits in government coffers would mean that they would get less from the teat.
Surprisingly, perhaps, modern environmental activism can be traced all the way back to Thomas Malthus. You can read his piece, An Essay on the Principle of Population, online. He wrote it in 1798. In a post above, I mentioned others as well. I mentioned, for example, Gifford Pinchot, who took it upon himself to visit every municipality from Atlantic City to Augusta in the early 1920’s to rally the concern of local governments to do something about oil and sewage pollution. Thus formed the National Coast Anti Pollution League. Men should not have to crawl from city to city begging governments to protect rights and property. If environmental activists were considered wackos in the 60s, maybe it was because people by then had lost track of what government should be doing. Lyndon Johnson talked Great Society, but he walked Vietnam War. I think that a large part of today’s political polarization stems from a fairly modern mindset of “what is my share from this government pot” — whether that is in terms of money, or political favor, or what have you.
I will take a stab at this although I suspect lib is more familiar with the exact position of Libertarians on this (I’m a small “l” libertarian, and don’t necessarily support that parties position across the board).
If every member of a species of caribou lives on HugeOilCo’s property, there is nothing preventing an individual or a group of individuals to bid to buy some or all of those caribou and transport them outside the property. If it’s “too expensive to do this”, then one has to question whether the perpetuation of that species is actually desireable to people in the first place.
Alternatively, HugeOilCo might find it financially desirable to lease part of its land to a conservatory group.
But to build on Lib’s post about these somewhat wild hypotheticals, I think they also suffer from the belief, commonly seen in moives, that businessmen are somehow evil characters who relish the destruction of the environment and the extinction of species.
Libertarianism is indeed a political philosophy and, as you might guess from the etymology of “politics”, it is about people. I personally find animal abuse to be abhorant, whether it’s on an Alaskan tundra or in a medical laboratory or in someone’s backyard dog pen. People who think like me would take such things into consideration when we make our decisions with regard to whom we will favor with our support and our dollars. But I think it is a fundamental mistake to enforce a moral obligation as though it were a civic one.
So… You’re going to enact a law that totally prevents pollution in Libertopia? Is that correct, or do I misunderstand? That just strikes me as infeasible, since there are some industries that cannot help but pollute…
No, not pollution entirely, just pollution of people who don’t want to be polluted. Suppose I’ve thought of a really fast and cheap way to manufacture some gizm. Fine, but that’s no reason you should have to choke on my fumes. If I cannot think of a way to make my gizmos without encroaching upon your property, then that’s just too bad. My options have changed. I must either go elsewhere to make my gizmos, think of some way to make them that doesn’t pollute you, or just forget about it. But your question points out nicely what I mean about ethics versus expedience. If we begin with the basis that nothing is more important than your rights and property, then I must adjust my gizmo making. But if we begin with the basis that nothing is more important than my gizmos, then you must adjust your rights and property.
Well, that’s clearly a typo, but I’m hesitant to offer a corrected version, not knowing exactly which variation of that spelling was intended… 
Either way you like it! 
Well now, perhaps, we are going to argue over the “meaningful” part. 
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Perhaps where we differ is in the amount of difference necessary before some form of force is necessary to correct it. I think you need to show that “what they really want” is so drastically different from what “consumers are willing to buy” that intervention from outside is necessary. It seems to me that you need a qualitative difference between wanting and putting up with before such things are necessary.
The fact that manufacturers advertise is woefully short of such a qualitative difference. Perhaps you are talking about something else?
John Mace, and Liberal, If you don’t mind a question from your side of this debate. What about the idea of polluting without crossing property boundries. For instance, say your method of producing gizmos (please let my guess be correct) requires the production of significant amounts of toxic waste. However, instead of making it airborn or even water born, you simply cart it up and bury it on your own property. In some way which does not infringe on anothers property, but renders yours useless for human habitation for the next 1,000 years or so. Just to keep this simple, say you do so only until you yourself can no longer live on the property. You take your profits for your gizmos buy yourself a nice retirement home, and essentially abandon the property. Under libertarian principles, is there no recourse for the community which now has to endure the presence of the abandoned property?