environment - clean air how the free market would function and governments shortcomings

Economics Economics Questions
, , , ,
1

Recently I wrote to Walter Block, below is my letter to him and below that is his reply.

Walter
Hello, how are you? I was hoping you could help me.
Ive been in a series of discussions with local Obama watermelon environmentalist. what began as small talk has exploded into a lively debate, with me gaining ground and finding them more receptive to certain free market principals.
Ive shown a couple of your early interviews with the Frazer institute talking about the environment… and your an instant hit, they see the logic and very much like your work.
these people fall short in that their only exposure to these principals is through me I cant expect them to read your books, or Rothbards or any of it. I cant give them a video list either as they wont on their own watch. But when Im around they enjoy picking my brain and doing the leftist two step around issues [“ok, what about this, what about that…”]

One gentleman thoroughly enjoys this debate and comes over often, after having thrown around the ideas in prior discussion with his Dad and his sisters who are very pro obama and very pro government.
so he is now coming to me Loaded with rebuttals, and loaded with examples of what he perceives as good things government does. he cites the EPA and clean air, social security, FDA meat inspection that Gov filled a void that the greedy capitalist were exploiting. I see the error, but stumble to explain properly.

My points to him are that anything government does can be done better in the free market. and he is open to this Idea. but he then tries to make example of free market failure to do it in the beginning and that without gov we’d have low quality air, meat, and social benefits. I fall flat on my face and have no response other than Im not a historian and have no knowledge of what went down in the beginning, and that he too is not a historian and that he does not know either.

I do suspect that there were free market attempts that may have been co-opted by government. I simply do not know of them. Would you give me a helping nudge as to how to proceed with this debate. Ive shown this guy the coercive hurdle he must justify before expecting of government, that gov has nothing except what it loots, the moral hazards involved, and the Keynesianist agenda.
to his credit he is very open to new info, I think he feels a victory in that I can not show a free market in action in the beginning.

Best Regards
Shane Cunningham

2

Thank you for posting this and welcome to the forum.

3

I also wrote to several others including

Lawrence W. Reed

President

Foundation for Economic Education

I had already written to Walter and while waiting for a reply I researched issue and found some answers. I copy pasted Walters letter to Lawrence with some commentary from me about answers I had found while waiting. directly below is that commentary from me minus the letter to Walter.

---------------Here is my commentary-----------------------------------------------------------

Lawrence -
Thank you for the prompt reply. A fan of yours, Im appreciative of your time and efforts. after writing to Walter and yourself Ive searched it some more and believe Ive found some answers. that government/courts failed to uphold private property rights. In that I could not get courts to recognize trespass, and get injunction to make polluter stop, and damages paid. creating a moment of market pollution, where a moral businessman would fail because he could not compete. so lack of property rights enforcement allowed the market to go unchecked until sometime later when gov legislated laws, creating socialist/monopolist departments of Air, of Food etc… up till today where most dont know the story, and think only worshipful omnipotent government can do said job.

In a nutshell. … I would love any details or comments or critique of my assessment. also the meat inspection remains pretty vague, I mean I cant think of how prior to Government approval of meat quality how it would unfold in private sector.

any instances of private environmentalist, private groups or individuals acting for the community without thinking to expect it of government.

------------Here is the reply from Lawrence W. Reed--------------------

Hi, Shane:

Thanks for your note. I’m glad you have since found some answers. I think you’re right about the absence of clearly-defined and enforced property rights is often part of the problem and that employing a government bureaucracy to “solve” the problem instead brings along many of its own problems.

Here’s an essay of mine on the famous Meat Inspection Act of 1906 that you may find helpful: http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2006_08/reed-meat.html.

You may find this article helpful too: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/where-are-the-omelets/

Finally, I think if you employ some of the arguments in this essay, you may score some victories: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/an-open-letter-to-statists-everywhere/.

I hope this helps!

Larry

LWR-signature

Lawrence W. Reed

President

Foundation for Economic Education

30 S. Broadway

Irvington, NY 10533

4

---------Walters Reply--------------------

Shane

intellectual ammo.

on environmentalism:

Rothbard, Murray N. 1982. “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution,” Cato Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring; reprinted in Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, Walter Block, ed., Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 1990, pp. 233-279; http://mises.org/daily/2120;` http://mises.org/rothbard/lawproperty.pdf`

``

`

Block, Walter. 1998. “Environmentalism and Economic Freedom: The Case for Private Property Rights,” Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 17, No. 6, December, pp. 1887-1899; http://mises.org/etexts/environfreedom.pdf;

http://141.164.133.3/faculty/Block/Blockarticles/environmentalism.htm; Romanian translation: www.antiteze.com

Block, Walter. 2009. “Contra Watermelons.” Ethics, Place & Environment, Vol. 12, Issue 3, October, pp. 305 – 308; http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a916452684&fulltext=713240928

on pure food, drugs:

Kolko, Gabriel. 1963. Triumph of Conservatism, Chicago: Quadrangle Books

Is avail @ google books [here free](http://books.google.com/books?id=jTyfQk1zMTYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Triumph+of+Conservatism&source=bl&ots=81CzZPz9zT&sig=5UsX8lqGMnx2lKwjbIIm_dlaBjs&hl=en&ei=JdOKS-qINouotgPBuayGAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

for more info, go

  1. to Mises web

  2. Please pardon this sentence in form letter style, but I make remarks of this sort often, and I find it saves me time. In order to get more answers/responses to your important question, and/or better publicize your point, I urge you to go to https://forum.freecapitalists.org/, and register it on that venue. If you do, please feel free to copy my answer along with your query.

`

Walter E. Block, Ph.D.
Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Prof. of Economics
College of Business
Loyola University New Orleans

5

sorry duplicate… can not delete?

6

sorry duplicat do not know how to delete

7

where i now live there is lots of dirt and sand.

when the wind blows it moves dirt from one property to another.

the govt doesnt stop this and the market doesnt stop this.

this is likley akin to farting in an elevator. some interactions will lead to unwanted property breaches -

mostly dirt yards right next to one another, leaves falling from trees and getting blown around.

most of these can probably be solved via non govt arbitration.

8

im not an expert but Monsanto will sue farmers who have Monsanto seed growing on their property via wind from another property who owns rights to said seed. seems backwards. seems farmer should get an injunction from other farmer and or Monsanto to get them to stop their seed from arriving on their property. and damages/penalties should be paid to trespassed farmer for exterminating or removing said property [Monsanto seed]. Ive read/seen that trespassed farmers spend their time and their money to do this and it breaks into their ability to make profit, which ruins incentive, and creates a Non-free market… giving advantage to a coercive neighbor because if they have to pay for seed rights, they feel everyone should and would notify Monsantos lawyers etc …

9

additional point perhaps, seed apparently is not scarce. and intellectual property rights in said seed are not lawful [see stephan Kinsella on IP issues]. Besides who and why do you patent a seed. much like e=mc2 is not scarce and einstein could not sue anyone who uses it. If Monsanto can prove seed is theirs via creation GMO and it is scarce, then they’d end up proving their responsible for it being dumped onto trespassed farmers property. and your example of sand and dirt are no different than air and water being redistributed, they are not scarce.

10

clean air how the free market would function and governments shortcomings…

" and your example of sand and dirt are no different than air and water being redistributed, they are not scarce. "

air filled with dirt is dirty air..difficult for many to breathe.

once the dirt is property all the other dirt becoimes more scarce (from a homesteadin view). i dont see dirt scarcity as an issue with clean air. control of dirt on ones property seemed to me to be the issue.

11

true