“Also the fish farmer would have to be able to prove that the actions taken by those feeding the ducks directly impacted him… that would be a difficult case. While the nuclear power plant that dumps millions of gallons of 120 degree water into the river over the course of the year could be relatively easy to prove “
It is easy to proove that the power plant supplys heat but it is not easy to proove that this harms the fish. Power plants usually mix their water with river water before they “dump it”. The water entering the river is only be 3 to 4 degrres hoter than the surounding water. I don’t see any method in the described problem to quantify how much the nuclear power plant really contributed versus how much dug feeding contributed. The power plant will point out that it will not pay until I can quantify contributions.
If there are a lot of people who feed the ducks this can have a significant impact in terms of eutrophication. The power plant – in environmental terms – is called a point source while dug-feeding (if lots of people are involved) and farming are closer to the definition of non-point-sources. Some environmental problems are entirely caused by non-point sources and/or a multitude of contributers.
If the fish farmer is a billionary and just wants to make a point in suing the power plant he would still be unable to proof the contribution in terms of quantity. The uncertainty in complex systems is often fundamental , you can’t solve it by spending more money, and I didn’t mean to discuss transaction costs.
Actually, the free market does solve all these problems: but the key component is time, it turns out!
If all the companies make more profit than than the fish farm, the river gets used for their waste. Fish farm loses, totally.
Indeed, however, fish rises in price because supply is less, and we get companies trying to produce high quality fish, short time later, if this continues.
Real world example. Most regular sturgeon is produced in USA (800 < X < 1600 USD/Kg quality cavier, which is cheaper than the best, Beluga sturgeon, X ~ 3000 USD/Kg quality), and several entrepreneurs are trying to breed Beluga sturgeons in USA, and investing real money into a proper environment to get Beluga Sturgeon to breed; after the Russian communists dumping all their waste into rivers and Caspian Sea has basically made it very scarce, even in Iran and the Southern Republics.
Free market USA is actually slowly (it’ll take 30 years more for USA belugas to appear) solving USSR’s environmental error.
Edit: To clarify, the key word is that the conflict is solved, but not immediatly. Nirvana fallacy is that there is a problem. In fact, only if fish is worth it enough that people are willing to pay higher price, as in the case of Sturgeon, will fish production continue. As it should be. Else, if people keep producing more fish but people prefer the products of the factories, then resources are being wasted.
You can not extrapolate from the past in complex systems to predict their next state. At one point capitalism might solve more problems than it causes and at another moment in time it is the reverse. I won’t dispute that the environmental situation in the Ex-UDDSSR is improving but time is of the essence. Most Systems react non-linear, that is you don’t see any damage for a long time and than all of a sudden they crash quickly and completly. Some damage is also nearly impossible to reverse (when a system switches from some equilibrium into another).
We might see another example of sudden crash in complex systems when the US government interfers further with interest rates.
You can’t attack something for being imperfect or not ideal for which there is no perfect or ideal alternative. It doesn’t matter that you have acknowledged already that government may not do any better. You are still assuming some idealized hypothetical alternative or statements of yours such as “but it is no panacea” would make no sense. This why I said that the argument itself is fallacious.
But when people voluntarily restrict…whatever… it is a free market solution.
However normaly when I run into liberals and ask them to consider if they can limit their consumption or change to less harmfull forms they get a major fit.
If you don’t know how to make your consumption more environmentally friendly and you bark at anybody who might try to explain it, the free market solution will not work.
It is easy to proove that the power plant supplys heat but it is not easy to proove that this harms the fish. Power plants usually mix their water with river water before they “dump it”. The water entering the river is only be 3 to 4 degrres hoter than the surounding water. I don’t see any method in the described problem to quantify how much the nuclear power plant really contributed versus how much dug feeding contributed. The power plant will point out that it will not pay until I can quantify contributions.
I do understand that even in the simplified form that you have used the problem is substantial. Apply the problem to a river system as large as the Mississippi it becomes mind boggling. Even so in our simple case it can be proven that dumping warm water into a river will raise the temprature. And in our case the power plant does not have the right to dump warm water into the river at all. So at the very least the fisherman could prevent the power plant from engaging in that activity.
Who will pay the fisherman for the loss of his fish… possibly no one. If liability is so small from all of the violators then it will simply be a loss that he will not compensated for. After all in all cases of restitution he has to beable to prove damages, if he is unable to do so then he is not entitled to compensation.
So in the example the fisherman would possibly lose out on his current crop of fish, but he would have an avenue to prevent the pollution that killed his fish in the first place. So he would beable to continue fishing in the future. But even if its a constant battle to take all these people to court.. he could always offer a buyout. Give up his rights to the river in exchange for a cash compensation.
Again this is if we assume that he can possess the right to a certain water quality… that may be up for debate as well.
I recall from the exact definition of the precautionary principle that it is a guide to how politicians should design policies. I just ask you to make your own judgments precautionary in situations of complexity.
The more you alter an ecosystem the less you will be able to predict what happens next. Their is a clear tendency to more alterations in the current economic development. What I am afraid of is a situation where such “unsolvable” conflicts become abundant. For me this is a treat to freedom too. You will have an increasing amount of lawyers and so-called environmental experts running around pointing to real or fictive damage.
Straw man fallacy: the original intend of my treat was to warn you from running into some common errors which I have observed with liberals (I know just one libertarian so). You might never have done the errors mentioned by me before but I can’t now that.
I certainly understand where you’re coming from when you say that the farmer sould should be able to sell (and keep healthy) the fish he’s reared over time, but, assuming he doesn’t own the body the water, you’re still arguing as to who gets to kill the fish first. So clearly it hasn’t nothing to do with the fish. Once he owns the water, which the government is stopping him from doing now, he can always move the fish temporarily while the power plants do their thing (after paying him), or he can continue going on as he pleases. Ownership does seem to solve everything.
Any alteration from a pristine state of environment before man interfered (saving the environment for environments sake, not logic because it builds on the faulty concept of intrinsic value):
An alteration of the environment that leads to a decline of the health, safety or economic wellbeing of those located in it (environmental protection for mans sake).
Estimating the impact of your lifestyle(this will always be an approximation):
The amount of energy you consume including energy from nutrition, renewable energy, non-renewable energy, energy used in all manufacturing steps.
Reason1: Every ecological system will need a minimum amount of energy to perform its function and perform it stable (complex systems become instable the more energy you withdraw). Even loss of species is an example of energy lack, the systems lacks the information to maintain the information of DNA in this case.
Reason2: The more energy you command the more you can alter your environment. Altering the environment might not be in your best interest, if you don’t know the effect. The more environmental modifications you create the more difficult will it get to understand interactions of individual projects. The more an ecosystem is altered, the less you will be able to foresee its reactions. Both processes will lead to ever more “unsolvable” disputes over causes and effects of environmental damage.
Implications of Reason2 and refutation of “Nirwana falacy”: the amount of energy circling in the economical system steadily increases while the amount of energy effectively available for the ecological system decreases. If the number of “unsolvable” or “difficult-to solve” environmental disputes is increased the legal system will not be able to handle that. Hence an increasing number of economic damages go uncompensated. Since most people are causes and victims of environmental degradation this might seriously harm the economy and health of overall population.
Can you define what is “the water”? Clearly the river is a large branched system with smaler creeks running into it. The nuclear power plant might pay me for relocating the fish but for this it must be clear that it is the cause of the problem. This is not the case.
I’ve been thinking about this incident, and several others, quite a lot, and your comments have been helpful. Several of you have asked for a more complete description so hoping not to bore you, here it is.
One evening we happened to sit at dinner next to Jim and Sheila (I’ll call them) from Chicage. Jim said he had been enjoying history and named a number of biographies he’d read this year. When he finished I said I’d been reading a lot of economics the last 3 years and said after Keynes and Chicago I’d found the Austrian school and loved it. During my explanation I’d said I found Keynes math impossible, and though I later learned it was meant to only describe models, that the models themselves were completely unrealistic. (I didn’t assume at that time that he’d studied any econ at school). In response to my discussion he made no sounds at all. So after that we fell pretty silent. Then he asked if we played bridge at our club a lot. (We were a group of bridge players.) I didn’t explain that I’d been too sick recently and instead said the we’d found the worldwide 24/7 bridge site and enjoyed it. He responded that they prefered to play with real people. (Now that is not an attack but it is certainly a put-down.) We said nothing else to them directly that evening.
The following evening we selected a different table, but when Jim and Sheila arrived they came directly to the table at which we were sitting. I said nothing for half the meal. The most at the table began talking about their rear view cameras in their Lexus’ cars and how great they were. My husband joined in and said our daughter’s Ford also had a rear view camera moved to the back of her horse trailer and in addition one on the inside of the trailer to enable her to observe the horses in transit, and he agreed they were marvelous. Jim then said loudly, “Does she have a shotgun in the back window?” (Now that’s an attack.) There was dead silence for a few seconds, then my husband said, “Well we do have guns, but what you see in back windows is usually some fishing rods.” Again there was dead silence. There was little more conversation, and none from us.
I think the comments in this thread can be grouped into several groups.
Some indicate we all have the same emotions. Yes, typically, but different emotions, and emotions overall, are different strengths in different people. Further, during the maturing process, some people learn how to control them more fully than others.
Some said it’s uncomfortable to hear the truth. But I think that begs the question of what the truth is. But it’s also close to saying that it’s uncomfortable to hear opposing views.
Several said that many people, one way or another, identigy personally with their opinions, beliefs, ideology, etc. I think this is closer.
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Before the '08 election we were at another bridge convention, eating lunch with several other out-of-state couples. I asked who they were going to vote for. One woman said Clinton. She said she prefered Obama but was going to vote for Clinton because Clinton was going to win. Again I was dumbfounded and silent for a bit. I simply could not believe that there were people whose opinion was based on the opinion of the larger group. I asked her, finally, why, if she prefered Obama, she didn’t vote for him. She replied, “Oh no, she primarily wanted to vote for the winner”.
Based on these and other experiences about being part of a larger or majority group, or an in-goup, seems to make people feel safe and secure and right, correct. Therefore those who do not agree are wrong, stupid and open to attack because they endanger the safety and security of their group. “The tyranny of the majority” in spades. Mere disagreement is also unacceptable and uncomfortable and this was my ‘sin’ with Jim. My Austrian opinions did not agree with his and he was right. Therefore it was acceptable to attack us. And their mantra about respecting others is a halucination.
Now I’m thinking, Jim and his majority are basically fearful at heart, and thefore unwilling to accept responsibility for their own thoughts and actions. They feel safe and secure only as part of a large group. There’s safely in numbers, the banana that gets away from the bunch gets pealed, etc.
At least I"m forming some explanation for such behaviour, even if it’s not thecorrect one.
Nadjeschda, I am a libertarian and an environmentalist. I am pro-property rights because that is the best way to resolve issues of environment.
I read your OP twice, and I couldn’t find an actual argument on any Mises publication or an Austrian economics concept in particular. Was this intentional?
“Nadjeschda, I am a libertarian and an environmentalist”
Great, I knew they must hang up somewhere!
Yes I have a critic to a particular Mises publication; it was one of the audio courses. There was an example with an old lady having her laundry stained by soot from a nearby chimney. Instead of waiting for state action under free market society she can sue the factory directly. However I don’t think that this example is representative for environmental problems:
for most environmental damages:
Source.
Mode in which sources actually translates into damage
Synergistic effects: if more than one polluter is involved who caused what quantity of damage?
can’t be pinpoited.
Many damages are also extremely difficult to distinguish from natural events:
Is damage of human source or a random variation?
I understand that the Mises Institute is familiar with the concept of “tragedy of the commons” and that current environmental problems could be solved in a free market society by privatizing all natural resources (please correct me, if I am wrong)
This will only work if the majority of such damages and disputes can be meaningfully settled with modern legal methods (in dubio pro reo). And that’s exactly what I doubt.
The example with the old Lady would already be much more tricky if she had developed a respiratory disease instead.
I give you a selection of examples where point 1,2,3 ,4 makes damage and culprit difficult to proof:
Climate change
Change in micro-climate in a given region (India, Sahel, Brazil)
Pest of poisonous jellyfish in the black sea
Coral bleaching
Decline of mangrove health in Bangladesh and land loss
Decline of landmass in some isles
Acid rain.
The cause of any illness which affects broad parts of population will also be extremely difficult to pinpoint, so the list can be increased by:
Rise in auto-immune disease
Rise in allergies
Decline in fertility
Rise in respiratory disease in some regions of the world.
What do you mean by “work”? If you mean, find perfect solutions each time, then property rights will fail. That’s utopianism. There are no utopian solutions to each and every problem. Libertarians, Austrians and anarchists do not claim perfect answers.
What we do claim, is a system where people can be secure and accountable. Where there are methods for resolution.
If we can’t figure out coral reefs in a private property society, how can we figure it out with a state? The state cannot do anything the market cannot, except use aggressive force.
Sure, in a free market order, laws and legal processes will have to evolve. That is one of the major reasons to be a libertarian! We want to see competition and evolution in law, we want to see better systems of arbitration evolve and become available to everyone. Progress like this is not possible under a statist system, where law and order are monopolized into one system, which is very slow to change and hostile to competition.
But at the end of the day, no one pretends we can perfectly determine causality. To be able to do so would require omniscience.
The phrase “exact definition” implies there is one particular definition that is “correct”. However, all definitions are inherently arbitrary, so there can be no “correct” definition.
My own meaning for “the precautionary principle” is essentially the same as Wikipedia’s:
As a system under consideration becomes more complex and/or less predictable, the risk of something “bad” happening to it is perceived (at least) to increase. Appealing to the precautionary principle, then, is akin to drawing a line in the sand. “This far, no farther.” But, if you think about it, something “bad” could also happen by not going further. So the precautionary principle, taken to its logical conclusion, demands that no action ever be taken about anything. Everything must stop.
So what? Who’s to decide how many people should be lawyers and environmental experts, real or “so-called”? Essentially your criticism of the free market seems to boil down to “I’m against the free market here because I’m afraid it may not give the outcome that I want”. But who ever said that the free market is guaranteed to produce any particular outcome?
You committed the strawman fallacy when you implicitly claimed that free-market supporters always assert that the free market can solve all problems.
