In terms of externalities, how can the free market stop a company from exploiting its workers overseas, or dumping toxic waste into a river? In Alberta we have a huge problem with the tar sands. Vast sections of that province have been stripped, water dirtied etc, with little effort on part of the c…

how can the free market stop a company from exploiting its workers overseas Don’t buy products which haven’t been certified fair trade. dumping toxic waste into a river Easy: property rights Vast sections of that province have been stripped, water dirtied etc, with little effort on part of …

No, in a free market all area could be owned. This would include rivers and people would likely not want their rivers being polluted. It is the government that stops rivers from actually being owned. Furthermore who’s currently supposed to be looking out for the environment? The government. Who is …

Welcome to the forum, matthewloewen! Even under a state, there’s no way to guarantee that no business will ever exploit workers (overseas or elsewhere) or dump toxic waste into a river. So I think it’s unrealistic - if not unhealthy - to think otherwise. With that said, I daresay a major problem …

Everybody, thanks for posting your responses. I think they are awesome. If you must know, I did not propose this question, my cousin did. I answered him almost as appropriately as you guys have, but I just wanted to amuse myself and see how everyone else would respond. I agree that this is more a fa…

The question boils down to this. We hear of atrocities that (supposedly) the free market creates. We become furious. How could these companies do these things? Dirtying up those pieces of land and leaving them a mess? Well, what’s it to you? Was it your land? No. Did you have investments in the lan…

If everything is owned by someone, there are no externalities. You dump waste into a lake, the owner is going to sue you. You dump toxic waste anywhere, and somebody is going to complain about it. Pollution as such only exists where property rights don’t. It is not a failure of the free market, but…

What constitutes exploitation of workers in your view? As for river pollution, the free market is a socioeconomic system based on property rights. All the individuals and businesses that are located near a river and have been using it as a source of clean, fresh water have acquired a property stake…

Well of course, this environmental destruction is occuring under our current system which is failing the environment. Since preceding comment have laboured the point of property rights, I will switch tack. Economic growth is another solution. Firstly, more growth means more efficiency and less was…

This reminds me of a documentary I watched on Netflix called Water (I think that’s the name…). Anyway, the documentary talks about 3rd world countries and what’s happening to their water supply, and even though I had some problems with the documentary there was one example that couldn’t be more perf…

Interesting point: Standard Oil, the mythical “big baddie” of the “laissez faire” capitalism at the turn of the century was actually quite environmentally-friendly. They rose from a hectic market which only made use of some of the products made from petrolium and were able to extract many other usef…

How does the Free-Market protect environmental waste?

Economics Economics Questions

John_James October 25, 2011, 6:37pm 15

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How does the Free-Market protect environmental waste?

See here and here.

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