Removing lead from petrol was a good thing. The free market would not have done that.
The free market would never take care of the ozone hole problem.
These are two examples where I think the market fails. If someone can prove me wrong that would be nice.
Am interested in hearing your opinions.
Why wouldn’t the free-market take care of the ozone problem? Why wouldn’t the free-market have removed lead from petrol?
no one on the free market would spend money on getting rid of the ozone problem
no companie on the free market would research and see if lead was bad
independent scientists did that and the government brought it to our attention
I think your position rests on the assumption that individuals don’t care about their own well-being and need a third-party to protect them from their own stupidity.
Many individuals certainly care about lead and would pay to ensure that their products were lead free regardless of government interferance. I would certainly pay more for lead-free paint and other products in my home.
On the free market people could sue polluters if it was proven that they damaged the ozone layer, which in turn damaged the plaintiff’s person/property. This might be difficult to pursue though in any but the most egregious case.
The lead theory makes sense but still the ozone problem is harder.
Ozone hole is a natural phenomenon. No government can make it go away.
As for lead or other dangerous chemicals - people can simply sue companies if they feel that their health is endangered.
The biggest polluter is the government. And you can’t even sue them.
The Reader’s Digest response is: It wasn’t a “free market” that put lead in gasoline to begin with! So, your entire criticism which rests on the presumption of market failure (specifically, free market failure) is succinctly exploded.
There is a greatly informative article on The Secret History of Lead, available online (it’s really long, though). It explains in great detail what really amounts to a Big Oil conspiracy during the earlier part of the 20th Century, and indicates that lead - specifically tetraethyl lead was widely know to be a very dangerous toxin:
Tetraethyl lead was first discovered by a German chemist in 1854. A technical curiosity, it was not used commercially on account of “its known deadliness.” It is highly poisonous, and even casual cumulative contact with it was known to cause hallucinations, difficulty in breathing and, in the worst cases, madness, spasms, palsies, asphyxiation and death. Still unused in 1921, sixty-seven years after its invention, it was not an obvious choice as a gasoline additive.
Surely, we can conclude that whoever put lead in gasoline was an evil son of a bitch, that deserves to rot in the worst sort of hell, forever. But there are other parties responsible for the perpetuation of what ought to have been a fairly short-lived digression. A free market wouldn’t have been able to silence critics, and a free market wouldn’t have been able to shield itself from crippling lawsuits, as the inclusion of TEL in gasoline is (according to evidence) more than mere neglingence, it is purely criminal.
So, who let them get away with it?
…the US government was fully apprised of leaded gasoline’s potentially hazardous effects and was aware of available alternatives, yet was complicit in the cover-up and even actively assisted the profiteers in spreading the use of leaded gasoline to foreign countries
It was widely known for nearly 70 years prior to its inclusion in gasoline that tetraethyl lead was a dangerous neurotoxin.
The government was largely complicit in the crime for 60+ years.
I’m not a fan of the environment.
So… Meh…
Nobody has answered the ozone question adequately
No one has answered how government helps to fix the ozone layer either.
No, his position rests on the assumption that transaction costs in such a situation are absolutely huge. In the case of the Ozone layer there are all the problems of the governing the commons on a much bigger scale, not only is it difficult (impossible?) to distribute propery titles to the Ozone layer but attempts to govern this commons would have to coordinate the action of extremely large, heterogenous groups with conflicting interests.
The military in particular!
I’m not nearly as well informed, read, or educated as most of these other people but I would like you to pose a question to you. What has the government effectively done about the ozone hole? Sure they banned CFC’s but as with all governments “reforms” (labor reform is a good example) they tend to catch on as/ because the people(the market) is catching on.
If a person dumps their trash on your lawn its a crime, in essence they are polluting your lawn. pollution is just another form of trash so when ever industrial/residential pollution is discovered it should be treated as a crime for damaging the property of someone(or everyone in the case of ozone damaging pollution) so if charges were brought against them to assess and pay damages they would probably find a more eco friendly therefore financially friendly way of doing their business.
Any area where the government is a monopoly makes government intervention in that area absolutely necessary, particularly the production of security. However, that doesn’t justify the monopoly.
Im not really informed on the whats and how’s about military pollution. is it just bomb ranges and exploding ordinance not being good for the environment or what. Ive heard a little about how the military sold a practice range and the exploding shells caused the ground the be poisonous or something. If so its the fault of whoever was dumb enough to buy the land after them and since they are not trying to make money or pollute by skipping corners to cut costs and they are just trying to train to be able to protect us should we really be so eager to sue? I might be quilty of moral relitivism but its just a thought.
I agree. I work for the Coast Guard and our unit does pollution response on the inland rivers of Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. Since the government claims ownership of the rivers they would likely be a disaster (even more polluted than they already are) if the government didn’t do something to mitigate or prevent pollution. However, if the rivers could be owned privately I think they would be in far better shape than they are now. The Coast Guard doesn’t have the resources or the incentive to keep the rivers as clean as private property owners would.
*guilty
If, on a stateless planet, pollutants are damaging the ozone layer such that higher incidents of cancer arise, would the planetary inhabitants pollute away until cancer ate up the entire population? I doubt that. I think as awareness grew of the problem, cultural values would grow against the use of the pollutants and greatly limit the use non-coercively via societal norms.
Are you quite sure it’s a problem? It’s recently been shrinking as much as 30 percent by some estimates.
The reason I ask is because I pretty much eviscerated the claim that “the free market” put lead in gasoline, and I don’t have the time to tilt at straw-men forever. My presumption (call it an educated guess) is that if we did any serious research on this matter, we’d find a similar pattern of abuse.