Look at beautiful Angel Falls at my avatar. They are likely to remain so, pristine, because they are part of the National Park System. I do not think anyone would like them to become privatized. National Parks and their conservation seem to be among the few successes of governments, even though many flaws in their administration have been pointed out by environmentalists, economists and the public alike. Actually the private sector always ensures great advertising when sponsoring conservation projects in these protected areas.
I want to see all “Public” land privatized. Then the rightful owners would have every incentive to maintain the parts that are most appealing to customers, in this case tourists. Furthermore, private owners would charge for the experience of the property in line with other activities instead of having bureaucrats deciding the correct price. There would be no extravagant expenses or restrictions on hunting or other activities as well under private ownership as the owners would grant folks permission to do these activities.
You seem to care about them, so you would certainly be in favor of owning them. Then the Federal Government could no longer threaten to destroy them.
I thought that so called national parks were actually unowned property usurped by government ?
???
Ruben, what does the ‘MVP’ under your avatar mean??
I don’t know, Matthew, I just uploaded the image of the Churún Merú (Angel) Falls.
Can I have something that says “King of the Forums”?
Rich individuals, or communities that pool their resources together, can choose to buy up land and not develop it, and just maintain it. This is already being done by people who care about the environment and realize that the government isnt doing anything productive.
The interesting part is that the land is pretty much a liability not an asset, the owner will have to have all sorts of worries about fire hazard, polllution, etc but the only real value they gain from it is subjective (no revenue) though it will have large externalities. Its still the only efficient way to get this done.
How much do i pay now to maintain all these commonly owned parks ? I’de prefer all that money back and be allowed to chose which park to enter via some toll.
I cringe every time I hear someone mention “buying” land to not develop it.
Why should someone buy it up if its government property? The government has no right to land.
Similarly, even though many parks are worth more whole than sliced up, I’m sure that that’s not true in all cases. Is there any theory on what to do when farming interests intefere with asethetic interests for established parks?
If there was a fair way to privatize national parks I might support the idea. However it seems to me that government would bid the land to their supporters, to those who lobby the most, to thee voters of the party in power, etc., so the allocation would not be made in a fair or competitive or reasonable manner.
That doesn’t matter, whoever the new owner would be would now pay market costs to own the park and would act responsibly.
There is absolutely no guarantee that the new owner will pay market costs to the government to own the land. Instead, the government, being as corrupt as we know it is, will most likely under-invoice the land to its favorite bidder. Such favored bidder, as an act of thanks, will provide a nominal commission to the corrupt official under the table. No records for the transaction to be accounted for the benefit of the country’s GNP.
In countries where the rule of law is weak, where poverty makes a great percentage of the population and where the political system tends towards socialism and communism, --and still such transfers of land do happen, because socialism nowadays is concerned about state ownership of business, not state ownership of land— there is no incentive to act responsibly for the environment.
I can supply a list of several examples where the current Venezuelan socialist government has been lax in enforcing the previous standards for maintaining the previous environmental excellency of national parks. Many parks are now being little by little invaded for subsistence logging, mercury poisoning gold mining, by a small minority of revolutionaries with the complacency of the government, and under the disagreement of the rest of the population.
A property owner pays the market cost of owning his property to the market, not the government.
The government can’t sell the parks because the government does not own them.
It doesn’t have to sell them. All it does is to grant official titles of property, notarized and sealed. If the government doesn’t like the owner of a particular plot of land, with the help of the military, it just performs expropriations with the help of the public forces. and reassigns that land to a commune or cooperative.
I have seen many productive dairy farms transformed into wastelands through this process.
Im not saying that the government sells them necessarily.
Juan is just being a puritanical agorist. It’s not selling per se that he has a problem with, but rather having the state do anything at all, including dismantlement and abdication.
This is why it’s important to have an economic theory of liberation, to see why rewarding those who possess the power to transfer property from the state to private hands can only move liberty forward.