Natural Resource Use/Conservation - Austrian Literature Suggestion

Economics Economics Questions
1

Hello, LvMI Community!

I am preparing a monograph for the conclusion of my Undergrad Economics course, and I am planning to write about natural resource use and conservation, adopting the Austrian school’s approach.

Basically, I would like to show that a free market does not cause resource’s irrational degradation and shortage, like most of the people believe.

I would like to ask you for suggestions of texts (articles, books, everything) of Austrian authors that can help me in my research. I appreciate very much your help; it would be an immense one! :slight_smile:

I believe that I gathered a good quantity of texts, but I still feel that I need more. I’ll try to list them here, so you can recommend things that I don’t have.

(I got all of them here, at mises.org). I’ll write it in smaller format, to save space.

  • Can Market Forces Solve Environmental Problems_ Neoclassical vs. Austrian Analytics - Sebastian Storfner
  • Conservation, X-Inefficiency and Efficient Use of Natural Resources - E. C. Pastour, Jr.
  • Economic Theory of ‘Sustainability’_ Its Foundational Errors and an Inquiry into Its Valid Principles - John Brätland
  • Environmentalism and Economic Freedom_ The Case for Private Property Rights - Walter Block
  • Environmentalism in the Light of Menger and Mises - George Reisman
  • Environmentalism Without Government - Tibor R. Machan
  • Ethics, Efficiency, Coasian Property Rights, and Psychic Income_ A Reply to Demsetz - Walter Block
  • Externalities, Conflict, and Offshore Lands_ Resolution Through the Institutions of Private Property - John Brätland
  • Government Land Grab - Christopher Mayer
  • Human Action and Socially-Optimal Conservation_ A Misesian Inquiry into the Hotelling Principle - John Brätland
  • If You Love Nature, Desocialize It - Manuel Lora
  • Land-Use Planning_ Implications of the Economic Calculation Debate - E. C. Pasour, Jr.
  • Liberty, Markets, and Environmental Values_ A Hayekian Defense of Free-Market Environmentalism
  • On Method and Ethics in Rawlsian Investment Rules Designed to Achieve ‘Intergenerational Equity’ - John Brätland
  • On Societal Ascendance and Collapse_ An Austrian Challenge to Jared Diamond’s Explications - John Brätland
  • On the Impossibility of ‘Just Compensation’ When Property is Taken_ An Ethical and Epistemic Inquiry - John Brätland
  • Resource Exhaustibility_ A Mythology Refuted in Enterpreneurial Capital Maintenance - John Brätland
  • Some Comments on the Rethoric of the Environmental Movement - Ronald Hamowy
  • Speculative Imperatives in the Economic Conservation of Petroleum and the Abortive Institutions of Petroleum Exploitation - John Brätland
  • The Intergenerational Invisible Hand_ A Comment on Sartoriu’s Government Regulation and Intergenerational Justice - Arthur M. Diamind, Jr.
  • The Rhetoric of the Environmental Movement - Ronald Hamowy
  • Toward a Calculational Theory and Policy of Intergenerational Sustainability - John Brätland
  • Toward an Austrian Theory of Environmental Economics - Roy Cordato
  • Value and the Environment - Stephen P. Halbrook
  • What Are Just Prices_ - Jeffrey A. Tucker
  • What Evangelical Environmentalists Do Not Know About Economics - Timothy D. Terrell
  • Will Conservation Save Us_ - William L. Anderson

I also believe that Hayek’s articles on Knowledge could be helpful (Economics and Knowledge, The Use of Knowledge in Society and The Pretense of Knowledge).

I also found some interesting things in some chapters of Rothbard’s books (Egalitarianism… [chapt "Conservation in a Free Market], Power and Market [“Conservation Laws” part] and For a New Liberty [chapt “Conservation, Ecology and Growth”]).

I am planning to read chapter 3 (Natural Resources and the Environment) of “Capitalism”, by George Reisman. Is it good? I also ordered Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty” to read chapter 23, “Agriculture and Natural Resources” (indeed, of course, to read the whole book).

Oh. I also ordered Walter Block’s “Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation”.

Well, I think that’s all.

In advance, I thank you very much for your help.

2

The Institution of Property by David Schmidtz ?

3

Thank you, nirgrahamUK.

I just downloaded the article and I will read it. However, I read a little about David Schmidtz and I found that he is not exactly an “Austrian” thinker. I am right?

4

Healing Our World by Mary Ruwart, available on line.

5

Read any thing that mentions the concept of “the tragedy of the commons”. That is a (if not the) central issue.

6

Rothbard’s lecture on conservation is also accessible on the Mises Institute Media page. He goes into the nature of how the price mechanism itself enforces a conservation effort without additional legal institutions (EPA and etc).

7

I took a Enviromental Economics class taught by Walter Block. He used “Free Market Environmentalism” by Terry Lee Anderson, Donald Leal as one of the main texts for the class.

I found it to be pretty good, you can read it online here.

8

Please, point out to your class that we live in a mercantalism economy, not a free-market capitalist economy. Besides that, I think Professor Walter E. Block has written a lot about this subject.

9

“Resourceship” by Robert Bradley. He puts forward a subjectivist, dynamic, functional theory of mineral resources, as opposed to the objective, static, aggregative neoclassical theory. This is a groundbreaking work.

10

First, thanks for your answers, everybody. :slight_smile:

Bogart, I found the “Healing Our World” eBook. I’ll check it out. Thanks.

I also already read “Free Market Environmentalism” and lots of things about the tradgedy of the commons.

What I am really loking for (sorry, I think I didn’t make it clear in the first place) is something based on the Austrian School’s methodology. Rothbard’s lecture available in the Media page is the kind of thing that I am looking for – thanks, ladyattis.

John Brätland’s article “Toward a Calculational Theory and Policy of Intergenerational Sustainability” is another good one. He applies the praxeological concepts of human action, calculation, time preference and others to explain the behavior of the resource owner.

Does anyone know any other stuff similar?

11

Sure! It’s funny how people say that we live in a “free market”, and all flaws are blamed on it.

That’s it! Very good. Thank you very much!

12

Also check out Part III of his book “Capitalism at Work.”

Let me know how your paper turns out. I’ve also got a resource economics paper I’m working on.

13

Wow! More, more, more! Hahahaha. (Any more?) Thank you! :slight_smile:

Sure! I’ll deliver it by the end of this year.
It will be in portuguese (I’m from Brazil). But I think I’ll translate to english, anyway.

14

Here is an outline for the lecture:

Okay, students, where in this (see above) do you see state interference? (pause) nowhere.

Now, does our economic system look anything like this (see below)?

15

Where’d you order this book from? I tried getting it but I thought it was out of print?

16

Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation by Walter Block needs to be pdf’d and re-sold at Mises Store, ASAP.

New edition with global warming etc.

17

Hahahaha. Yeah. Very interesting. I’ll think about it. Thanks.

I bought it used in Amazon. Today they have 2 new ($64.35) and 6 used (from $14.99)

18

[:$]

19

Yeh, word up. Let’s bring Block’s book back! It goes well with this Youtube interview about the book.

20

I’m now writing a paper from an environmental LAW (rather than economics) perspective. Any ideas for possible (revisionist history?) type topics