If someone decides to build a nuclear power plant next to my neighborhood, do I have the right to see whether this plant took care of major safety issues? I think I do have this right, because no one would want to live next to a nuclear power plant without knowing that certain safety precautions were taken. Otherwise you just don’t know who is the crazy person who built the nuclear plant. Maybe he doesn’t care about punishments and things like that, maybe he just wants to make a quick buck and disappear living your house with dangerous levels of radiation. I think the mere ownership of things like nuclear bombs or nuclear power plants already poses certain threat, so it should be illegal to own these things without permission from the people who can be potentially affected by it.
Just as a point of order, no nuclear plant in history has ever generated a quick buck for its owners/investors.
Building a nuclear power plant is approximately the last thing one would ever do if one wanted to make a quick buck and disappear.
Something like OP suggests might happen if there were no states, even though it may violate someone’s idea of the NAP or whatever.
First, about nukes I’d be very, very careful. I’m certain that no an-cap society would survive for long, at least during its first couple of generations, without nukes being widespread. I’ll even take the potential occasional massacre over the countless civil wars that could arise with no nukes.
The point about nuclear power plants is valid, but so is the point for hydroelectric dams, which are far more dangerous, airports, petrochemical facilities and so forth. I guess the arbitration market will find a universal solution, not make up a specific rule for nuclear plant. Perhaps some arrangement ala Rothbard, with the plant purchasing rights to pollute form all existing property holders preemptively could be made.
It will be difficult if not impossible for a nuclear plant, or any other potentially dangerous facility to get permission from ALL people in some radius. I’m pretty sure there is a constant percentage of stubborn people who can’t be bought off.
Then (in the most extreme case) nuclear power plants won’t be built. What’s your point?
Insurance companies would take care of that. I highly doubt any insurance company would insure a nuclear plant in a very populated area.
Apropos to this, the insurance company would likely require that the owner(s) of the nuclear plant purchase a large area of land to surround the plant. But strictly speaking, they wouldn’t be forced to purchase any insurance. If they don’t, then they bear the full liability themselves for any damages resulting from accidents or negligence.
However, what people like Eugene seem to actually be most concerned with is preventing harm from ever happening in the first place. To them, it’s not enough that the harm can be insured against or otherwise mitigated - they want a guarantee against harm. This is impossible, of course, and the sooner they realize it, the better for all of us.
Yeah well, if a nuclear plant will be built next to your neighborhood and the price of your house will fall down to 10% of its original value, we’ll see you talking then.
Oh dear, did I strike a nerve? I hate when I do that…
If you expect your post to shut me up, you are entirely wrong. As you can see, I’m still here.
Now then, to your point (such as it is). I’m not entitled to any particular sale price for my house. Therefore, that price falling down to 10% of its original value does not constitute harm done to me. So if I responded to such an unfortunate situation by employing coercion against the owners of the nuclear plant, I’m the aggressor, not them.
Clearly the the danger of one of these facilities is vastly greater than what the government reports. In a free society the company would never be able to insure such a facility and would therefore always lose when you would take the company to arbitration. The whole nuclear energy industry exists due to govenrment fiat. It has given the operators freedom from liability in operating these facilities and repairing any damage they do.
Let me rephrase, The industry could not exist in the first place. No board of directors would risk money when there was a such a huge and likely loss. So it would never get that far.
Its much, much worse with hydro dams. What about those? Do they exist due to government fiat?
Think about what would happen if one of these plants in Indiana had the same problems as the one in Japan? How can you as a company justify to share holders the danger when there are better alternatives that do not spread clouds of radioactive material over the countryside? I have heard of dams breaking that kill thousands and chemical plants that spill stuff that kills thousands but this could make millions sick.
Let me give an example: 50 miles from where I live there a big dam build in the ’70. Now it has been build well, allegedly to withstand a one-in-a-thousand-years flood event, but it is a commie Chinese dam so I would not take that for granted. Now, not even 5 miles from the dam there’s a city. I can assure you that if that thing ever breaks, half a million people die in ten minutes, just like that. Try to find me a nuclear plant anywhere on earth that could do that. So, its not just about nuclear plant.
When someone introduces a property that has some chance to destroy your property, he has to get your permission first. Let’s say that someone builds a military base next your home, and statistically there is a chance of 1 to 10000 that an enemy will blow up the base and destroy all the houses next to it, including yours. Obviously you are negatively affected by the construction of this base. I don’t think it should be permissible to introduce a dangerous property without getting the permission of people whose property is likely to affected.
I relay don’t think that would become accepted standard in the arbitration market. I don’t believe anyone could do anything to the guy who wants to build a plant anywhere, be it in the middle of a city. Now, one can always boycott him to within an inch of his financial life, and with no contractors he can’t build the thing. But other than this, I don’t think forcing him not to build because something could happen would not even be up to the standard of English common law (no one can be convicted of somhting he did nto do), let alone a full libertarian standard.
I’d even go further and state that the owners of the Fukushima plant would have paid nothing in a free society: it’s not their fault that the plant leaked, but of the earthquake. Punishing them would be like punishing me because a tornado eradicated my house which than landed on some guy.
I’m gonna plant olive trees to make a quick buck and disappear…
So are you perectly okay with me having nuclear missiles in my garage? What about hanging dynamites from my house? What about owning a piece of equipment that if triggered can destroy the entire universe?
I agree with Eugene. There has to be a limit on the freedom to own extremely dangerous things, otherwise the glorious Libertarian utopia would destroy itself very quickly, given that accidents happen and people do not always follow the NAP.
(How do you punish the man who just destroyed the universe ?)