According to the Guardian, a new plan is being proposed that would tax individuals based upon their carbon emissions and use of non-renewable resources.
While I remain agnostic in this contentious debate (for similar reasons that BK Marcus notes), this policy has the potential to stymie economic and technological development. If holding individuals accountable for the pollution they cause is truly the goal in mind, why not use a propertarian-based approach?
Imagine if Monty Python’s King Arthur had gallivanted across the country side, taxing filth in the same manner that New Labour would like to. Would the conditions that preceded the Industrial Revolution ever have occurred? Would it be possible to move beyond a short and brutish Hobbesian life?
See this YouTube clip for The Holy Grail reference.
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Well said.
And I particularly like that segment of The Holy Grail. It’s so tongue-in-cheek yet so… not.
“Help! I’m being repressed! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!”
I find that quote to be one of the best movie quotes of all time.
Making people pay for their externalities will result in a more efficient (but less libertarian) economy.
Although with fossil fuels I am certain that people are overestimating some of the externalities, which makes environmentalists much like anarcho-capitalists because both groups bias their estimation of externalities in favor of their own position.
Is time to revolt yet?
Half Sigma,
Our economy does not become more efficient by giving money to the government.
Here’s a very good read on “externalities”:
http://mises.org/asc/2003/asc9simpson.pdf
Making people pay for their externalities will result in a more efficient (but less libertarian) economy.
In order to speak about “efficiency”, there must be a benchmark to make the comparison and obtain the level of efficiency. What would you use as the benchmark, being the economy a very complex animal?
“Efficiency” is thus a meaningless buzz word. What the tax would create is another opportunity for bureaucrats to extort people out of their income, and that is it.
Why not simply revive property rights re pollution, and give that a twirl? Because industry and government will see their direct pollution liability skyrocket, that’s why.
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