While panelist from The Onion debate this issue, deleterious economic policies in the real world can have a profound impact on the growth, stagnation and decline of wealth and well-being.
For instance, Mugabe has single handedly set Zimbabwe’s standard of living back to pre-Industrialized levels. (1 2)
Furthermore, strict adherence to legislation like the Kyoto Protocol would stymie the growth of Western economies and curtail growth in many developing countries; preventing them from lifting themselves out of subsistent lifestyles. (1 2 3)
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Ironically, Tim, you’ve got the fundamental economic comparison reversed (except for possible rent-seeking).
Zimbabwe and Mugabe is clearly about the a group of individuals – Mugabe and his co-thugs – turning private property into a commons (widespread theft). On the other hand, at least in concept, dealing with AGW is of a class with other cases where man has attempted to better manage a common resource by either privatizing it or by privatizing externalities that affect the resourse.
The big wrinkle, of course, is that since the atmosphere is a global commons, a global negotiation necessarily involving governments must be conducted before the commons can be fully enclosed.
Miseseans ought to be able to recognize that private and common/customary property rights and other institutions evolve in the face of changing economic circumstances in order to put an end to “tragedy of the commons”-type problems. The question posed for Miseseans is whether the recognition of externalities must always be accompanied by an adamant refusal to make any use of the state in the face of problems relating to open-access resources.
What would Mises himself say? http://mises.org/humanaction/chap23sec6.asp
“The laws concerning liability and indemnification for damages caused were and still are in some respects deficient. By and large the principle is accepted that everybody is liable to damages which his actions have inflicted upon other people. But there were loopholes left which the legislators were slow to fill. In some cases this tardiness was intentional because the imperfections agreed with the plans of the authorities. When in the past in many countries the owners of factories and railroads were not held liable for the damages which the conduct of their enterprises inflicted on the property and health of neighbors, patrons, employees, and other people through smoke, soot, noise, water pollution, and accidents caused by defective or inappropriate equipment, the idea was that one should not undermine the progress of industrialization and the development of transportation facilities. The same doctrines which prompted and still are prompting many governments to encourage investment in factories and railroads through subsidies, tax exemption, tariffs, and cheap credit were at work in the emergence of a legal state of affairs in which the liability of such enterprises was either formally or practically abated.â€
“Whether the proprietor’s relief from responsibility for some of the disadvantages resulting from his conduct of affairs is the outcome of a deliberate policy on the part of governments and legislators or whether it is an unintentional effect of the traditional working of laws, it is at any rate a datum which the actors must take into account. They are faced with the problem of external costs. Then some people choose certain modes of want-satisfaction merely on account of the fact that a part of the costs incurred are debited not to them but to other people.
“The extreme instance is provided by the case of no-man’s property referred to above. If land is not owned by anybody, although legal formalism may call it public property, it is utilized without any regard to the disadvantages resulting. Those who are in a position to appropriate to themselves the returns–lumber and game of the forests, fish of the water areas, and mineral deposits of the subsoil–do not bother about the later effects of their mode of exploitation. For them the erosion of the soil, the depletion of the exhaustible resources and other impairments of the future utilization are external costs not entering into their calculation of input and output. They cut down the trees without any regard for fresh shoots or reforestation. In hunting and fishing they do not shrink from methods preventing the repopulation of the hunting and fishing grounds. In the early days of human civilization, when soil of a quality not inferior to that of the utilized pieces was still abundant, people did not find any fault with such predatory methods. When their effects appeared in a decrease in the net returns, the ploughman abandoned his farm and moved to another place. It was only when a country was more densely settled and unoccupied first class land was no longer available for appropriation, that people began to consider such predatory methods wasteful. At that time they consolidated the institution of private property in land.â€
It sounds that he would, at least, give the matter sympathetic consideration.
Regards,
TT
Why can’t people see that every Statist maneuver to reset society to a simpler, quainter existence has cost millions of lives? The Russians set about creating the workers’ paradise, the Chinese Revolution under Mao. For that matter the “go West young man” expansion into the West had its dues.
And when the efforts to do so were grassroots, they failed over time and the “communes” disbursed (which at least was voluntary so the entrance into and the exit from were fluid).
The current society leaves a lot to be desired (too influenced by Statist forces) but some notion of returning to some simpler time just never has worked. The best people can hope for is to be free from coercion. There’s no other guarantee that what results will be pleasant, individual by individual. If you’re unhappy, exercise your freedom and adjust what doesn’t work for you. If you want to join some “common equity” group, go right on ahead. Prospects are dim of long term success. By no means turn your dislike for society into an excuse to coerce others.
I don’t get the part where ‘simpler, gentler ways’ automatically implies Communism. I remember a certain fellow who said that ‘if you want to return to the simpler, gentler ways of the Libertarian-ish late 1700s and early 1800s then you’d also have to go back to the technology and population level of those times. After wouldn’t a starry-eyed Libertarian prefer to live in the 1700s if paramount freedom is being self-employed and self-reliant is more important than modern living with its ‘Statist’ trappings?
Reference to communism was just the two modern versions that came to mind. Two milennia ago there was a mass movement toward hermiticism, to get close to God (and, of course, several versions since then). The common theme is a Romanticism. Some manifestations have been voluntary, some coerced.
I have detected that some libertarians themselves have a Romantic origin for their philosophy (I particularly don’t). I can’t say that I am on the same bench as they are, but at least in the same part of the theater.
The key, as I hoped to be the main concept of my previous comment, is to use as little coercion as possible. My libertarianism derives from that protocol exclusively. Whatever happens after, happens. There are no guarantees. I don’t have a Romantic notion of returning to a Golden Age, or making a Heaven on Earth off in the future. My one belief is that society, culture, and the market are all summations of individual action that is near chaos. It takes a Romantic to even surmise that any part can be measured and understood much less controlled (especially obliquely).
There are those who want to push progress. Those who want to push regression. Those who want the status quo maintained. All will use Force to make it so. And that is what is wrong. The misery stems from forcing people to do as they otherwise would so that the fabric of culture is ruptured.
All good points Brad.
We do not need to look BACK to a simpler time. Those who wish it can instead look FORWARD to a simpler time… when a life free from coercion means more hours spent in leisure, and less spent maneuvering to dominate your fellow man before he dominates you.
It is not romanticism to see that the means available today would yield far greater rewards, if you were allowed to use them toward your own ends, instead of the ends coerced by others.
And if your preferred ends actually are romanticism, then you’re still in luck – because where there is a demand, almost certainly the market will provide.
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