Carbophobic socialism rules OK!
Unsurprisingly, the latest missive from the Doomsday cult of tax-exempt Phyllakes plays up the supposed horrors of ‘climate change’ for all it’s worth, before strongly recommending that we ‘Rich’ people bear most of the costs of their megalomania, neatly employing a weepy-eyed catchphrase - ‘Human Solidarity in a Divided World’ – which they know will appeal to anti-capitalist journos, to the MTV generation muddle-heads, the celebrity serial child-adopters, and the billionaire rock-star income-levellers among us.
Most risibly of all, the piece tries to sweeten the pill (for political entrepreneurs among the carbon trading and subsidised energy crowd, at least) with an appeal to the putative “Keynesian and Schumpeterian mechanisms” which, we are told, promise “new incentives for massive investment, stimulating overall demand and creative destruction leading to innovation and productivity jumps in a wide array of sectors [sic]…”
In a previous post to the mail list, I pointed out that this latter is a key part of the spurious economic justification being advanced for ‘taking action now’. The specious idea is that, in the struggle to overcome the artificial barriers erected by the Ultraviridians to human endeavour, we will all thrive simply as a result of trying to restore our living standards to the level they were at before the Planners imperiously reduced them – it’s as if the 100m sprint could be improved by shackling the contestants’ legs together before the off!
Al Gore, Vinod Khosla, and the biofuel bandits might reap enormous rents out of this – and, of course, an army of bureaucrats will find employment for life, monitoring compliance and distributing doles - but the rest of us are likely to rue the day we ever allowed the Five Star Fabians to conflate being kind to cuddly animals with their Collectivist wish to restrict individual freedoms and to trample on property rights.
Comments (63)
TokyoTom
Sean, thanks for drawing our attention to this. Those who haven't time to read the full UNDP report might find this AP reporting to be useful:
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Nov27/0,4670,UNClimateChange,00.html. The lede? "Helping the world's poor adapt to more floods, droughts and other changes from a warming planet will cost the richest nations at least $86 billion a year by 2015, an expert panel warned Tuesday."
Well, I'm with you Sean - I certainly don't want to hear estimates about how much it will cost to deal with a developing "problem" that, besides simply being a figment of the imagination of rent-seekers like Gore, rich busybodies who pretend to care about the planet and bureaucrats (small typo in your phylates, Sean), is SOMEWHERE else.
Yeah, I know that "somewhere else" is a place that is underdeveloped because they've been run by corrupt tribal kleptocrats more interested in using the "state" to line their own pockets with "public" assets confiscated from others, and who oppress other tribes and anyone who might challenge their power, that people live in misery because they have limited liberty and property rights, that the lack of clear property rights both hobbles development and accelerates the destruction of "common" resources, and that Western governments and corporations are complicit in much of this -- but I don't care. As Dr. Reisman has said previously, those poor people who can trouble themselve to rise up from under their oppression are responsible for their own mess.
I certainly have no interest in hearing any claim that either equity (that the GHG emissions of the people/corporations of wealthy nations is responsible for warming that adversely adffects others) or pragmatic self-interest (keeping hordes of desperate people at bay, minimizing instability, etc.) might justify any prohylactic expense to help other people adapt to the so-called "problem". Lomborg can leap, I say!
Those people will adapt or they won't, and why should I support throwing good money after bad - at least unless or until they've managed to successfully sue me in a court whose jurisdiction I recognize? Let those whose bleeding heart busybodies whose preferences lead them to care about such messes put their money where their mouth is by stepping up and make voluntary contributions - and let them accept a lower standard of living if it makes them happy.
And hey, if worse comes to worse, and things to fall apart over there, well that's just the breaks. If they all want to come here in a few decades, I'm sure my children won't mind!
I'm with you Sean - there is never a good justification for planning now for what may be coming down the pike, particularly if that means accepting changes that price economic practices that until now have been free. I am firmly in favor of defending whatever externalities I receive that benefit MY standard of living. Others and the "future"? Feh.
Published: November 28, 2007 8:02 AM
ghuoof
you are a poet
Published: November 28, 2007 10:15 AM
Brent
Breathe, Tom.
Published: November 28, 2007 11:24 AM
Anthony
I am not sure which is funnier, Sean or Tom's post.
Published: November 28, 2007 11:43 AM
Larry N. Martin
And just which Keynesian or Schumpeterian mechanisms would you prefer, Tom? You seem to be supportive of Austrian economics, yet you also seem to want national governments to take action. Isn't that a contradiction?
Published: November 28, 2007 11:46 AM
Anthony
BTW, I wonder what Schumpeter would think of these guys using his works to justify their schemes...
Published: November 28, 2007 12:00 PM
Warfare
Right in the middle of that report is this gem of a quote.
"We are not too pessimistic. In the fight
against the much higher inflation rates of the
distant past, democracies did come up with the
institutions such as more autonomous central
banks and policy pre-commitments that allowed
much lower inflation to be achieved despite
the short term temptations of resorting to
the printing press. The same has to happen with
climate and the environment: societies will have
to pre-commit and forego short-term gratification
for longer-term well being."
Published: November 28, 2007 1:19 PM
Warfare
I actually meant to write in the middle of the forward for that report.
Published: November 28, 2007 1:21 PM
Fundamentalist
Warfare, That quote from the report is a gem! Thanks! Just more evidence of how ignorant these people are.
Published: November 28, 2007 3:55 PM
Fundamentalist
"The specious idea is that...we will all thrive simply as a result of trying to restore our living standards to the level they were at before the Planners imperiously reduced them..."
Excellent point! It's the broken window fallacy all over again. Hazlett must be rolling in his grave.
Published: November 28, 2007 3:59 PM
corrigan
To underline how this false reasoning works in practice, here is something I shared with the Mises mailgroup earlier:-
I just sat thru a lecture by Richard Sandor - the 'father of interest futures' whose new project is - guess what? - a 'climate exchange' in Chicago!
He was explicit about using CO2 as a way of pricing air and stirred up his audience of rich guys-with-a-conscience (a category which does NOT include me on at least one count!) with the prospect of doing good while 'creating wealth' (sic) by having 'commoditized this public good'
Not seeing the irony in the conflict of interest involved, he was pleased to inform us that Blood & Gore (yes, that one) were early investors in the exchange.
He finished off with a cute, but very misleading, little story about how he challenges climate 'skeptics' to say what chance they attribute to AGW being real...
He starts with 80%: they say, No!
He goes down to 50%: they say No!
He goes on down until, at around a 15% probability 'most of them' say, Well, Ok, I guess...
He then says, Right why don't you get to the point. Go out and buy a hand gun. Put one round in the chamber, spin it, point it at the head of your first born, then pull the trigger....
The audience gasped, laughed, and shook their heads, knowingly ...
I later explained to a group of that audience around a dinner table just how specious I thought the analogy was.
I said 'creating wealth' by having an abitrary and tradable threshold tax imposed by the hardly impartial State on a previously free activity was akin to rationing people's use of their right arm. Lefties get an unmerited transfer payment and entrepreneurs and inventors waste their time and capital coming up with ways for you to brush your teeth cack-handed.
As for the cute little Deer hunter analogy, I pointed out that (a) it failed because the consequences of AGW - even assuming you had estimated its odds correctly - are in no way guaranteed to exact the dreadful penalty of the death of your first born and (b) that Mr Economic Genius had neglected the opportunity cost involved. I suggested that by paying to avoid having to play Russian roulette (which was what he was really asking you to do), you might have had to miss out on your kid's regular medical exam and hence the chance of catching some genuinely life-threatening disease at an early enough stage fro it to be treatable.
Most of those who listened to this reasoning agreed, but sadly, the damage for the majority was done.
Published: November 28, 2007 4:26 PM
fundamentalist
Corrigan, Interesting story, though sad. Thanks for sharing it.
I'm often reminded of a passage in the Old Testament that says when God wanted to punish Israel, he put "silly young men" in positions of power.
Published: November 28, 2007 7:19 PM
Peter
What is "Phyllakes"? (The only reference to that word Google finds is another mises.org article by the same author, where he implies it's a Greek plural, and opposed to "hoi polloi"; "phylakes" looks like the plural of "phylax" (guard; astiphylax=city-guard="police"), but the capitalization and opposition to polloi makes me think not. TT above apparently thinks it's supposed to be "phylates", so "tribesmen"? But that doesn't make sense either)
Published: November 28, 2007 8:39 PM
Anthony
Might it be this?
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-457008/phlyax-play
IIRC, the spelling should indeed be phylakes if it is referring to the plural of phylax.
Published: November 28, 2007 9:08 PM
TokyoTom
Peter, I believe that Sean meant to refer to the "Hoi Phylakes" or the Guardians/ruling class that Plato describes in his ideal Republic:
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V3N5/owens.html
My typo is just a small demonstration of how when we point out mistakes of others we overlook our own.
Published: November 28, 2007 9:23 PM
Anthony
Ah, the Custodians? Makes much more sense then.
Published: November 28, 2007 10:26 PM
TLWP Sam
This article is a good reminder as to why prevention is relatively pointless unless you were very very sure the preventative measures really really would prevent that which you don't want to have happen.
Published: November 28, 2007 11:18 PM
TokyoTom
Sean's suggestion that all "free economic activities" should remain free is the classic argument of someone who wants to keep using resources he doesn't own, and shifting costs to others.
Guys like Sean were saying exactly the same things forty years ago with respect to rampant ground, air and water pollution.
I certainly advocate a shift to greater reliance on property rights and less regulation/bureaucracy now, but just look how efforts in the West to deal with pollution have impoverished us!
It seems you would have us deny (i) the fundamental insight of Cordato and others that "by placing environmental problems within the context of personal and interpersonal plan formulation, we discover that they are not about the environment per se but about the resolution of human conflict", http://mises.org/daily/1760, (ii) Yandle's insight that man's triumph over nature lies in our ability to coordinate/cooperate to devise and adopt ways to manage problems relating to open-access resources/commons, http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4064, and (iii) the corollary principle, readily observed in practice, that closing an open-access commons and privatizing or otherwise managing it through private law/common property rules or regulation enables the creation of wealth by ending the tragedy of the commons and enabling private parties to engage in transactions that reflect their differing preferences.
Au contraire to you and other Fundamentalists, the wealth generated by investments and behavior changes once externalities begin to be internalized is real, and not an illusory "broken-window" fallacy. The illusion, if any exists, lies in the fantasy that the free use of a resource that generates externalities is a "wealth-generating" practice that is essential to both the economy and the principles of liberty, rather than a wealth transfer from the schmoes who get stuck with the costs.
In cases that we have managed to privatize commons and reduced externalities are we better off for having done so, Sean?
Issues relating the atmosphere and oceans differ in scale, but not in type, from simpler matters like cattlemen first closing a range to outsiders and devising common rules/shared practices, and later fully privatizing it as technology enables them to do so. Granted, there are real costs to taking actions to regulate open-access resources, chiefly the information and transaction costs of reaching shared assessments of the status of the resource, reaching agreement on rules, policing them to maximize effectiveness, and of free riders and rent-seekers - problems that Mises himself recognized here: http://mises.org/humanaction/chap23sec6.asp
But the costs of delay or failure in surmounting such difficulties is just as real, can be seen in history and stare us in the face on various levels, including globally and regionally in the case of the atmosphere and oceans.
Miseseans may not like acknowledging these classes of problems, but ignoring them will hardly make them go away (much magically produce solutions).
But Miseseans, if they prefer not to contribute to the solutions of such problems, can of course turn their backs on puzzling through the throught the application of the insights of Yandle, Cordato and Mises and instead concentrate on the vibe of guys like Sean, who generate strong denial or "Somebody Else's Problem" fields, which helpfully ease cognitive dissonance by making things disappear (by amplifying "people's natural disposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting or can't explain" (Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)).
PS. There are some libertarians who have a different take, like Ron Bailey of Reason - http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/17/reason-congratulations-to-al-gore.aspx, Jon Adler at Volokh - http://www.volokh.com/posts/1177606109.shtml and policy analyst Indur Goklany - http://members.cox.net/igoklany/#cc. And here's something that I disagree with by Gene Callahan: "How a Free Society Could Solve Global Warming", in the October 2007 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, at the website of The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE): http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=8150.
Not for the faint of heart, I'm afraid.
Published: November 28, 2007 11:18 PM
Geoffrey Allan Plauche
Ron Bailey of Reason is a statist "libertarian".
It's funny that you keep citing Roy Cordato, Tom. Have you read his blog? I think he would disagree with you not only on the science of global warming but also on the politico-economic solutions to it.
http://www.environmentnc.com/
Published: November 28, 2007 11:33 PM
TokyoTom
TLWP Sam, sorry, but I disagree.
Mitigation and adaptation are two different things, and most analysts recognize that climate change is presently underway and that it is not remotely possible to even slow down the pace for some time.
So rather than at all being "a good reminder as to why prevention [mitigation] is relatively pointless unless you were very very sure the preventative measures really really would prevent that which you don't want to have happen", Sean's article is primarily a slick and self-serving dismissal of any claim that the Western economies that have benefitted the most from the use of fossil fuels and contributed most to ongoing climate change have any responsibility for compensating those who are expected to suffer the consequences of negative external effects.
- He does this first by a shell game where he pretends that that the possible consequences of climate change to be suffered by the poor in developing countries (which is the message of this UN report) are not and cannot be real, but are rathered the fevered imaginings of the "megalomania" of our "rulers" at the UN who have authored this report (ignoring the difference between such Praetorian bureaucrats and the directly internationally approved IPCC science reports).
- Next, Sean discards basic Austrian insights by denying that there is any wealth-creation to be gained from policies/institutional changes that reduce externalities.
- And finally, he helpfully distracts us from the vested interests who benefit most from the status quo (our ongoing tragedy of the commons) by (i) rattling the chains of various real and imagined evil rent-seekers, (ii) implicitly lumping into this group anyone who expresses a concern and (iii) skating past the unstated and unexamined premise that the economic/liberty losses from rent-seeking and administration must necessarily exceed the possible mutual gains to be achieved by investments in mitigating climate change and in minimizing the negative consequences of unavoidable climate change.
Sean doesn't care about Someboby Else's Problem, except to stir himself to mock it and to show it the door.
Published: November 29, 2007 12:04 AM
TokyoTom
Good questions, Larry.
I provided a number of thoughts on Sean's "Malthus and Mein Kampf" thread, some of which I excerpted here: http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/12/building-property-rights-for-common-resources.aspx.
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/17/fighting-over-the-wheel-of-government.aspx
Published: November 29, 2007 12:19 AM
TokyoTom
Geoffrey, thanks for Mr. Cordato may apply his principles differently than I would, but I don't think I've misquoted him.
Do you are to take a substantive position on either my comments or Sean Corrigan's, or his SEP generator too strong?
TT
Published: November 29, 2007 12:25 AM
TokyoTom
Post in haste, regret at leisure ...
I think my meaning is sufficiently clear not to trouble anyone with a revised version of that atrocity.
Which brings up a related thought - I rarely use preview because it doesn't really show me what my posts will actually look like (with paragraph breaks, links and other html formatting). Am I the only one who has that problem?
Published: November 29, 2007 12:45 AM
Anthony
Bah, my problem is that I'm not sure which html tags to use. The normal ones do not work for me.
Published: November 29, 2007 8:15 AM
Fundamentalist
Straw man alert!
TT writes: "Yeah, I know that "somewhere else" is a place that is underdeveloped ... but I don't care."
There is no way he could attribute that attitude to Sean from his article, unless he claims psychic powers. The straw man is TT's favorite attack. Next will come the ad hominem, then an appeal to authority.
Sean's point was that environmentalists are using scare tactics to promote socialism.
TT: "Sean's suggestion that all "free economic activities" should remain free is the classic argument of someone who wants to keep using resources he doesn't own, and shifting costs to others."
Another straw man. That is not what Sean wrote. Not even close. Sean thinks that global warming is not a problem for anyone, or at best, not a serious problem. Your criticisms assume that GW is a major problem for people in poor countries. It just ain't so.
TT: "Au contraire to you and other Fundamentalists, the wealth generated by investments and behavior changes once externalities begin to be internalized is real, and not an illusory "broken-window" fallacy."
You probably should re-read Hazlett's chapter on the broken window. The economic argument that "...stimulating overall demand and creative destruction leading to innovation and productivity jumps in a wide array of sectors..." is exactly the broken window fallacy.
TT: "The illusion, if any exists, lies in the fantasy that the free use of a resource that generates externalities is a "wealth-generating" practice that is essential to both the economy and the principles of liberty, rather than a wealth transfer from the schmoes who get stuck with the costs."
Again, he assumes his conclusion, another fallacy that he likes. He assumes that emitting CO2 into the atmosphere causes externalities that poor countries pay for. If CO2 doesn't cause GW, then no externalities exist and the suffering is an illusion. This illusion has been created by socialists to force their program on the world when economic arguments have failed for almost a century.
Published: November 29, 2007 9:32 AM
David Spellman
A+ for loquaciousness!
Published: November 29, 2007 9:53 AM
Nick
--
If CO2 doesn't cause GW, then no externalities exist and the suffering is an illusion. This illusion has been created by socialists to force their program on the world when economic arguments have failed for almost a century.
--
That's why GW has to be a hoax... Because it exposes huge flaws in libertarian thought. So therefore the science HAS to be wrong. Do I understand your thinking correctly?
Published: November 29, 2007 3:50 PM
Fundamentalist
Straw man alert!
Nick: "GW has to be a hoax... Because it exposes huge flaws in libertarian thought."
How in the world did you get that out of what I wrote?
Published: November 29, 2007 4:12 PM
Nick
Fundamentalist wrote
"
If CO2 doesn't cause GW, then no externalities exist and the suffering is an illusion"
Published: November 29, 2007 5:25 PM
Fundamentalist
Nick, so from the statement "If CO2 doesn't cause GW, then no externalities exist and the suffering is an illusion" you get the idea that the only reason I deny CO2 causes GW is to eliminate the externalities and protect some aspect of Austrian econ? Do you think you're psychic? I don't think CO2 causes GW because of the evidence. So no one is causing externalities by emmitting CO2. I have no other motivation than to seek the truth, as far as I can tell.
Published: November 29, 2007 5:41 PM
Nick
"I don't think CO2 causes GW because of the evidence. So no one is causing externalities by emmitting CO2. I have no other motivation than to seek the truth, as far as I can tell."
It's appalling that libertarians such as yourself are clustered at the denier fringe of climate science. It turns out that a group of individuals who pride themselves on their math, economics, and logic are actually pretty sl-owwww in terms of basic science. Do you also question gravitational theory? evolution? string theory? Pythagorean geometry? I bet not.
Published: November 29, 2007 6:22 PM
fundamentalist
Nick: "It's appalling that libertarians such as yourself are clustered at the denier fringe of climate science."
Ad hominem alert!
Nick should know that the popularity of an idea has little to do with its truth. Except that the really important truths are generally held by a minority of people.
Isn't it interesting that the groupies of the GW Horror Show can only debate by using logical fallacies?
Published: November 29, 2007 6:49 PM
TokyoTom
Nick: Do you also question gravitational theory? evolution? string theory? Pythagorean geometry? I bet not.
You bet wrong. Fundamentalist hasn't acknowledged it himself here, but he certainly does not accept evolution.
We have an apparently stale recent thread on that, still waiting for his response: http://blog.mises.org/archives/007471.asp. His views on evolution definitely relate to his views on climate change (since in his view the evidence shows that we live on a young earth, and all ice cores are post-Diluvian, so there is no real "paleo" record regardng the atmosphere); I've excerpted our exchanges on that here: http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/30/climate-science-a-fundamentalist-creation-science-approach-update.aspx
Published: November 29, 2007 10:33 PM
TokyoTom
Sean is generally disinclined to defend his own positions on his threads, so I am sure he appreciates that Fundamentalist is such a fervent champion against the Beast.
But perhaps the misterious neopyrrho will also make an appearance?
Published: November 29, 2007 10:45 PM
TokyoTom
Roger, thanks for the comments.
- In case you missed it, the "I don't care" post is written as a satire. Yes, it's a strawman, but of my OWN position, and no misttribution of Sean. Tricky, yes; strawman, ad hominem or appeal to authority, no. (Unfair? Must be, 'coz I did it; your mischaracterizations of me are always fair! ;)
However, since you seem to think Corrigan cares about those in the developing world, perhaps you can share with us where he evinces even the slightest concern?
- Sean's reference to "free" economic activities remaining free was here: "I said 'creating wealth' by having an abitrary and tradable threshold tax imposed by the hardly impartial State on a previously free activity was akin to rationing people's use of their right arm." Not a strawman; sorry you missed it.
- Sean SEEMS to think "that global warming is not a problem for anyone, or at best, not a serious problem", but couldn't bother to argue that. My criticisms do NOT "assume that GW is a major problem for people in poor countries"; rather my criticism is that Sean fails to address any of the merits of those who assert that it is becoming such a problem.
You say "It just ain't so"; good for you, but I think I already knew your position.
- The fallacy, my friend, is to ignore the fact that in principle the "problem" (arguendo) relates to unowned, open-access, rather than to the identifably OWNED wealth to which the broken-window fallacy applies.
Why do people and free markets work to resolve problems of externalities, "tradeges of the commons" and "public goods/bads"? Precisely because there are mutual gains to be had by internalizing them. The question in each case is simply whether the marginal gains from moving towards internalization merit the costs.
- Again, I "assume my conclusion", you say. Not - primarily, I lay out a principled economics position, which you point amazingly fail to discern.
As to whether the facts of the case at hand merit any concern is of course a key factual issue, and one which Wrong-way Corrigan simply ignores.
- You say "Sean's point was that environmentalists are using scare tactics to promote socialism;" clearly he's up to more than that. Yes, he alludes to enviros, but he seems to be more after the uber-rich, the tax-free UN bureacrats and other parts of our ruling Phylakes and the biofuel rent-seekers. Somehow he seems to have missed how the whole rest of the world seems to be in on the scam too - in Sean Corrigan reality, there is no one who has genuine (much less justified) concerns about climate change, who is seeking mutual long-terms gains from closing externalities, or has any colorable claims that others' activites are affecting them negatively. All are self-seeking scoundrels or otherwise undeserving of attention.
BTW, I do appreciate that you take a clear position that you think that anthropogenic releases of CO2 (and presumably other GHGs and activities that change albedo) do not affect climate; my own view is that the evidence is strongly against you.
FWIW, I do appreciate your earnestness in this discussion. I, on the other hand, have no honest motives and only dirty tricks.
Regards,
Tom
--
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."
Richard Feynman
Published: November 30, 2007 12:18 AM
scineram
Where can I find a list of successful law suits against polluters on the basis of CO2 emmissions?
LOL
Published: November 30, 2007 4:04 AM
Fundamentalist
TT: "Yes, it's a strawman, but of my OWN position, and no misttribution of Sean."
In you first post you wrote: "Well, I'm with you Sean." In what way should we interpret that, other than that you attribute your satirical response to Sean's real attitude? That's the straw man I referred to.
TT: "...rather my criticism is that Sean fails to address any of the merits of those who assert that it is becoming such a problem."
That wasn't the point of the article. Why do you think every article on anything to do with GW has to revisit the entire debate?
TT: "The fallacy, my friend, is to ignore the fact that in principle the "problem" (arguendo) relates to unowned, open-access, rather than to the identifably OWNED wealth to which the broken-window fallacy applies..."
Not at all. Re-read Sean's article. He referred to proposed solutions to GW which the authors claim will generate wealth: “Keynesian and Schumpeterian mechanisms” which, we are told, promise “new incentives for massive investment, stimulating overall demand and creative destruction leading to innovation and productivity jumps in a wide array of sectors [sic]…” This exactly the broken window fallacy. You're trying to turn his comments into another straw man.
TT: "I "assume my conclusion", you say. Not..."
You certainly do, because if you accepted Sean's premise on GW, you would have nothing to criticize.
TT: "You say "Sean's point was that environmentalists are using scare tactics to promote socialism;" clearly he's up to more than that."
You should quit trying to use your psychic powers until they're stronger.
TT: "...in Sean Corrigan reality, there is no one who has genuine (much less justified) concerns about climate change..."
Another straw man! Unless you really do have psychic powers. You might be setting a record in this post.
TT: "...mutual long-terms gains from closing externalities..."
There are no mutual gains from closing externalities. The definition of externality is a shifting of costs from one person to another so the first person doesn't have to pay them. In closing externalities, you simply shift the costs back to the person who causes them. But since CO2 emissions doesn't cause global warming, no externalities exist.
Published: November 30, 2007 8:16 AM
Fundamentalist
TT: "I, on the other hand, have no honest motives and only dirty tricks."
I couldn't care less about your motives. I'm trying to judge the quality of your arguments based on traditional logic. You, on the other hand, seem intent on judging Sean's motives in the harshest ways.
Published: November 30, 2007 8:28 AM
Yancey Ward
Tom,
Sean was attacking the broken window fallacy when he addressed the taxing of a previously free economic activity. I don't doubt that Sean also thinks there is no good reason tax or otherwise control this particular activity at the moment, but he is not guilty of what you accused him of
Published: November 30, 2007 10:59 AM
corrigan
Dear TT
No, sadly, life is too short (and frankly, too damn interesting) to 'defend' my posts against your instant Green zealotry.
It's not so much the 'straw men' and the other cheap, logical tricks which the other posters have so indefatigably pointed out, but the fact that argument itself is rendered futile since you insist on starting every line of attack with the canards that AGW is scientifically irrefutable, that its consequences have been accurately foreseen, that the IPCC is somehow a triumph of pristine, apolitical disinterest, and that the likes of Stern can actually 'do' economics, rather than what we might call 'Platonics' (and, yes, there should only have been one 'l' in 'phyllakes').
I wouldn't wish to exhaust the list with references to the copious, reputable scientific papers, arguments, and addresses easily found with a quick web search which throw the AGW orhodoxy into doubt (many of them from disillusioned members of the IPCC itself), for you will no doubt quote reams of tedious AGW scripture straight back at me in response.
Nor is there much point arguing the economics or ethics - if you sleep better at night 'saving the planet', go and build a composting toilet for yourself and take out a subscription to the WWF, but, please, don't volunteer away my wealth and liberties or those of the struggling people in the more benighted stretches of the planet who are all yearning to be free, rich, and healthy and whose prospects you will irretreviably dim with your dire, collectivist fantasies.
After all, as this article marvellously sets out, what we have here is not an economic/scientific debate, but a theological one.
I admire the tenacity with which you cling to your touching faith in the Great Gore Amighty - true belief is a rare enough commodity in the modern world - but there's not much to be gained by appealing to your sense of reason on a weblog, now is there?
Published: November 30, 2007 11:39 AM
Dennis
“It's appalling that libertarians such as yourself are clustered at the denier fringe of climate science.”
I believe it is generally true that libertarians, and for that matter Austrian School economists and revisionist historians, are at the fringes of all their respective disciplines. And given what passes for learned discourse and accuracy in all of these disciplines, being on the fringes more than likely places one closer to the truth than those who are part of the various consensuses.
Published: November 30, 2007 3:34 PM
Nick
Nick: "It's appalling that libertarians such as yourself are clustered at the denier fringe of climate science."
Fundamentalist: Ad hominem alert!
--
Fundamentalist, you've missed my point entirely. Not at all, the conclusion is not that AGW is true because a large consensus of scientists conclude it is true. The conclusion is that denier libertarians like yourself are intellectual frauds, willing to cook the books, so to speak, because if they accepted such evidence it would lead to unpleasant conclusions.
Perhaps I am wrong; maybe your views are highly divergent from Western science. Maybe you believe in magic crystals, or chakras. Maybe your hobby is scientific lost causes and think that Bohr was a bit off with quantum mechanics, or that bridges are held up by pixe dust, and the earth is flat. If that's the case then I apologize.
But let's just say that a large sample of of libs are Western trained, place a good deal of stock in math, economics, and science, and additionally deny AGW. When I see a denier libertarian such as that, I call bullshit.
Your hobby just happens to be happens to be climatology? And you just happen to have come to the conclusion that AGW is wrong through a dispassionate examination of the facts? I think the probability of that is about zero.
Such climatological dilettance is pure intellectual fraud. The real world is a bit inconvenient so you've filled the air with a bit of coffee-house smoke to cover your tracks.
Perhaps that's why you're at 1-2% nationally, no?
Published: November 30, 2007 5:12 PM
Fundamentalist
NICK, You're guilty of the straw man fallacy because you claim to know why I don't accept the consensus of GW. But you don't know any such thing. Your description of why I, and other Libertarians, reject the consensus view on GW is nothing but pure imagination, probably the result of delirium.
Nick: "When I see a denier libertarian such as that, I call bullshit."
So why should anyone care?
A lot of people get on this web site just to insult others, as you have been doing, so that's OK. But please, if you have nothing to contribute but insults, show a little more imagination. My daughter could invent more creative insults when she was in junior high than you offer.
Published: November 30, 2007 5:45 PM
Anthony
I agree with Fundamentalist.
Published: November 30, 2007 6:35 PM
TokyoTom
Sean, Fundamentalist, Yancey - thanks so much for the comments. So much to chew on, it`s hard to know where to begin. Fortunately I am too busy worshipping at Gore`s feet today to get stuck in a long post.
My first reaction is to enjoy all of the ironies, which are too many too list, but a few are worth mention:
- In a piece based on gross strawmen, Sean thanks Fundamentalist for his "indefatigable" defense against my supposed strawmen and "other cheap, logical tricks" that Sean can`t be troubled to identify.
- Sean dodges any real defense of his positions against my arguments, by insisting that "what we have here is not an economic/scientific debate, but a theological one", and by asserting that I am such a "Green zealot", in thrall to some AGW "orthoxy" and "scripture" and with such a "touching faith in the Great Gore Amighty - true belief is a rare enough commodity in the modern world" - that "there's not much to be gained by appealing to [my] sense of reason". How cute, Sean. Did you not notice that your chief defender is a Christian fundamentalist whose positions on climate change and evolution are dedicated to a defense of a God who would crumble if the Bible were not literally true?
- Sean completely dismisses the scientific and economic community with a simple wave of the hand (this is not "economic/scientific debate, but a theological one") and offers in support a short piece by a retired engineer that offers more of what Sean likes - unsupported strawmen, with nary a fact or figure!
- Sean insists that "argument itself is rendered futile" because of the canard that I only offer canards ("that AGW is scientifically irrefutable, that its consequences have been accurately foreseen, that the IPCC is somehow a triumph of pristine, apolitical disinterest, that the likes of Stern can actually 'do' economics" and that I offer only "dire, collectivist fantasies"). This is of course nonsense; those are not my views. But even if they were, the economics could be discussed by making assumptions solely for the purpose of argument (as Dr. Reisman has occasionally done). But rather than discuss science, economics or ethics, Sean disdainfully dismisses all scientific and economic arguments without bothering to establish that his own premises are correct.
Published: December 1, 2007 10:16 PM
TokyoTom
Yancey: Sean`s is right to attack some of the economic nonsense written in the report, but he neats ignores the basic point that the UN bureaucrats failed to understand and articulate about the mutual benefits that may be gained by closing externalities.
Fundamentalist: "There are no mutual gains from closing externalities. The definition of externality is a shifting of costs from one person to another so the first person doesn't have to pay them. In closing externalities, you simply shift the costs back to the person who causes them. But since CO2 emissions doesn't cause global warming, no externalities exist.
Besides the unsupported dodge in the last sentence, your penultimate sentence is also wrong and presumes that the parties cannot agree to a different sharing of the potential gains. Try this:
http://mises.org/Journals/Scholar/Barnett.Pdf
Published: December 1, 2007 10:29 PM
fundamentalist
Barnett: "Axiom #1: All inefficiencies, including Pareto relevant externalities, represent unexploited gains from trade. Axiom #2: When free exchange is allowed and transactions are costless, all Pareto relevant inefficiencies will be negotiated away."
In your earlier post you described the removal of externalities as mutually beneficial. Here is a good definition of externalities. Pay attention to the description of a Pareto externality. One part is better off without hurting the other:
Definition (from http://coe.mse.ac.in/over4.asp)
An externality exists when the consumption or production choices of one person or firm enters the utility or production function of another entity without that entity’s permission or compensation. For example, two firms are located in river. The first is producing steel, while the second, operates resort hotel. Both are using the river, but in different ways. The steel firm uses it as a receptacle for its waste, while the resort hotel uses it to attract the customers seeking water recreation. Above facilities have extracted by two owners, even though an efficient use of the water is not likely to result. Because the steel plant does not bear the cost of reduced business at the resort resulting from waste being dumped into the river. So if there will be continuation of dumping too much of waste in to the river, and an efficient allocation of the river would not be attained.
External effects can be either positive or negative. However external effects often negative (also referred to as an external diseconomy or external cost). This occurs when the affected person suffers a loss in utility that is uncompensated. Examples of negative externalities are air, water and noise pollution. A positive externality (external economy, or external benefit) occurs when the effect is benefited to the affected person. An example of a positive externality is immunization.
Causes of Externalities
Interdependence between economic agents - one person’s activity affects the utility or production of another. However the market system fails to ‘price’ this interdependence, so that affected party is uncompensated.
Lack of or weak property rights - Due to the lack of property rights, the affected party is unable to demand or ask the compensation for the damage, which are made by externality.
High transaction costs - The cost of negotiation, implementation and enforcement between the parties maybe high.
Classification of Externalities
Externalities can be classified in different ways. Externalities can be
Relevant externalities
Pareto relevant externalities
Static and dynamic externalities
Pecuniary externalities
Relevant externalities
An externality is not relevant until [I think he meant "as long as"] the affected person is indifferent to it. It will become relevant when the affected person is suffering by the activity and wants the offending person to reduce the level of the activity.
Pareto relevant externalities
A Pareto relevant externality exists whenever its removal results in a Pareto improvement. A Pareto improvement is a situation where it will be possible to take action, such that the affected person is made better off without making the offending person worse off. It means that when the level of an externality is optimal, it becomes Pareto irrelevant.
Notice that even in the Pareto externality, there is no mutual benefit, just one person benefits while the other remains unharmed.
Also notice in Axiom #2 above: When free exchange is allowed and transactions are costless, all Pareto relevant inefficiencies will be negotiated away.
Transactions are almost never costless in the real world. "Costles transactions" is a theoretical construction, like equilibrium, used to analyze specific theories, but without realistic assumptions. It doesn't apply to the real world, and especially not to that of the GW hysteria.
Only trade is mutually beneficial.
Published: December 2, 2007 2:45 PM
TokyoTom
Funadmentalist/others: Thanks for your grudging acknowledgment that maybe the troll DOES have something worthwhile to say on the economics of externalities.
- Barnett and Yandle (and your additional reference) fully support MY position, noted above, that "people and free markets work to resolve problems of externalities, "tragedies of the commons" and "public goods/bads" ... precisely because there are mutual gains to be had by internalizing them. The question in each case is simply whether the marginal gains from moving towards internalization merit the costs."
You assert that "even in the Pareto externality, there is no mutual benefit, just one person benefits while the other remains unharmed", and continue to misunderstand what you cite (and one wishes you could more clearly indicate what is your and what is quoted). While a "Pareto improvement" may be defined as a change that benefits one party without disadvantaging another, such improvements are achievable by voluntary transactions only if both parties are willing to engage in them, which implies a sharing of the possible benefits.
- Yes, I'm aware of transaction costs and meant to capture them both by my earlier prominent reference to marginal costs and by quoting Barnett and Yandle.
- I don't expect Sean to grasp (much less trouble himself to discuss forthrightly) rather basic, obvious and non-controversial points like the above, but it is interesting that none of the other commenters here has show the slightest interest or acknowledgment.
- You refuse to disappoint by throwing in a reference to "GW hysteria". Yet you fail to upbraid Barnett and Yandle, who say:
Isn't it shameful that the caretakers of LvMI has posted nonsensical hysteria like this on their own website?
There are various other points that may be worth exploring further, but neither you nor Sean seem interested, despite my laying out some of them for you already:
- Does any purported climate change problem justify government action? Of course this is NOT a given, and is actually probably the key economic issue. As Barnett/Yandle note, "Of course, if non-trivial externalities persist then there may be some scope of government
action to remedy the problem. But government agencies are not perfect institutions and public
decision makers are neither omnipotent nor pure public servants. Hence, even a clear instance of
market failure may not justify a government attempt at remedy." I am aware of this and made reference above to rent-seekers, inefficiency from bureaucratic administration, and costs of negotiating and enforcing any international approach.
- What do we make of the equitable claim that the GHG emissions of the people/corporations of wealthy nations is responsible for warming that adversely affects others? Do we simply tell people in underdeveloped countries tough - until they win a case and damages in our courts?
- What do we think of the argument by Lomborg and others that pragmatic self-interest (keeping hordes of desperate people at bay, minimizing instability, etc.) might justify any prohylactic expense to help other people adapt to the so-called "problem"?
- Even assuming that there IS something to all of the "hysteria" about AGW and to the picture that has long been painted of impacts in the developing world, which has the least wealth to deal with them (this UNDP/UNEP report breaks little new ground, but simply more "data"), we also know that the developing world is underdeveloped "because they've been run by corrupt tribal kleptocrats more interested in using the "state" to line their own pockets with "public" assets confiscated from others, and who oppress other tribes and anyone who might challenge their power, that people live in misery because they have limited liberty and property rights, that the lack of clear property rights both hobbles development and accelerates the destruction of "common" resources, and that Western governments and corporations are complicit in much of this." Regardless of the AGW "hysteria", what can we possibly do that will not simply make a bad situation worse?
- If worse comes to worse and things to fall apart over there and they all want to come here in a few decades, should we insist on an open immigration policy?
- Is there any justification for public planning now for what may be coming down the pike on AGW, either at home or abroad? (Of course, such private planning is already well underway.) Changes in public infrastructure are expected to be needed.
- Finally, of course, are there any desirable institutional/property changes that better allow people to express their respective preferences regarding climate change? Or (assuming that maybe there IS something to the "hysteria" of scientists) is the whole world supposed to just lump it, until all fossil fuels are exhausted?
TT
Published: December 3, 2007 12:04 AM
TokyoTom
Larry:
You seem to be supportive of Austrian economics, yet you also seem to want national governments to take action. Isn't that a contradiction?
Good question. A fair amount of the action that I would like to see is deregulation of energy markets. Is that verboten?
I think that many Austrians still reluctantly support government action with respect to public goods (rule of law, courts, support of private property, defense, etc.).
I have also noted the following, on another thread by Sean that I spammed with "religious" (perhaps "sacreligious" may be more appropriate!)rantings:
"Mises, Yandle and others speak of transition points, that are reached when demand pressure grows as a result of social changes (including new forms of organization) or technological advances (which might also enable greater protection), when open-access resources fall first under common property regimes and then later under private property rights. I think we are at one of those points now." Excerpted here: http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/12/draft.aspx
When on that thread Bastiat remarked that a transition might seem to involve "mob rule", I noted that Mises had expressly acknowledged the need for transitions and implied that the state could be used to address them, and quoted part of the following by Mises:
“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.
“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. They started with arable land and then, step by step, included pastures, forests, and fisheries. …
“It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals or firms, the economic calculation established by them is manifestly defective and their results deceptive. But this is not the outcome of alleged deficiencies inherent in the system of private ownership of the means of production. It is on the contrary a consequence of loopholes left in this system. It could be removed by a reform of the laws concerning liability for damages inflicted and by rescinding the institutional barriers preventing the full operation of private ownership.”
Is Mises a statist?
Maybe Mises allows too much, and we should be purer than him by disavowing any affirmative state action to amend laws or to implement a new regulatory regime.
But is there really so much to fear, given that there is NO global government that can impose particular solutions by fiat, at the behest of particular rent-seekers? Doesn't the situtation internationally more resemble voluntary discussions among resource users, like fishermen over fisheries, and ranchers about when/how to close a range? Isn't there an appropriate role for government to act to facilitate discussions and to represent us in discussions with other governments? Surely it is unrealistic to expect either that our government will disappear or that citizens will empower another representative (like insurance companies) in its stead anytime soon.
Yandle has this to say about transitions and the evolution of regulatory or "3-D" (defined, defendable and divestible private/common property) property rights in the atmosphere:
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:ELOKvFl_o3wJ:www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl%3F10%2BDuke%2BEnvtl.%2BL.%2B%26%2BPol%27y%2BF.%2B13+GRASPING+FOR+THE+HEAVENS:&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=jp (the originals seem unavailable, so this is a cached copy).
You might find Ron Bailey's recent post on Al Gore, and my comments to him, to be relevant:
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/17/reason-congratulations-to-al-gore.aspx. Even more recently, Ron said the following:
"'How can you call yourself a libertarian? You support carbon taxation when private action would take care of the problem when people actually decide it is a real problem?'
"In my best judgment the problem of man-made global warming is developing faster than private property institutions can develop to respond to it. It's an open access commons problem in which the transactions costs are too high to encourage private solution in a relevant time frame. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it.
"I must admit that I am still uneasy when I contemplate the question of whether what the government decides to do about global warming will be worse than global warming itself?"
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/123485.html#830993
There, do you regret your question now?
TT
(that dire freedom-hating collectivist)
Published: December 3, 2007 3:29 AM
Daniel
Given the purported threat of AGW, and assuming that this is an externality, isnt resorting to government intervention merely replacing one purported externality with an actual externality (being the state)?
Published: December 3, 2007 5:30 AM
Fundamentalist
TT: "Barnett and Yandle (and your additional reference) fully support MY position..."
Only in your dreams. It's clear that you don't understand what Barnett and Yandle are writing. Barnett specifically applied his the benefits of trade to Pareto externalities with no transaction costs. No proposed solution to GW hysteria is a Pareto externality because it would be impossible to limit CO2 emissions without hurting the people who emit them. Neither would the transaction costs be zero.
It should be clear to most readers that Sean's main point in his article is true whether GW hysteria is true or not. Even if GW were to cause the disasters that Al Gore predicts, no solution will make us richer than if global warming had not occurred. That would be impossible and an example of the broken pain fallacy.
Published: December 3, 2007 8:09 AM
Larry N. Martin
There, do you regret your question now?
Not at all. Thanks for a considerate and thoughtful reply.
Was Mises a statist? Well, he certainly wasn't an anarcho-capitalist, although many more recent Austrian econonomist types are AC, like Hans Herman-Hoppe. In any case, even if one is an anarchist, it's true that governments aren't going to go away overnight. By all means, let's encourage governments to do the right thing, and pray they can understand what that means.
Deregulation and more strict property rights are good things, and naturally only a government can deregulate, since it's the one doing the regulation in the first place, so deregulation isn't necessarily statist.
And if Ron thinks "man-made global warming is developing faster than private property institutions can develop to respond to it", why would he think that governments can adequately respond to the problem?
Published: December 3, 2007 10:41 AM
TokyoTom
Fundamentalist, nice job of moving the goalposts in order to avoid conceding that you are wrong on matters of fundamental mechanisms.
1. It should be clear to most readers that Barnett and Yandle agree with me and fully support my view that the progress of man is one of developing institutions to cope with "tragedy of the commons" situtations by turning unowned resources into managed common property and then into private property, as the benefits of doing so increase and as related costs decrease. Here's me:
- "people and free markets work to resolve problems of externalities, "tragedies of the commons" and "public goods/bads" ... precisely because there are mutual gains to be had by internalizing them. The question in each case is simply whether the marginal gains from moving towards internalization merit the costs."
Here's Barnett and Yandle, again:
Axiom #1: All inefficiencies, including [but NOT LIMITED TO] Pareto relevant externalities, represent unexploited gains from trade.
Axiom #2: When free exchange is allowed and transactions are costless, all Pareto relevant inefficiencies will be negotiated away.
Both propositions are obvious and entirely non controversial. Indeed, they capture the bargaining essence of the Coase Theorem and of Buchanan and Stubblebine’s (1962) “Externality” analysis. Where Pigou saw politics beckoning, Coase saw a market opportunity. Of course, property rights and rules of liability were central to Coase’s solution.
... why are the potential gains from trade unexploited? What prevents people from negotiating an efficient solution? ... First, ... the costs of negotiating private solutions may exceed potential gains from trade. This might occur, for example, when both (i) large numbers of persons are involved and (ii) the asset for which use gives rise to external effects is a public good. In this case, free-rider problems make it costly for private parties to define property rights such that all impacted parties are included in (Pareto relevant) bargains.
This complication may make transactions cost sufficiently high that they swamp even large
potential gains from trade. Examples where this is the case are surprisingly difficult to find. Air quality, ozone depletion and climate change are possible examples.
It is clear that there are large transaction costs relating to climate change; far from running from them I have expressly acknowledged them. Rather, you pigheadedly refuse to acknowledge that there is a DYNAMIC process at work, and instead blindly insist that because in the PAST the transaction cost-benefit calculations favored ignoring (again, a point I have expressly stated) GHG emissions, albedo changes and climate change, the calculation must now and forever remain the same. Why the insistence on a STATIC anlaysis and a denial of dynamics? Is it written in your scriptures somewhere?
Yandle elsewhere expressly stresses the dynamic process I speak of:
and
http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4064
Yandle has further expressly stressed that this dynamic - seeking gains from better management of open access resources/externalities - is at work in the discussions relating to climate change, and he predicts that private property rights will evolve (as I noted above):
Bruce Yandle, "GRASPING FOR THE HEAVENS:
3-D PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE GLOBAL COMMONS", 10 Duke Envtl. L. & Pol'y F. 13 (link in prior post)
This dynamic process - in which the relative values of resources, trade-offs between them, and costs of access and transactions all change - is clearly at work with our atmosphere and oceans, just as Mises notes how it was in work with respect to externalities relating to the use of local land, water and fisheries resources. For example, the global community overcame transaction costs and took action to end production and use of CFCs because of the damage they do to our ozone layer and because progress made other alternatives available. The US and other nations also entered (and remain parties to) the Framework Convention on Climate Change and began to gather domestic GHG emissions data and to coordinate scientific data (the IPCC reports), and there are also a host of voluntary efforts to cut back on CO2 emissions, offset emissions, invest in alternative and sequestration technologies, etc., all outside of Kyoto. Not all is simple posturing to gain or dispense rents or political benefits. Why is this happening? Because technology is improving, people's understanding of their impact on the climate and their respective preferences are changing, and economic risks and rewards are changing in response.
Why is this so hard to understand or accept?
Finally and once again, yes, there is a broken pane fallacy. But far from proving that it is what underlies concerns about climate change, Sean simply presumes it, by the simple and juvenile expedients of (i) ignoring that the atmosphere is a global, open-access commons, and that our activities may affect it but we have no market mechanisms for either expressing our relative preferences, and (ii) scornfully assuming that all those concerned (scientists, economists, business leaders, political leaders globally etc. etc.) are either caught up in a religious "hysteria" or are liars and scoundrels.
The ends that we will go to insulate ourselves from reality by weaving a coccoon of self-deception and self-justification is sometimes rather amazing.
Would Sean (and you) also consider all past investments in air, ground and water pollution control and abatement technology and efforts as similar manifestations of the broken wind fallacy, simply because you do not like how various actors used the political process to trump a more preferable property rights approach?If not, why not?
Sean's reluctance to support any governmental involvement in AGW is admirable. But he has not demonstrated either that he understands relevant underlying principles, the scientific case or the motivations and behavior of various actors. He would be more effective if he would approach all of this more forthrightly, rather than with some sneering but uninformed superiority.
Published: December 3, 2007 10:06 PM
TokyoTom
Larry, Ron Bailey has obvious (and correct) misgivings as to whether governments can adequately respond to the problem. I really can't speak for him, but he does post his email and respond to comments to his Reason pieces.
However, I would venture that it seems evident that Ron has changed his mind, after careful monitoring, since the days when he took public positions AGAINST AGW - Bailey was the editor of Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death (2002), and author of ECOSCAM: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse (1993).
He has chronicled some of his change of mind in his online columns, "We're All Global Warmers Now," "Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore," "Global Warming-Not Worse Than We Thought, But Bad Enough," and my proposal for carbon taxes as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and spur low-carbon energy development, "Carbon Taxes Versus Carbon Markets", all of which are linked in a recent column where he notes how he fell easy prey to rather obvious spoof purporting to show that all AGW, though real, was readily attributable to natural causes. http://www.reason.com/blog/show/123485.html#830993
Whether government action is justified and what, if any, action should be taken is precisely the real issue. I would note, as Yandle does, that as there is NO international government to hand down a solution by fiat, we face more of a voluntary negotiation among resources users, with governments acting as representatives and facilitators (and, of course, as gate-keepers to existing and pssoible future rents).
Published: December 3, 2007 10:28 PM
TokyoTom
Sean, I do appreciate the opportunity you provide to spam the Mises blog with my patently insane religious craziness.
So allow mr to note a couple of things that came to my attention yesterday:
- "At Nature, More Hysteria by AGW Religious Nuts and Vile Collectivists":
A recent article in Nature Geoscience shows that measurable climate zone change is outpacing predictions.
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/03/at-nature-more-hysteria-by-agw-religious-nuts-and-vile-collectivists.aspx
- "Hysteria from McKinsey: Costs of Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions":
McKinsey: "Consensus is growing among scientists, policy makers, and business leaders that concerted action will be needed to address rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. The discussion is now turning to the practical challenges of where and how emissions reductions can best be achieved, at what costs, and over what periods of time."
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/03/hysteria-from-mckinsey-costs-of-reducing-u-s-greenhouse-gas-emissions.aspx
Published: December 3, 2007 11:10 PM
TokyoTom
Oops, one more:
- "Australia Caves to Hysteria; Signs AGW Suicide Pact", http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/04/australia-caves-to-hysteria-signs-agw-suicide-pact.aspx
Published: December 3, 2007 11:30 PM
TokyoTom
Of course, then there are also the 150 top vile collectivists who are calling for immediate global poverty: http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/12/04/murdoch-amp-149-other-top-vile-collectivists-capitalists-call-for-global-poverty.aspx
Are these misanthropes worth addressing, Sean?
Published: December 4, 2007 6:12 AM
Fundamentalist
TT: "nice job of moving the goalposts in order to avoid conceding that you are wrong on matters of fundamental mechanisms."
You'r projecting. I'm not moving the goalposts; you are. In addition, you seem to think verbosity will make up for the weaknesses of your argument. The question is simple: will efforts to reduce GW by limiting CO2 emissions make us richer or poorer. Anyone who thinks it will make us richer is a complete idiot.
More free markets will eliminate some externalities. But removing those externalities involves cost shifting, not wealth creation. As for closing the commons, that created wealth in the past because the commons were generally a wealth producing asset, land for the most part, and because it was scarce. The atmosphere is not wealth producing and not scarce. Any and all efforts to reduce CO2 will make everyone poorer.
Published: December 4, 2007 8:05 AM
Fundamentalist
TT: "For example, the global community overcame transaction costs and took action to end production and use of CFCs because of the damage they do to our ozone layer and because progress made other alternatives available."
Nice re-writing of history. The truth: hysterical environmentalists frightened and blackmailed politicians into outlawing CFC's. The transaction costs in that were very small, just the cost of legislation. The costs to the world's wealth was enourmous as the shift to new refrigerants and equipment was enourmous. The world became much poorer because of the CFC hysteria. Today, evidence that the concern over CFC's destroying the ozone was nothing but irrational hysteria is becoming very strong. I'm very confident that in another decade or so the same will happen with the CO2 hysteria.
Published: December 4, 2007 8:15 AM
Fundamentalist
TT: "Would Sean (and you) also consider all past investments in air, ground and water pollution control and abatement technology and efforts as similar manifestations of the broken wind fallacy, simply because you do not like how various actors used the political process to trump a more preferable property rights approach?"
There you go trying to use your psychic powers again before they're fully developed. I neither like nor dislike the "various actors" in the debate. Whether I like them or not has nothing to do with the validity of their arguments. I wonder why this is so difficult for you to grasp? Do you think it's impossible for people to objectively evaluate propositions based on the validity of the logic? Or only people who agree with you can do so?
You still don't get the broken pane fallacy, either. No one is saying that environmentalism is the broken pane fallacy; the idea that solving environmental problems will make us richer is the broken pain fallacy. Talk about pigheaded!
Published: December 4, 2007 8:20 AM
TokyoTom
Roger,
- The broken window fallacy is that the economic activity generated by a loss of/damage to private wealth makes up for or justifies the initial loss or damage.
- That fallacy does not apply voluntary, private actions intended to close identified externalities or to community investments to convert open-access resources into regulated commons or to convert commons to private property.
You may wish to apply it broadly to every activity by government, but that is hardly helpful in discerning the underlying dynamics at work in how human societies progress by finding means to control tragedy of the commons behavior (once the consequences become apparent and the benefits to be gained begin to outweigh the costs). The reason why common property and then private property rights arose in the first place was because of the gains to be had from regulating was what previously a "free", open-access resource.
One may argue that government action is never justified to address externalities, but one should not allow that stance to ignore the potential benefits to be gained from closing externalities (which is the main driver for the public discussion).
- But removing those externalities involves cost shifting, not wealth creation. False. Clearly all voluntary transactions to eliminate externalities create wealth by advancing the preferences of those involved, or else the parties would not engage in the transactions. The transfer of wealth, if there is any at all, occurs when a society lays down (via law or common law) a liability rule or property right that forces one party to compensate the other in order to engage in a previously unprohibited practice.
- As for closing the commons, that created wealth in the past because the commons were generally a wealth producing asset, land for the most part, and because it was scarce. The atmosphere is not wealth producing and not scarce. Any and all efforts to reduce CO2 will make everyone poorer.
More nonsense. What makes any material substance or energy source a "resource" or "asset" are human preferences and our abilities to use such sucbstances/energy sources to advance our objectives (living, breathing, eating, procreating, clothing and housing ourselves, companionship and the various higher-level activities we engage in for ancillary purposes). The atmosphere is clearly a resource that we make use of daily; that it has not been "scarce" is historically true, but does not make it any less important or less of a resource.
As our technology and uses of the atmosphere have changed, so too have our rules regarding it. Austrian literature is full of examples of how the common law system and private law (vluntary transactions) evolved to deal with growing pollution problems, until much of this was interrupted by resort to political processes. Similarly, sunlight is also a resource, and one whose value has grown and use increasingly regulated as private or regulatory property. One of the Yandle pieces I cited illustrates this well in talking about the evolution or air rights in Japan.
As Yandle also notes, it is clear that we are in a similar process of transition relating to the atmosphere and our climate system generally. That government is entangled in this process does not negate that the process, though very complex (and obviously not simply about CO2), is one with the class of other "tragedy of the commons" problems that man has, with varying degress of success, struggled over time. You declined to address any of man's past investments in air, ground and water pollution control and abatement technology and efforts - clearly much of these activites were wealth-generating; why? (Austrian economics does not deny this, but rather asserts that better results could have been obtained more quickly, at less cost and less damage to individual liberty if government had stayed out of the process.)
- The question is simple: will efforts to reduce GW by limiting CO2 emissions make us richer or poorer. Anyone who thinks it will make us richer is a complete idiot.
By your standards, the second sentence is a strawman, ad hominem and a display of "psychic powers"; good job.
As for the first, besides being a strawman (since the problem is clearly much more complex than simply one of CO2), I think I've indicated that there are at least theoretical arguments to be made that, if our CO2 emissions do affect the climate and welfare of others, that there is possible wealth generation in at least voluntary transactions between groups of emitters and those
claiming to experience negative consequences. Whether the purported benefits are swamped by costs if government is involved is an empirical issue that has not been demonstrated.
- No one is saying that environmentalism is the broken pane fallacy
Sorry, but the broken window fallacy was one of Sean's main points, and one that you expressly praised him for raising (though you are now amusing yourself with the contrast between pane and "pain"; this merely exhibits the "broken wind" phenomenon).
- The truth: hysterical environmentalists frightened and blackmailed politicians into outlawing CFC's. ... The world became much poorer because of the CFC hysteria. Today, evidence that the concern over CFC's destroying the ozone was nothing but irrational hysteria is becoming very strong.
Hysteria, hysteria, hysteria - is that all you've got? How about giving us both a little history and an update on the current evidence to support your conclusions?
- Finally, you might not like a loaded question, but dismissing it as an attempt to display "psychic powers" is nothing but a neat ad hominem. You clearly display your own feeble psychic powers by talking about what I "seem to think"; by your standards, your own loaded questions are displays of similar "psychic powers". Maybe some day you'll stop using such transparent and silly rhetorical devices.
I don't object to your leading questions though, since I can simply address them, rather than whine. To whit: while I think it is possible for people to try to objectively evaluate propositions based on the validity of the logic, I also think that this is indeed a difficult task, as we are full of cognitive predispositions. We all face this challenge, so no, I don't suppose that I and "only people who agree with" are best positioned to objectively evaluate propositions.
- I neither like nor dislike the "various actors" in the debate.
Okay; I take you at your word. You just like calling "environmentalists", "socialists" and unspecified others "idiots", "hysterical", "ignorant", and "groupies of the GW Horror Show", and then get all high and mighty if someone else should take to slinging insults.
Your partner in empty verbosity and weak arguments,
Pigheaded Tom
Published: December 5, 2007 1:54 AM
Fundamentalist
TT: "The broken window fallacy is that the economic activity generated by a loss of/damage to private wealth makes up for or justifies the initial loss or damage."
Have you read Hazlett? I don't think so. The broken pane fallacy is that the work generated in repairing damage causes a general increase in wealth. The broken pane generates business for the seller of glass and the repairman, who become better off financially. The fallacy lies in claiming that everyone is better off because the owner of the broken window loses money as well as the business people who might have received the money spent on the pane. The owner of the window might have spent the money on a pair of shoes had the pane not broken, so the shoe maker is worse off. The broken pane transfers wealth from one group of people to another. Hurricanes often revive the broken pane fallacy because journalists claim that the funds spent on rebuilding will boost the economy. It does boost the local economy, but at the expense of other parts of the economy.
I'll not respond to the rest of your post because it shows a similar lack of understanding of externalities and commons.
"- The question is simple: will efforts to reduce GW by limiting CO2 emissions make us richer or poorer. Anyone who thinks it will make us richer is a complete idiot.
TT: "By your standards, the second sentence is a strawman, ad hominem and a display of "psychic powers"; good job."
No. It was a simple insult.
Published: December 5, 2007 8:02 AM
TokyoTom
Roger breaks the wind, and retires as Sean`s Fundamentalist champion.
Will neopyrrho ride to the rescue?
Published: December 5, 2007 9:37 AM