A Word to Environmentalists
The "extremists" among you openly call for the death of 1 to 6.4 billion human beings. The "moderates" among you openly call for the forced reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 90 percent within a few decades, which would serve to reduce energy use almost to the same extent. Such a severe reduction in energy use follows from the fact that there are no presently existing large-scale viable alternatives to fossil fuels other than atomic power, which is regarded by most members of your movement as a death ray and is opposed more vehemently than fossil fuels. Furthermore, the likelihood of ever finding and developing such alternatives will be greatly reduced by destroying the energy sources we do have and need to increase. So what your movement advocates is mass death or, at the very least, dreadful mass impoverishment whose outcome will be tens or hundreds of millions of unnecessary deaths and a life of misery for those who survive.
If your motivation in calling yourself an environmentalist is merely such things as that you like to see flowers bloom on open meadows, and love trees, whales, and polar bears, and the like, then you owe it to yourself to put as much intellectual and moral distance as possible between you and those who advocate mass impoverishment and mass death.
The first step you need to take is to stop using the same word "environmentalist" to describe both them and you. So long as you do use the same word, people cannot help but think of you all in the same terms.
Don't think you can solve the problem by calling yourself a "free-market environmentalist." That's like calling yourself a "free-market Communist" or a "free-market Nazi." They're contradictions in terms.
The free market exists to promote prosperity and human life, and that is what it has accomplished, splendidly, with breathtaking brilliance. In the industrialized world, the average person today enjoys a standard of living superior to that of kings and emperors of the past. The whole world's population is capable of enjoying the same marvelous results, if it adopts economic freedom. But if you call yourself an "environmentalist," you mark yourself as sharing the goals of mass destruction and death. A socialist dictatorship is the vehicle for achieving those goals, not a free market.
It is true that many American businessmen, some of them extremely talented and successful, now call themselves "environmentalists" and are stumbling over themselves in a race to prove how "green" they are. In the early 1930s, many talented and successful German businessmen did essentially the same thing when they began to call themselves "Nazis" and raced to prove their devotion to National Socialism. It's possible for people to be geniuses in one area of their lives and fools, or worse, in other areas. In any event, the outcome for the German businessmen, and for all other talented individuals who joined either the Nazis or the Communists, was that they ended up as accomplices of mass murderers. The same will be true in the
If you care about your moral character, don't place an indelible stain on it by supporting a movement that seeks to destroy Industrial Civilization and all the human lives and human well-being that depend on it. Accept moral responsibility for the ideas you propound and stop standing in the service of mass destruction and death.
Do not come back with the argument that if we uphold individual freedom, our great grandchildren will have to live in an uninhabitable planet, one that is either too hot or too cold. Sooner or later Nature itself will make the climate considerably warmer or considerably colder than it is today (most likely colder). The only significant question is what is the best method of coping with such change? Is it the free market or a centrally planned dictatorship that reaches down into every detail of everyone's personal life and productive activities, that, indeed, wants to control the carbon content practically of every breath that anyone draws?
Even if you are absolutely convinced that human activities are responsible for global warming and, if nothing is done, will ultimately result in an intolerable rise in temperature, there is a very simple test that you need to apply. Pretend, for just a moment, that that same global warming is coming about independently of human activities, that it is strictly the product of natural forces. Then ask yourself, what would be the best fundamental method of coping with it? Maintaining a free market or establishing a centrally planned socialist system?
More fundamentally, what is the appropriate fundamental method for Man to use in dealing with Nature in general? Is it the motivated and coordinated human intelligence of all individual market participants that is provided by a free market and its price system? Or is it the unmotivated, discoordinated chaos in which one man, the Supreme Dictator, or a handful of men, the Supreme Dictator and his fellow members of the Central Planning Board, claim a monopoly on human intelligence and on the right to make fundamental decisions?
Suppose even that the warming caused by Nature were such that what was required to deal with it was some sort of space program, perhaps emitting thousands of tiny mirrors that would prevent some sunlight from reaching the earth by reflecting it back into space. Suppose further that as a practical matter, given our present state of social organization, the only realistic means of carrying out such a program was through governmental action--a kind of public works project, as it were. In which circumstances, would such a program be more likely to be feasible: in those of the primitive economies characteristic of third world countries or in those of advanced industrial economies? And would they not be more likely to be feasible in an economy substantially more advanced than our own is at present?
The answer to the question of how best to cope with intolerable global warming caused by Nature is obviously the maintenance of the free market, not its replacement by Socialist central planning. Indeed, the answer is to make the free market freer than it now is--as much freer as is humanly possible. This is because while the primary reason for advocating a free market is the greater prosperity and enjoyment it brings to everyone in the course of his normal, everyday life, a major, secondary reason is to have the greatest possible industrial base available for coping with catastrophic events, whether those events be war, plague, meteors from outer space, intolerable global warming, or a new ice age.
In effect, what the environmentalists would have us do as the means of preparing for coping with a coming global warming is analogous to the imaginary absurdity of the United States in the 1930s having reduced its economy to the level, say, of Poland's economy. Then, when World War II came, our country would have had to fight the war with horses instead of tanks and planes. In the same way, the environmentalists would have us cope with global warming by waving little fans instead of using air conditioners, refrigerators, and freezers.
Now what, if anything, changes if we assume that global warming is an unintended by-product of the human productive activities that make life possible and enjoyable? How does it possibly follow from this that the only means of stopping this much-less-than-certain outcome is by suffering the absolutely certain impoverishment and death that will come from the destruction of most of our present sources of energy?
Is there absolutely no other way to deal with global warming than the destruction of our economic system? Is that how we would deal with it if global warming were the product of Nature, and not the by-product of our activities? Would the environmentalists then ask us to engage in what in the circumstances would be a merely ritual sacrifice incapable of accomplishing anything beyond itself?
If they would not do that, then they would have to look for other alternatives as the means of coping with global warming. Why aren't they looking for those other alternatives now? Why on earth should the first and only solution for global warming as a by-product of human activity be the scuttling of our energy base? Do we deserve to be exterminated for our unintended by-products? Must we really choose to live in poverty and misery, surrounded by death, in order to avoid excessive heat? Can absolutely no other way be found? (The likely answer is actually no more complicated than having the greater energy base required to build bigger and better air conditioners.)
Do you environmentalists who do not want to think of yourselves as misanthropes, as recycled Communists or Nazis, do you really want to entrust your lives and material well being, and the lives and material well being of everyone who may matter to you, to the power of government officials to tax carbon emissions and to limit the total of such emissions? Are you willing to entrust this power to today's President (who at least has the good sense not to want it)? Do you want to entrust it to any of the candidates with a realistic chance to succeed him (who do want this power and may even crave it)? Do you want to entrust it to the members of the United States Congress? To the members of the United Nations General Assembly?
Do you want them to decide how much man-made energy is to be available to you in every aspect or your life, by their imposing carbon taxes and carbon caps? These will be taxes and constraints on you that are tantamount to adding extra dead weight to your body and to restricting your power to move your own limbs. And they will go on increasing in severity, to the point that you, or your children or grandchildren, will drop from exhaustion. For the effect of every loss of energy use is a corresponding imposition on the meager power of human muscles and the human frame. And if the impositions cannot be borne, the products that depended on the lost energy use can no longer be produced. If the environmentalist agenda is imposed, the day will come when your descendants, if they have any awareness of it at all, will look back on our time as a mythical Golden Age never to be achieved again.
Is that what you want?
It's not too late for you to change your mind, abandon any support you may have been giving to environmentalism's program of impoverishment and death, and come over to the side of the values of human life, wealth, and happiness--the values Mises fought for under the banner of genuine Liberalism.
Copyright © 2008, by
Comments (91)
I'd find it funny if free-market R&D couldn't find alternatives to current power sources and technologies such that when Peak Oil arrives and the end is nigh, people have to go the way of the Amish. Which in 200 years after that would see the world population go back to around the 500 million or so that can generally be sustained by organic hand-tool farming.
P.S. Does G.R. need a few happy pills or something?
Published: February 19, 2008 5:09 AM
Peak Oil is a fraud. The availability of energy reserves is a function of technological progress and the freedom to explore. There is more petroleum available to us today than there was 100 years ago. We have barely scratched the surface in exploration and drilling. The Earth itself continues to create petroleum, which has been found to replenish previously "exhausted" fields. Alternatives - real alternatives - which are cheaper and cleaner, and which represent a gain to everyone (without subsidies or regulations of any kind on their development and production) are on the horizon ..... but will be rendered unattainable if we continue down this "green" road. To throttle industrial civilization as the ecologists are advocating will prevent the very improvements they claim to advocate.
Published: February 19, 2008 6:54 AM
Who's to say there is such a thing a little environmentalism or 'love of nature'? Either you see unowned and untapped resources to be owned and utilised or you a enviro-nazi. There is no third way? . . .
Published: February 19, 2008 9:32 AM
I really don't see why those of us who are concerned about the environment but nevertheless remain true to libertarian principles must give up the term 'environmentalist' just because a certain portion of socialists and anti-human types have appropriated it. The term 'free-market environmentalist' helps clarify the difference between us and them quite a bit. 'Libertarian environmentalist' would be even more clear, since most people these days can't tell a free market from a regulated one much less a free market from a faux-free market. But why must we cede the term 'environmentalist' to the socialist and anti-human extremists? Ayn Rand thought it worthwhile to fight for the terms 'selfish' and 'self-interest' and 'capitalism'. If anyone is a true environmentalist in the best sense of that word, it is libertarian environmentalist because libertarianism is the best way to protect the environment. The socialists and anti-humanists are the ones who have no legitimate claim to being environmentalists. Their views and policies are harmful to us and the environment.
Published: February 19, 2008 9:34 AM
So, you think 6 billion dead bodies piled up is funny?
Seek professional help. Seriously.
Published: February 19, 2008 9:40 AM
I agree with the free-market approach. However, many economists fail to truly acknowledge that natural resources are not unlimited.
Don't let your anger and exasperation with environmentalists blind you to the fact that humanity is pushing against the limitations of natural resources as we speak.
"The greatest failing of humanity is its failure to understand the exponential function"
- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Arithmetic, Population and Energy - Dr. Albert Bartlett
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1721501896971715878&q=albert+exponential+function&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
The economy cannot grow forever. It will be fascinating to see how our economic and political systems adapt to the end of growth.
Published: February 19, 2008 10:32 AM
George nails it! Like he does on any subject he speaks to.
If you are afraid what's happening to our environment - do your own thing to improve it and don't foist what's never been proven on others to their detriment.
Published: February 19, 2008 10:36 AM
What a bunch of simple minded reactionary claptrap. I'm not a in position, nor am I inclined to use my time, to write a detailed counter to this. However, it shocks me to see that someone who uses such ill defined terms and confused stereotypes to form an argument has been awarded both a Ph.D and a Professorship.
The closing paragraph on its own is a disgraceful, dogmatic, juxtaposition of two caricatures of political and social personalities. It carries some worth, I suppose, in serving as an example of how one might utilise a false dichotomy in a propagandist fashion, but that's about the extent of it.
A friend of mine noted, just a couple of days ago, a phenomenon he had noticed on message boards whereby discussions often descend to mud-flinging contests with one party or another bandying about ill-conceived comparisons with Nazis. Here it is, between this blog post and G.R's last, mirrored on Mises.
I consider it a shame as I will no longer be able to recommend the site to my contacts as a place of intelligent discourse without adding qualifiers to make sure they don't inaccurately label me as ideologically aligned with the esteemed G. Reisman. The type of lazy pigeon-holing behaviour with which it appears the Professor is very familiar, by action, if not by perception.
"Anti-communism" is alive and well it would seem.
Published: February 19, 2008 10:42 AM
Enviromentalist can mean a multitude of different things, depending on the context and interpretation.
Same as feminist. You have radical, gender, libertarian, conservative versions of feminists, but all calling themselves feminists.
Same with enviromentalists. You have extremists, radicals, moderates, and market enviromentalist.
I identify myself as a market enviromentalist. Which is very significant because I believe that my position is totally in conformance with both Austrian principles and libertarian principles.
I believe that PROGRESS is by far the best enviromentalist goal. Progress that will bring cleaner and more efficient energy. Progress that will raise HUMAN standards of living and bring about a VOLUNTARY zero population growth, as has happened in Japan and elsewhere.
I believe government is damaging to the environment for two major reasons. 1. Government impedes progress, for reasons that are self evident to Austrians. 2. Government promotes the idea of "commons" ownership, which also leads to unneccessary environmental damage.
Maybe we can find a term to replace environmentalist in the libertarian community. Any ideas???
Published: February 19, 2008 10:50 AM
Let me just say that if the claims about carbon emissions and global warming are true (and that's the mother of all ifs), carbon emissions constitute a genuine tort against others, and a tax sufficient to pay for undoing this damage (and then *applied* to undoing the damage, either through carbon sinks, or mitigating the problem) is justified on libertarian grounds (unless of course, you think carbon emissions should just stop completely ...)
HOWEVER:
1) If you were to actually run the numbers, the maximum compensation due would be less than the government taxes that already exist on fossil fuel energy, yes, even in America. This implies that on the demand side, energy users ALREADY act as they would in a libertarian world where the taxes are imposed.
2) Environmentalists ARE NOT interested in actually undoing the externality. The global warming/carbon alarmism is used a *pretense* to control others lives and force them to do very specifc things: abandon the SUV irrespective of net environmental impact, use biofuels because economically ignorant people deem them more "sustainable", etc. As long as this is the case, I do not see a reason to take them seriously.
Published: February 19, 2008 10:52 AM
Reposted from Professor Reisman's previous post:
Dear Sirs,
I think a crucial point, not made nearly often enough by supporters of the libertarian conception of justice, is that while respect for property rights and freedom of contract are necessary for the flourishing of both our natural and social orders*, they are by no means sufficient. Our good depends not merely upon our having freedom, but also to some extent upon how we use that freedom.
Remember: persuasive efforts to increase conservation, promote ecological awareness, and support sustainable local food systems can and should take place as voluntary actions within the market (just like advertisement and negotiation). There's a tendency on the part of anti-market folks to make arguments that if left to itself, the market could generate bad outcome X; which leads many naive supporters of the market to argue, to the contrary that, so long as the formal conditions for a free market are met, bad outcome X is impossible - or, alternative, a good thing since "the market has spoken." But, we are the market! We decide through our daily transactions what sort of structure of production will be called forth, and the effects of that structure of production on the natural environment is not without relevance to our wellbeing.
In case one is wondering, I think that Mises would have considered the position I am staking out here a species of "voluntary solidarism,"+ which puts me in the illustrious company of the great Swiss localist, Wilhelm Roepke as well as the "Sage of Batavia" Bill Kauffman.
Incidentally, I sincerely believe it is within this conceptual space that thoughtful Austro-libertarians could be fruitfully engaging the ideas of neo-Agrarians such as Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin, as well as bio-regionalists/permaculturalists such as Kirkpatrick Sale.
Cheers,
Araglin
* The necessity of the foregoing is obviously neglected by statist environmentalists, but it is often also neglected as well by those allegedly "pro-market" defender's of big business and the state capitalist status quo who slide inadvertently from the insight that (1) pursuit of profit in a truly free market promotes societal wellbeing, to the false conclusion that (2) those who have obtained massive profits in our not-at-all-free market are, therefore, above reproach.
+ Mises in his book Socialism condemned even voluntary solidarism as a form of socialism. For arguments as to why he was wrong to so condemn this form of solidarism, see Roderick Long's Mises as Radical: Retrospective on Rothbard’s Thesis at http://praxeology.net/radical-mises.htm
Published: February 19, 2008 10:53 AM
PLCP says: "Anti-communism" is alive and well it would seem.
And Anti-Capitalism is not?
Published: February 19, 2008 11:23 AM
Jake, simply because I disapprove of an argument which is solely comprised of "anti-A" does not mean I support or disregard the philosophy of "anti-B". Nor does the existence of one justify the other.
I was actually referring to the kind of propagandist "anti-communism" which fuelled McCarthyism, being stylistically comprised of little more than rhetorical dogma, hence the inverted commas.
Other than goading me into a tangential argument I can't see the point of your reply. It seems little more than a trolling post.
Published: February 19, 2008 12:18 PM
Just as socialists believe society has its own personality and is above individuals, environmentalists also tend to believe the environment has its own personality. In that sense, there is indeed a little bit of contradiction in calling oneself "free-market environmentalist".
Either environmentalism is about coordinating individual human action according to indivudual judgements of value, including judgements about one's environment; or it is about adding judgements about the alleged "intrinsic value" of the environment. These are two different things, and deserve different terms.
Published: February 19, 2008 12:24 PM
PCLP,
Which definition of Nazi do you ascribe to? The Speilbergsian Raiders of the Lost Ark instrinsically evil monsters, or the populist social movement that sought to right the wrongs of the misguided through force? The parallels between Fascism, in general, and Greenism are very striking. The rise of Fascism in the early part of the century fluttered many a heart, that, FINALLY, we are going to set about ordering society efficiently and effectively for the benefit of all. THAT is the reality of Fascism and its objectives.
I see little or no difference between the rise of Fascism and the rise of Greenism. It is borne from the same social ill that can be traced back centuries. Puritans were of the same sort. The underlying similarity is the Righteous use of Force. All that is needed are a few interchangable particulars and an underlying hatred for those acting freely - using some sort of inductive reasoning that such freedom will bring down the hell fire upon us all.
So I'll hardily agree that the Nazi/Fascist brush is used too liberally at times, but in this case it is apt, at least to one who has an appreciation for what Naziism/Fascism truly was, and I can only assume it used in the strictest sense of the word, not as the derivative pejorative it has become. Ultimately is about anti-individualism, and Greenism seeks to vault The Environment, and its "preservation" over the interests of individuals acting freely. It is simply another excuse for authortarian dictates.
The 1900's should act as a cautionary tale when zealots are given the keys to the halls of power, and yet........
Published: February 19, 2008 12:57 PM
TLWP Sam: "I'd find it funny if free-market R&D couldn't find alternatives to current power sources and technologies..."
Those alternatives have already been found. What is lacking is infrastructure, but that would be a poor investment right now due to the relatively low cost of energy due to current energy infrastructure.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Published: February 19, 2008 1:21 PM
Bastiat wrote: "Just as socialists believe society has its own personality and is above individuals, environmentalists also tend to believe the environment has its own personality. In that sense, there is indeed a little bit of contradiction in calling oneself "free-market environmentalist"."
Only if you believe as Reisman does that this exhausts the range of possibilities for how environmentalists must tend to view the environment. I don't buy it. Some do, some don't. It isn't intrinsic to the concept.
Bastiat wrote: "Either environmentalism is about coordinating individual human action according to indivudual judgements of value, including judgements about one's environment; or it is about adding judgements about the alleged "intrinsic value" of the environment. These are two different things, and deserve different terms."
The latter alternative is unclear to me as stated. In any event, I am all in favor of restricting the use of the term to the former alternative. As I noted previously, the socialists and anti-humanists will actually end up harming the environment if they get their way, so how can they truly be considered environmentalists?
Published: February 19, 2008 1:52 PM
Dear Bastiat,
Would you be willing to acknowledge that there's nothing inconsistent with Austro-libertarianism about holding that an appreciation for (and continued existence of) certain natural landscapes, as well as the flora and fauna that populate those landscapes, could actually be an important constituent of human happiness? Or, on your view, does a right understanding of economics actually entail the conclusion that these things may only count as good to the extent that they are made to serve solely as instrumental means to other, purely-hedonic ends? That is, as parcels of potential real estate and essentially random agglomerations of potential raw materials to be used in the production of commodities to be sold in the money economy...
Dear all:
By supposing that certain features of the natural environment may be constituents of human wellbeing (in their natural state) admittedly does raise a grizzly question for libertarian theory (with which I'm not sure I have discovered a satisfactory answer): Is there any way to reduce such features of the natural environment to rightful ownership by persons seeking, for example, to create a wilderness preserve?* If there is not, then there would be no way (consistent with libertarian rights) to prevent the first "Reismanian" to come along with a bulldozer or cement truck from turning this would-be preserve into yet another stripmall. In other words, the only way to maintain those elements of the environment which may be worth conserving would be if there were virtual unanimity over the advisability of not despoiling the putative preserve.
Generally, under libertarian theory, to reduce a resource to ownership, it has to be either possessed or in some way transformed by labor so as to bring it within a causal means-ends relationship to a human want. But, if, here, we are stipulating that these features of the natural environment are constitutive rather than instrumental means to our wellbeing, how can they be homesteaded at all without changing their character?
I would appreciate any thoughts that any of you may have about how to deal with this problem.
Thanks,
Araglin
* Most free-market environmentalists that I have come across have said that the solution to this or that environmental problems is for those concerns to "buy" whatever it is that they wish to conserve (e.g. this or that wetlands, a few acres of the Amazonian rain forest). This prescription, however, presupposes that there's a way to reduce the resources in question to private ownership in the first place consistent with libertarian homesteading theory.
Published: February 19, 2008 1:55 PM
Very perceptive PCLP.
How did you know I was a troll? ;-)
As a matter of interest, what does your PCLP stand for?
Published: February 19, 2008 2:52 PM
Araglin,
Personally, I think that a libertarian homesteading theory that didn't allow homesteading of untouched land for the purpose of preserving in its natural state would be in error somehow.
It might be a little tricky to carry out in practice and I don't think one could spell out apriori all the criteria one would have to meet in order to do that sort of homesteading (rules for homesteading in general are partly culturally dependent), but I think it should be theoretically supported by a libertarian homesteading theory.
For example, I don't think one can simply rush out to any uncharted territory and as the first one there proclaim that the entire territory is now his by right of first appropriation/homesteading. (Like claiming a moon or a new planet or (to engage in complete fantasy) a new continent.) Ways of homesteading such natural preserves may include fencing it in or otherwise demarcating the particular plot in some intersubjectively ascertainable way. Publicly available registries, for example, and maybe some non-intrusive markers around the border of the owned land.
With regard to your constitutive vs. instrumental distinction, it is a familiar one to me (an Aristotelian). I have no problem with it assuming by constitutive you don't mean intrinsic in the thing (environment) itself or some universal value that all human beings share equally.
Published: February 19, 2008 3:00 PM
Araglin,
I would think that homesteading theory does not specify that a shovel or a saw must be used in order to determine the ownership of land. Hammering in stakes into the ground and charging admission would be sufficient. May be I'm wrong but first ownership does not result from physical modification of unused land. Staking land to preserve its physical state from human modification creates a first use of that land and hence ownership is determined.
Published: February 19, 2008 3:04 PM
The new "Environmentalism" , defined by its actions, seems to be just the latest manifestation of the old social gospel. Teaching morality takes too long, better by govenment arms to enforce an ethos of pro-
tection of materail world whatever the cost to
a selfish humanity. Proof? How many have died because healthy, wealthy environment-
mentalists opposed DDT to protect the unhealthy poor? Who has opposed GM vita-
min A rice so that more of the world can keep their sight? And GM crops in general that would allow farmers to feed more of the world? Want to define environmentalism? By
its actions instead of pretty words it is an anti-
human love affair with Gaia and self.
Published: February 19, 2008 3:25 PM
"Jake, simply because I disapprove of an argument which is solely comprised of "anti-A" does not mean I support or disregard the philosophy of "anti-B". Nor does the existence of one justify the other.
I was actually referring to the kind of propagandist "anti-communism" which fuelled McCarthyism, being stylistically comprised of little more than rhetorical dogma, hence the inverted commas.
Other than goading me into a tangential argument I can't see the point of your reply. It seems little more than a trolling post." --PCLP
As a political ideology, how is environmentalism different from the other collectivist cults?
I think George has emphasized a million times over that he is comparing environmentalism to other horrific collectivist cults from the perspective of looking in the abstarct at each movement's ideology. They sure seem to share similar characteristics.
Published: February 19, 2008 3:39 PM
@ Geoffrey
By "intrinsic value" I mean Reisman's own definition "that nature is valuable in and of itself, apart from all contribution to human life and well-being." In practice, the expression is used by some environmentalists reject the price mechanism as it cannot measure "intrinsic" value, which is whatever value they like to assign from their supposedly superior judgement, but not demonstrable in any way.
@ Araglin
I do not understand your question. Natural landscapes, as well as the flora and fauna that populate those landscapes, as far as they are an important constituent of human happiness, constitute valuable real estate. Whether reducing the habitat destroys more market value than it creates tells me a lot about its actual contribution to well-being. What other measure do you propose (see preceeding paragraph)?
It all boils down to public vs private ownership. Under private ownership, any resource can be saved if only 1 person recognises its value. Under public ownership, no resource can be saved until 50% +1 people recognise its value and succeed to make it an electoral issue. Good luck!
Published: February 19, 2008 3:56 PM
Bastiat,
One can reject intrinsic value without holding that well-being can only be measured in terms of market value.
Published: February 19, 2008 4:03 PM
To Araglin: What in the world is a "natural environment"? Mt. St. Helens has a natural environment, a burned over forest has a natural environment, a malarial swamp is natural environment, which one do you like?
Further one could claim ownership of wilderness by establishing trails and charging for access thereby providing incent-
ive to maintain its character. A good arguement against government controlled
parks and such. Much of what is value in so-called wilderness is what it does not have-
crowds, noise, buildings, etc. not simply some tract of land that no human foot has ever touched. Might not a well designed park meet that need?
Published: February 19, 2008 4:41 PM
@ Geoffrey
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm not saying that well-being can only be measured in terms of market value. To the contrary, it is subjective and unmeasurable. What I meant is only that extra-market institutions cannot be justified on the ground that some "intrinsic value" needs to be protected from free-market outcomes.
Published: February 19, 2008 8:08 PM
Bastiat,
No need to apologize. I think we agree that there is no such thing as intrinsic value and that it would be unjust to threaten or use initiatory physical force to protect the environment.
Published: February 19, 2008 10:25 PM
Dr. Reisman, this certainly offers more substance than your immediately preceding post.
Still, I find it puzzling that you as much as recognize that human activities may very well be responsible for altering the climate, that there are no effective institutional mechanisms (property rights or regulations) now in place that address the impact of such activities, so that the problem is not self-correcting and at some point may very well justify collective action - such as exploding atom bombs http://blog.mises.org/archives/006700.asp - on top of individual adaptation to changing climate, and yet you do not so much engage those who are concerned with the possible consequences of the continued economic exploitation of unowned/unenforced open-access resources (be they the atmosphere, oceans or other resources), as you call them names and question their motives.
Thank you for sharing your dispepsia with us.
http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/19/cool-rationalists-or-conservatives-and-neocons-on-the-environment.aspx
Sincerely,
TT
Published: February 19, 2008 10:26 PM
TT, he was speaking in a hypothetical manner to explain a possible solution to Global Warming (assuming for the sake of the example) that did not require mass suicide as advocated by the Watermelons.
Published: February 19, 2008 11:50 PM
Does G.A.P. hit upon a good point? That for someone to claim a large piece of land by erecting a border around it for the sake of making everyone else a trespasser is a land troll? That suppose a consortium of greenies came along and claimed private ownership of the Amazon (recognised by the appropiate S. American governments) are being misanthropic trolls? That all they are doing are excluding local farmers from clearing the land to feed the local people and prohibiting South American progress and population because they awed the Amazonian flora and fauna?
Published: February 20, 2008 12:04 AM
But of course any significant reduction in energy consumption would impose crippling poverty. After all, we all know that energy inputs per unit of economic output are necessarily a constant--or at least it's the underlying assumption of everything Reisman writes, although he's never actually substantiated it. So it's obviously impossible to increase the energy efficiency of the economy. How do we know? Reisman says so. Over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.
And of course we know that, by definition, anyone using the "environmentalist label" is a democidal primitivist who hates civilization and comfort and the human race. After all, "no true Scotsman...."
Nonsense on stilts.
Published: February 20, 2008 12:11 AM
TLWP Sam,
Your comment seems really bizarre to me. I don't know how you extrapolate that from what I wrote. I was actually defending the legitimacy of homesteading previously unowned land for the purpose of preserving it in its natural state. I just pointed out a quite sensible caveat that one can't claim ownership of something by simply running over there plop down a tent and announce that the whole Amazon (continent, moon, planet, whatever) is yours.
Published: February 20, 2008 12:53 AM
TLWP Sam,
Your comment seems really bizarre to me. I don't know how you extrapolate that from what I wrote. I was actually defending the legitimacy of homesteading previously unowned land for the purpose of preserving it in its natural state. I just pointed out a quite sensible caveat that one can't claim ownership of something by simply running over there plop down a tent and announce that the whole Amazon (continent, moon, planet, whatever) is yours. You wouldn't accept a greedy capitalist doing the very same thing, would you?
Published: February 20, 2008 12:53 AM
Dr. Reisman:
Kindly allow me to add to my remarks.
Austrians, starting from Ludwig von Mises, say that environmentalism is essentially the interpersonal conflict that arises with respect to common, open-access or public resources, resources that are not clearly or effective owned, and economic activities that create costs for or interfere with the plans of others, and cannot be resolved through the marketplace. Yandle and others have explained mankind's very success as a species is a result of our ability to cooperate and thereby to find means to overcome commons issues. von Mises, Block and others tell us how property rights and the common law system developed to provide a fairly effective mechanism for minimizing “environmental” problems, but that industrial corporations managed to undermine such protections, leading to increasing environmental problems, thence to greater direct state regulation and then to a vicious politicized cycle where consumers and regulated industries both seek to use the state to achieve their respective goals. Austrians tell us generally that "The focus of the Austrian approach to environmental economics is conflict resolution. The purpose of focusing on issues related to property rights is to describe the source of the conflict and to identify possible ways of resolving it."
How do you contribute to this discussion? You:
- largely ignore whether there are ANY underlying “environmental” issues (and sweep them all up together, as if climate change was the sole one) that merit discussion,
- posit that mankind cannot have moral responsibility for behavior that might produce harmful consequences, as long as “Nature” is also capable of such consequences
- trumpet the admitted glories of the free market, in order to distract us from existing shortcomings (including an absence of clear and enforceable property rights in the commons and around the world),
- attack or make light of the motives of those – across the whole sweep of society - who profess concern (ascribing to all “the goals of mass destruction and death”),
- take the position that only those who agree with you care about their moral character or accept moral responsibility for the ideas they propound,
- focus on the overwhelming importance of the moniker “environmentalist” and demand that those who do not want to wish to be considered as advocating mass impoverishment and mass death have to stop calling themselves “environmentalists".
- ignore both our political process and the competing industrial and commercial interests, by ascribing to “environmentalists” generally the intention and power to impose their agenda,
- offer as a strawman that the decision-making process by which regulatory or legislative action on climate change (or other transnational, national, regional or local commons problems) would in effect be fiat by a handful of men, rather than one involving the consensus and cooperation of multitudes who use the commons,
- indicate that generally the best way for free societies to deal with obvious problems that result from their own “unintended” and “productive” activities is to simply ignore them (an the implicit violations of property rights often entailed, and to the relative benefit of those generating the problems, and at the cost of others), and adapt to them at an unspecified future date (at which a cost-benefit analysis that is impermissible now can justify action),
- offer the strawman that institutional changes that produce a greater internalization of costs and better management of common resources will somehow materially reduce our standard of living or “destroy our standard of living”, instead of improving catallaxy,
- question the rationality of environmentalists, by implying their willingness to damage economies for purely “ritual sacrifice”,
- wrongly assume that those who are concerned with environmental problems are not actively looking for various means of redress (while at the same time ignoring that pricing signals are the best way to stimulate investments)
- et cetera, et cetera., essentially amounting to alot of hot air.
I’m sorry, but I fail entirely how to see that what you offer us is productive, logical, libertarian or consistent with Austrian principles. It is far too cluttered with logical mistakes, rhetorical fallacies and emotion that reflects your own Manichean projections and confirmation biases to be useful.
Sincerely,
TT (yes, a proud “environmentalist”)
--
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."
Richard Feynman
Published: February 20, 2008 5:45 AM
Jake, PCLP are the initials of my full name.
-
Brad, I've seen little to emphasise "Righteous Use of Force" in any environmental movement that I've come across.
I understand the basic dislike of collectivist movements, but to infer that environmentalists have genocidal tendencies ("openly calling for the death of X billion") is either purposefully misleading nonsense or a horrible misinterpretation. Discussing the lowering of global population is not about actively killing, nor is it about de jure birth rate control. I've certainly not found any modern 'environmentalist' literature that suggests this.
"Program of impoverishment and death"
Even a relatively hard-line primitivist critique is about enrichment, not impoverishment. The fact that they may disagree with industrial consumer-culture driven values does not excuse blanket statements like the one above.
I'm all for arguing against a authoritarian collectivist standpoint, but at least just call it that instead of making leaps of logic and using language that actually has plenty of similarity to National Socialist propaganda (If we are to touch upon Brent's "they have things in common" line).
"Accept moral responsibility for the ideas you propound and stop standing in the service of mass destruction and death." I mean, come off it. Not driving SUVs is mass destruction? Suggesting that unless we voluntarily have smaller families that our children may have to aggressively compete for the finite resources of the planet is the "service of death"?
George sings the praises of Nuclear Power which demonstrated itself naturally economically infeasible and has had to receive huge government subsidy and 'friendly' policy making. Yet he rails against central planning etc. The traditional Orwellian 'socialist' bogeymen (because all socialism is equivalent to 'Command and Control' Stalinism apparently) It's entirely likely that a truly free market would never support centralised energy solutions like Nuclear. A lovely bit of lazy doublethink there.
Apparently non-killer/destructive Environmentalists should abandon the term and find something new. "Tree-huggers" perhaps? Can I recommend then that we all abandon the terms Libertarian, Liberal, Free-Market, Anarchist, Freedom, etc? Because they have all been misappropriated at one point or another. Let's adopt neological practices on a daily basis. Or better yet, let our various ideologies and organisations implode/die-out in the self-loathing fashion of misappropriated art movements (Dada, Surrealism, the SI, and so on).
I have read plenty of Anti-Capitalist rants which fall foul of the same practices and I'm just as critical there. I'm just sad to see such poor argument coming from a university professor and a mises.org syndicated journal.
Plenty of other people are making salient points critiquing the post so I'll step out here (I'm quite aware of how these things can drag on).
HF+GL as they say here on "teh intarweb"
Published: February 20, 2008 7:25 AM
Well, although I doubt he was an environmentalist, there has been a certain professor who has advocated killing 90% of the planet's population off via lethal gas. At least to my recollection.
Published: February 20, 2008 9:24 AM
TokyoTom wrote:
"- ignore both our political process and the competing industrial and commercial interests, by ascribing to “environmentalists” generally the intention and power to impose their agenda,
- offer as a strawman that the decision-making process by which regulatory or legislative action on climate change (or other transnational, national, regional or local commons problems) would in effect be fiat by a handful of men, rather than one involving the consensus and cooperation of multitudes who use the commons,"
Well, the anarchists among us, and some of the minarchists too, will disagree here. Regulatory and legislative action is inherently problematic and is virtually never the result of real consensus and cooperation.
Published: February 20, 2008 10:58 AM
A hearty second to Tokyo Tom's statement at 5:45 (although like Geoffrey I think there are better alternatives than a regulatory approach).
Reisman has at least one thing in common with Mises.
Although Mises was brilliant as a theoretician (his reworking of Menger and Bohm-Bawerk on an a priori basis, his critique of interventionism, and his theory of credit expansion, among other things), when he left the realm of theory and began commenting on politics and history his thought was crude, stereotyped and superficial. A good example is his historical treatment of the Industrial Revolution.
Mises used terms like Socialism and Syndicalism (much as Reisman uses environmentalism) as ahistorical capital-letter abstractions--completely divorced from any real-world context, and without any hint of understanding either as to their actual historical usage or as to the all nuances and subcurrents of thought within the broad milieus that used these labels.
Some time ago quasibill, in regard to Reisman, quoted Rothbard on the tendency of economists to insist on commenting in their areas of least competence.
Published: February 20, 2008 11:17 AM
Mr. Carson said:
"When he [Mises] left the realm of theory and began commenting on politics and history his thought was crude, stereotyped and superficial. A good example is his historical treatment of the Industrial Revolution.
Mises used terms like Socialism and Syndicalism (much as Reisman uses environmentalism) as ahistorical capital-letter abstractions--completely divorced from any real-world context, and without any hint of understanding either as to their actual historical usage or as to the all nuances and subcurrents of thought within the broad milieus that used these labels."
This statement by Mr. Carson is plain wrong. As a starting point, Mr. Carson should study Mises's great work "Socialism'". In addition, even a casual reading of Mises indicates that he possessed a vast knowledge of history. I venture that Mr. Carson made his statement not because of the shortcomings of Mises's knowledge, but because Mises's analysis explodes the fallacies of socialism and syndicalism.
Published: February 20, 2008 12:04 PM
With all due respect, Mr. Carson, I've read quite a bit from you and you are at least as guilty as Dr. Reisman of the critiques you level toward his writings.
Published: February 20, 2008 12:19 PM
Dennis,
I've read both Socialism and the chapters on Socialism and Syndicalism in Human Action, and that is exactly what I based my statement on: his treatment of "Socialism" as some sort of Platonic eidolon, synonymous with state ownership and planning of the economy.
Brent,
That may well be true, although if so it's not deliberate. When I use terms in my own idiosyncratic manner to make a point (as in distinguishing capitalism from the free market), I try at least 1) to make it clear what my meaning is and 2) not to be dogmatic about those who use other terminology.
And one area in which I don't think I'm remotely as bad as Reisman: his tendency to repeat the same polemical attacks without ever directly addressing the counterarguments or responding to challenged to substantiate them. As far as I know, his only response to Tokyo Tom was a single facetious post that did not address a single one of his many substantive criticisms. A good start would be to respond to TT's many citations of Block's work on cost internalization and well-defined property rights as the basis for a *free market environmentalism*.
Published: February 20, 2008 1:22 PM
Kevin_Carson: If you engaged those who disagree with you, with the same frequency you expect of George_Reisman, you probably:
1) Wouldn't have written a whole book where you used the term "Misean".
2) Would have an explanation by now how it's possible to reject landlordism, yet endorse the use of one's home as collateral (thus favoring the right of a non-occupier to evict an occupier).
FWIW, I think the criticism of current energy use based on externalities is weak. Let me explain why. Let's say you tabulated the total genuine net environmental externality of burning oil. How does that compare to the taxes currently levied by governments? The latter is probably larger, meaning oil users already incorporate the externality into their decision to use, and the only problem is that governments don't apply the tax monies properly.
Published: February 20, 2008 1:38 PM
Mr. Carson,
I believe there are only three methods of social organization as it applies the ownership and control of the factors of production: private ownership, state (collective) ownership, and the myriad of interventionist systems in which the facors of production are nominally privately owned but their use is hampered by the state.
Mises, in order to establish clear terminology that differntiates the various systems, used the term socialism to denote a system of social organization in which the factors of production are state owned.
The reason why true, full-fledged socialism has only rarely existed and not existed for very long when it did, is do to the disastorous results it has produced.
Published: February 20, 2008 1:48 PM
As a libertarian, I see pollution as harmful to my lungs and thus, an act of aggression. As such, I also see government's limited role as being the enforcer of property rights and contracts.
Pissing all over every single person that dares mention the slightest concern over the earth's health is utterly retarded. Austrian thinkers have more important things to do than cry emo tears over the fact that they can't dump mercury into a water table that will eventually reach my water supply, or pumping out tons carbom monoxide that will eventually reach my property without my consent. I don't advocate global unenforceable protocols that force production standards to fight off theoretical climate catastrophes.
However, I'm not the least bit bashful about advocating a natural switch to greener power, as was already done with the original electric cars until the feds stepped in. The king-like lifestyle of the modern age would have collapsed and came back under greener power had it not been for the massive theft of tax dollars used to strong-arm or flat out conquer the oil-producing nations into giving the U.S. some of the cheapest psuedo-private gasoline on the planet. Environmentally-friendly business logistics are a natural consequence to the improvement of the efficiency of production balanced with a respect for the property rights of people that are forced to deal with its consequences (especially for those living in places like LA, where you're likely to get sick as a result of smog). The fact of the matter is, nuclear power does only harm the property of the energy producer, rather than spreading property violations across the atmosphere.
Reisman shouldn't bundle everyone calling themselves "environmentalists" as wanting to wipe out millions of people, let alone comparing us to Nazis. Lest I begin to draw comparisons that include George W. Bush, Bill O'Reilly, and everyone else calling themselves a supporter of a "free market" in the same breath. See, this is called "collectivism." Perhaps Reisman should read about it sometime.
Published: February 20, 2008 2:00 PM
Many thanks to Dr. Reisman for this clear and powerful discussion of the misanthropic values at the base of environmentalism. This malignant doctrine is widely--though not universally--considered as self-evidently admirable. Ultimately, this admiration reflects the judgement that the pursuit of self interest and individual flourishing is contemptable and unnatural--i.e. against nature.
One time, a few years back, I was spraying noxious weeds by the bank of a muddy Great Plains river that is frequented by floaters, many of whom live elsewhere. I glanced up from my spraying to notice two canoes, each with three passengers, floating quietly upstream, perhaps 200 yards away. They were sitting motionless in their canoes, paddles at rest, watching me while drifting with the current. Dressed like peas in a pod, each floater wore the green-brown slouch felt hat favored by greens. These ideological fashionatas silently telegraphed their disapproval of my commission of what they obviously considered to be an "environmental crime": spraying chemicals in a "sacred area" next to a sluggish, wide muddy river in which suckers, carp, and catfish flourish.
I wanted to ignore them, but thought I had better greet them to avoid trouble with the authorities, in case they decided to report my harmless (and legal) spraying. So I looked up and waved. Their response seemed odd: no one called back to me with "Beautiful day!" or "Don't work too hard---its hot!". Instead, the floaters all raised their paddles, almost as one, in a stiff-armed gesture that looked like a Black Power Salute. Except these were Greens...
So thinking I must be paranoid, I called out to the canoers, easily within ear-shot: "Nice day for a float." But no one waved back or called out. They just silently floated past me, as I continued "despoiling the environment".
Another time, I was traveling with a couple, one of whom was a devoted environmentalist. We were talking of a hunter who had been mauled and killed, while dressing out an elk, by a grizzley bear. The bear had stalked the hunter, who never had a chance to use his rifle against the attacking bear. I said something about the proliferation of dangerous grizzlies. The woman responded in an unfriendly tone: the hunter was in the bear's territory, carrying a high powered rifle. The clear implication, which I let pass, was that the hunter got what he deserved.
Another
Published: February 20, 2008 4:27 PM
Many thanks to Dr. Reisman for his clear and powerful discussion of the misanthropic values that lie at the base of environmentalism. Although most people today accept these values uncriticially, as though they were self-evidently admirable, in truth these values are malignant. They are malignant, because they flow from a misconceived premise: that the peaceful pursuit of one's properly understood self interest constitutes a crime against other people, and against all of nature.
Most "environmentalists" are not vicious, but they are ignorant and unquestioning. Like their socialist and "national socialist" bretheran in the USA and Europe, greens never pause to seriously question the source of the wealth that they take for granted, which they rather stupidly assume will always be available to them, like the sunshine or rainfall. They imagine that they can destroy much of the division of labor that arises under free enterprise, and then move on to live happy idyllic lives as subsistance farmers and artisans.
Nor do they think to examine their deeply seated belief that the pursuit of one's self-interest is somehow depraved or unnatural; and that man as a thinking, concept-wielding, productive animal is hopelssly out-of-step with "Nature". For man, the intelligent and productive, is indeed ambitious: he projects his understanding to the farthest reaches of the solar system, and beyond; and inward, to identify and rearrange the smallest most basic of the elements of matter. He directs his luminous gaze toward the vibrating process of life itself: understanding the cause and progression of diseases and discovering their curatives; replacing hearts and hips, attaching hands and kidneys; reproducing excellent life forms by cloning!
To greens, such stupendous achievement is cause for neither joy nor celebration; rather, it is viewed as the warped experimental product of the reckless or diabolical--- deserving only of mistrust , restriction, and censure.
More particularly, people who tend to become fervent enviornmentalists share the felt conviction that reason can only limit and distort understanding; that ultimate questions are impenetrable to logical inquiry; that whatever one feels deeply is "truth".
If this (unproved) description of the mindset of fervent environmentalists is accurate, it is not difficult to understand why they would oppose free enterprise, which rewards man's efforts at rearranging and using nature for his selfish goals. Nor is it difficult to grasp why even the most decent of these folks are so easily misled about the consequences for their lives of the green movement's assault on private enterprise and all its productive works,.
Published: February 20, 2008 7:08 PM
Please excuse the few typos, which are corrected below, in the previously posted version of this comment.
Mr. Carson,
I believe that there are only three methods of social organization as it applies to the ownership and control of the factors of production: private ownership, state (collective) ownership, and the myriad of interventionist systems in which the facors of production are nominally privately owned but their use is hampered by the state.
Mises, in order to establish clear terminology that differntiates the various systems, used the term socialism to denote a system of social organization in which the factors of production are state owned.
The reason why true, full-fledged socialism has only rarely existed and not existed for very long when it did, is due to the disastorous results it has produced.
Published: February 20, 2008 7:46 PM
Geoffrey, actually I share your view that regulatory and legislative action is inherently problematic for various reasons, including zero-sum politicization of issues and the necessity for (and general insufficiency of) vigilance to keep the grazing by rent-seekers (and their gatekeepers) on the public commons of the state under control. However, I would not conclude that real consensus and cooperation do not play important roles in the decision-making process - particularly in the case of a global commons such as the atmosphere where there is no single state but a frank and open negotiation over the use of the commons by a number of actors, including but not limited to states. It is the domestic public commons that has been captured, with Austrians tending to support the current batch of rent-suckers.
This is an interesting issue that merits further discussion. However, my point above to Dr. Reisman was not so much to offer my opinion as it was to simply note that Dr. Reisman is wrong (i) to offer as strawmen that somehow those ubiquitous and man-hating “environmentalists” are running the show, through their "Great Leader" puppets, instead of generally the intention and power to impose their agenda, as opposed to a host of competing interest groups, and (ii) to ignore that, in fact, there are indeed a host of private initiatives underway that reflect the consensus and cooperation of multitudes who wish to see a wiser use the commons.
In other words, as for other items I noted, Dr. Reisman is not offering us any observations or commentary that serve as a useful basis for discussion - except, perhaps, the didactic lesson of how NOT to engage productively.
Regards,
Tom
Published: February 20, 2008 9:13 PM
"However, I would not conclude that real consensus and cooperation do not play important roles in the decision-making process - particularly in the case of a global commons such as the atmosphere where there is no single state but a frank and open negotiation over the use of the commons by a number of actors, including but not limited to states."
How is this consensus and cooperation coming about? Who is engaging in it? See, if it is only elites among various NGOs and states, then no I don't think real consensus and cooperation is going on because what is being decided for all isn't even remotely close to being unanimous and voluntary.
"It is the domestic public commons that has been captured, with Austrians tending to support the current batch of rent-suckers."
I disagree on this, except for the occasional bout of vulgar libertarianism. As soon as you show how the atmospheric commons can be dealt with according to Austrian and libertarian principles (i.e., a non-statist solution), then this claim is virtually groundless.
Published: February 20, 2008 10:23 PM
Mark Humphrey's comments illustrate how Dr. Reisman's prose strikes deep emotional chords with fellow clear-thinkers and infects them with the same sloppy prelidection to avoid rational argument in favor of strawmen.
1. Mark says:
"[T] values that lie at the base of environmentalism ... are malignant, because they flow from a misconceived premise: that the peaceful pursuit of one's properly understood self interest constitutes a crime against other people, and against all of nature."
How accurate, much less helpful, is this? Mark, Ludwig von Mises made the following observations: "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.
"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 expressing malignant values? Or is Mark's statement a strawman that posits a false premise as to what motivates "enviros" and omits to note that Austrian analysis itself is very sympathetic to their concerns?
2. Mark further broadly posits that (i) some enviros are "vicious", but the majority who are not vicious (ii) are "ignorant and unquestioning", (iii) have no clue that free enterprise under capitalism and markets are a key well-spring of social wealth and (iv) are deliberately out to "destroy" these institutions and "then move on to live happy idyllic lives as subsistance farmers and artisans".
Are these anything more than vague and empty strawmen? Mark, like Dr. Reisman, doesn't tell us who are the "greens" he is discussing and simply ignores all of the many concerned groups and individuals who certainly do know how markets function and are NOT Luddites - men such as Branson, Soros, the founders of Google and other techno-optimists in Silicon Valley.
3. Like Dr. Reisman, Mark writes paeans to the glorious accomplishments of man, and posits that enviros generally - whoever these people are - view the "pursuit of one's self-interest is somehow depraved or unnatural".
While this may be true of some enviros, does this strawman help us to address those who are troubled by the relatively unfettered exploitation of a number of open-access commons or ineffectively owned or defended resources? Shall we ignore what these people think simply because some ignorant people think that man's pursuit of self-interest is itself wrong? [If so, should we we not also attack all established religions for discouraging narowly self-interested behavior and favoring self-sacrfice on behalf of a wider community?]
4. Mark also relates a couple of ancedotes that he thinks illustrate enviros contempt for individual self-interest. But he fails to note that the disapprobation that certain nature-lovers displayed to him is EXACTLY the type of non-statist behavior that libertarians point to as proof of man's ability to handle problems of "externalities" INFORMALLY, without using the state. Gene Callahan makes precisely this point his essay "How a Free Society Could Solve Global Warming":
"Even when economic transactions generate so-called negative externalities (activities that shower harms on third parties), I still contend that the free market is the best institution for identifying and reducing the problems.
"One way negative externalities can be addressed without turning to state coercion is public censure of individuals or groups widely perceived to be flouting core moral principles or trampling the common good, even if their actions are not technically illegal. Large, private companies and prominent, wealthy individuals are generally quite sensitive to public pressure campaigns.
"To cite just one recent, significant example, Temple Grandin, a notable advocate for the humane treatment of livestock, asserts that McDonald’s is the world leader in improving slaughterhouse conditions. While many executives at the fast-food giant genuinely may be concerned with the welfare of cattle, pigs, and chickens, undoubtedly a strong element of self-interest is also at work here, as the company realizes that corporate image affects consumers’ buying decisions.
"But that self-interest does not negate the laudable outcome of the pressure McDonald’s has applied to its suppliers to meet the stringent standards it has set for animal-handling facilities. Similarly, to the degree that the broad public regards manmade global warming as a serious problem, companies will strive to be seen as “good corporate citizens” that are addressing the matter. And this isn’t ivory-tower speculation on my part—I can see the “green friendly” ads already.
"Critics of libertarianism sometimes denigrate it as a political program of “market fundamentalism” that, if put into practice, would reduce all human values to the price they can fetch as mere commodities. But that is a caricature of the social arrangements advocated by any sensible libertarian. The great figures of classical-liberal and libertarian thought have always recognized the vital contributions that nonmarket institutions, such as churches, families, charities, social clubs, communities of scholars and their students, art foundations, conservation groups, neighborhood associations, and youth athletic leagues, make to the healthy functioning of a free society. What libertarians offer as an alternative to statism is not a social order that judges every human interaction solely on a miserly calculation of profit or loss, but a society in which every desirable form of voluntary association is allowed to flourish, free from coercive interference by the state." http://mises.com/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/02/19/cool-rationalists-or-conservatives-and-neocons-on-the-environment.aspx.
5. Finally, like Dr. Reisman, Mark offers strawmen of "fervent envornmentalists" who embrace Unreason, based on shared "felt convictions" that "reason can only limit and distort understanding; that ultimate questions are impenetrable to logical inquiry; that whatever one feels deeply is 'truth'."
How ironic that those who would clothe themselves in Reason in fact, through rather baldly projecting on others their own "fervent" and shared Manichaean fantasies, display so little Reason themselves!
TT
Published: February 20, 2008 10:26 PM
From Callahan via TT:
""One way negative externalities can be addressed without turning to state coercion is public censure of individuals or groups widely perceived to be flouting core moral principles or trampling the common good, even if their actions are not technically illegal. Large, private companies and prominent, wealthy individuals are generally quite sensitive to public pressure campaigns."
That sounds fine... but will it be enough? If you think so, why not take resorting to government action off the table?
Published: February 20, 2008 10:59 PM
Categorizing environmentalists as Nazis, Fascists, Stalinist etc. is counterproductive in terms of conducting a civil exchange of ideas. The real problem is that Nazis, Fascists and Stalinists are exploiting the ignorance of the average environmentalist and turning them into "useful idiots". I'm sure the average environmentalist, who does not enjoy breathing smog, swimming in sewage contaminated water or eating fish poisoned by mercury, would be horrified to be informed how many MILLIONS of third world babies have died, unneccesarily, from malaria as a result of the environmentalist's push for a global ban on DDT. I'm sure that Rachel Carson does not think of herself as a Hitler or a Stalin, even though her action was instrumental in causing these deaths.
I think it is more constructive to give people the benefit of the doubt. For instance, to quote Obama -"I want to tax corporations who take jobs offshore and give tax breaks to corporations who keep jobs at home." If Obama were to learn Austrian Economics, he would accomplish what he desired simply by lowering (or eliminating) corporate tax rates and reducing the cost of complying with government regualtions. The Republic of Ireland has done this in the EEU, much to the disdain of other EEU members.
Published: February 20, 2008 11:15 PM
Huh, G.A.P.? I thought the point of 'homesteading' went to the tune of people 'having the right own to land provided they are doing something productive with it'. That to simply to knock up some sort of border around vacant land and doing nothing other than chase out 'trespassers' and never having any intention to do something with the land is being an exclusionist land troll. Likewise what if Sth. American farmers were hoping to clear more of the Amazon so they could create greater food production and help move their people away from poverty towards a modern society with a modern standard of living for their fellow people, yet at the last moment Greenies appear, erect some sort of border and declare the forest is now off limits because they want to protect the trees and critters (most of which are probably disease carrying mosquitos and are a large cause of sickness in the Sth. American community, say)? Is it not fair to say the Greenie are land trolls in the sense they are keeping the land vacant for their personal gratification and have to intention of doing anything with the land? That they are misanthropic because they are excluding farmers from feeding more people and stunting the local economy? That they are condeming people to hunger and sickness because the forests contain dangerous pests whereas farms are relatively safe for people (esp. children) in comparison?
If the Greenies could turn the forest into a profitable tourist destination then things would be different, doubly so if it was a great boon to the local economy and the locals could now see a point to keeping the forest in its pristine condition whereas before it was simply seen as dangerous, vacant overgrowth. What did I miss out on?
Published: February 21, 2008 12:10 AM
Kevin_Carson: If you engaged those who disagree with you, with the same frequency you expect of George_Reisman, you probably:
1) Wouldn't have written a whole book where you used the term "Misean".
2) Would have an explanation by now how it's possible to reject landlordism, yet endorse the use of one's home as collateral (thus favoring the right of a non-occupier to evict an occupier).
***************************************
Oh, I don't know.
1) You probably "engage" in more comment threads than almost anyone else here, and yet you've repeatedly shown yourself unable (unwilling?) to grasp the simplest point, no matter how many attempts are made to pound it into your head.
2) I could not only have an argument by now, but have repeated it a thousand times, and it would still pass through your head without leaving a trace.
Regarding point 1), I discussed the arguments in the draft value theory chapters of Mutualist Political Economy in an Austrian Economics yahoogroup with several economics professors on it, and developed those arguments in extended debates there. So far as I know the only person to make a big deal out of the missing "es" has been Walter Block, from whose review you no doubt got this second-hand.
Regarding point 2), it's interesting you want to resurrect that argument. The original is a shining example of your passive-aggressive style of willful obtuseness in these discussions. For anyone masochistic enough to want to revisit it and examine Person's idea of argumentatio, it can be found "here."
I have previously specified that even in a usufructory property system in which juries were unwilling to enforce a long-term rental contract as such, they might be willing to evict an occupant from his house for obtaining it fraudulently or under false pretenses, or pursuant to its being pledged as collateral for a mutual bank loan. I discussed those issues "here."
In my previous exchange with you on the subject, I summed up my frustration in these words:
I've made all the substantive arguments about houses as collateral for mutual banking, RIGHT HERE ON THIS THREAD. There is nothing significant on this subject in my debates in the libertarian alliance forum that I haven't already repeated here.
You're the one who seems to place such great importance on whether or not I discussed it in the past, and how it affects your tactical position in this argument. You've also displayed a fondness for claiming that others who make an assertion have the burden of proof for backing it up. So if you wanna play "gotcha," and think whether or not I discussed something before is so important, do the digging for yourself. Now you expect me to do your homework for you. I don't think it's that important.
I'm making the arguments here and now, and you seem more obsessed with when I first made them than you do with actually addressing their substance. Arguing with you is really *weird*. For you, apparently, anyone you argue with is supposed to make the effort to repeat everything in the context of this aging comment thread, so you don't have the burden of looking anything up for yourself. You get to make assertions about who said what, and when, and push the work of digging up the evidence on others. At the same time, you get to make statements about what I wrote based entirely on a hostile review, without bothering to read the original material for yourself. In short a debate between you and anyone else requires effort mainly from the other person. Could it be that you're just *lazy*?
Published: February 21, 2008 1:30 AM
Geoffrey: Thanks for the question. No, I don't think public pressure and private action will alone be enough - mainly because this a problem that relates to a shared global commons and can't be resolved purely within the bounds of the US and requires a shared understanding globally.
That said, much can be achieved domestically by freeing up markets and allowing greater competition - by removing subsidies for energy consumption, better enforcing property rights, deregulating energy markets to allow consumers to chose energy providers and to face marginal (as opposed to regulated average) costs, etc. These are the kinds of things that we can all support and should be getting behind, even as we may disagree on other points.
There was a good discussion on these issues by Ronald Bailey (Reason Science Correspondent), Lynne Kiesling (economist, Northwestern University) and Fred L. Smith, Jr. (President of CEI) last October at a Reason event; I just found that the video is now available here: http://reason.tv/video/show/246.html
TT
Published: February 21, 2008 1:39 AM
TLWP Sam:
"What did I miss out on?"
I thought you were criticizing me for saying they couldn't appropriate the land and that this implied they were land trolls, which I wasn't arguing. Were you in fact criticizing me for arguing that they can appropriate land in order to keep it in a pristine condition? Why shouldn't they be able to? I did qualify the claim with the sensible point that they, like anyone, can't just go running to an huge unowned tract of land, plop down a tent, and proclaim their ownership.
Published: February 21, 2008 1:54 AM
Thanks for the link TT. Would you happen to be able to tell me what Bailey's views are on cap-and-trade and carbon taxes? I read an article or two a while back that seemed like he was actually in favor of them. Hence, why I called him a statist 'libertarian' a while back.
Published: February 21, 2008 1:56 AM
Person, I hope that you will forgive Kevin Carson for engaging with you on items not germane to this thread - stay focussed on the isses at hand. As a carrot, allow me to respond to this, and to invite your reply:
"FWIW, I think the criticism of current energy use based on externalities is weak. Let me explain why. Let's say you tabulated the total genuine net environmental externality of burning oil. How does that compare to the taxes currently levied by governments? The latter is probably larger, meaning oil users already incorporate the externality into their decision to use, and the only problem is that governments don't apply the tax monies properly."
That's an interesting observation, but not persuasive. Why? For the same reason that gas taxes themselves do not obviate the problem of traffic congestion resulting from the public ownership of roads. Where use of the resource at issue is not itself priced, the incentives to overuse it remain. To the extent that any regulatory approach does not focus on the supposedly undesirable output (CO2, other GHG, soot, etc.) but solely on inputs into an economic activity, it will not have much effect on incentivizing reductions of the undesirable output.
What do you think (and can you ignore Kevin's provocations)?
Regards,
TT
Published: February 21, 2008 2:00 AM
Geoffrey, Ron Bailey reviewed the carbon tax vs. cap and trade proposals last year and announced his preference for carbon taxes as the least harmful, least susceptible to rent-seeking and most efficacious - and came down on the side of carbon taxes. His discussion is here:
"Carbon Taxes Versus Carbon Markets;
What's the best way to limit emissions?"http://www.reason.com/news/show/120381.html
I note that Bailey was essentially channelling, but did not link to, Yale's William Nordhaus, who's most relevant discussions are here:
"To Tax or Not to Tax: Alternative Approaches to Slowing Global Warming," http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/nordhaus_carbontax_reep.pdf
"After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming", http://www.fpif.org/pdf/papers/0603afterkyoto.pdf
As you may know, Bailey used to staunchly oppose any action on climate change, both out of libertarian principles and his view that the science did not merit any action - aptly captured in the CEI book he edited, called "Global Warming and Other Eco Myths How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death".
He explained how he changed his mind at these posts: "We're All Global Warmers Now; Reconciling temperature trends that are all over the place", http://www.reason.com/news/show/34079.html, "Betting on Climate Change It's time to put up or shut up", http://www.reason.com/news/show/34976.html, "Global Warming Data Sets Reconciled", http://www.reason.com/blog/show/113722.html, and "Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore; Actually no one paid me to be wrong about global warming", http://www.reason.com/news/show/36811.html.
You might note that Ron has a post up that links favorably to the new carbon proposal by The Prometheus Institute: http://reason.com/blog/show/124813.html.
TT
Published: February 21, 2008 2:34 AM
Araglin,
Is there any way to reduce such features of the natural environment to rightful ownership by persons seeking, for example, to create a wilderness preserve?* If there is not, then there would be no way (consistent with libertarian rights) to prevent the first "Reismanian" to come along with a bulldozer or cement truck from turning this would-be preserve into yet another stripmall.
I think that if a man were to actively husband a wilderness preserve, making physical improvements to the land for the benefit of its plants and wildlife, he would be entitled to claim all of the land he looked after.
And once he acquires title to the parcel and records the deed, he can transfer ownership. The grantee takes in fee simple without the obligation to either occupy or mix his labor with the land.
But from a practical standpoint, environmentalists who eschew coercion need not buy possessory interests in land they wish to protect. The proper thing to do is to form a land trust, then go out and negotiate conservation easements with whoever's got title to the lands you're after. So if a fellow owns the only large tract of undeveloped land where hot young Spotted Owls like to party and get knocked up, obviously he'd want to buy all the development rights in perpetuity. But if his concern is for the sex life of some less fussy bird, he might only buy the development rights on farmland, such that the land could always be farmed and occupied, but could never be subdivided and developed for a more intensive use. It's not cheap, but it's forever, and you always have the right to make sure the servient tenement isn't being used in a restricted way. The court will compel compliance.
And there're loads of tax benefits in it for the grantor. My Gran's house sits on about 150 acres of mostly undeveloped land--woods, streams, natural springs--it's beautiful. We all told her none of us wanted the house to ever pass out of the family. Because we didn't. And yet, if we did end up selling to a developer someday, even split six ways that would be at least .... Well anyway, her lawyer had a chat with her and the next thing we knew they'd snaffled that easement right out from under us and into a land trust. I had a tiny feeling of resentment towards her lawyer until he explained the tax consequences to me: They're substantial. And now nobody's cutting down her forests--ever.
Published: February 21, 2008 5:36 AM
"I agree with the free-market approach. However, many economists fail to truly acknowledge that natural resources are not unlimited."?
What do you mean NOT UNLIMITED???
Do you mean "not unlimited" in the same sense that the milky way is not unlimited?
While what you say may be tautologically true its irrelevant. The real problem is the scarcity of capital goods.
We can gather all the energy in the world but if its a problem its a problem of capital goods alone.
Published: February 21, 2008 8:26 AM
"What a bunch of simple minded reactionary claptrap. I'm not a in position, nor am I inclined to use my time, to write a detailed counter to this. ..... Anti-communism" is alive and well it would seem."
The commenter, PCLP, seems to think that "anti-communism" is a bad thing. He uses the term "reactionary" which is a particular codeword in the lexicon of communists to refer to the those who defend the old regime they seek to overthrow.
What in the world makes a communist think his opinion about an unabashedly and logically consistent free-market economist like Reisman has any value to anyone on the von Mises corner of the web?
Communists are illiterate when it comes to economics, liars when it comes to history, sociopaths when it comes to ordinary moral decency. They are monsters and apologists for monsters.
So, honestly, PCLP is not in a position to write a rebuttal, because he lacks the moral and mental stature to do so.
I am still amazed that anyone would think anti-Communism was a bad thing. How many millions of people have to die in service to communists ideals before the idea is rejected?
Published: February 21, 2008 9:31 AM
John, it's hard to see why people could in fact think otherwise.
Published: February 21, 2008 9:41 AM
Is this author's rants consistent with the philosophy of Mises??
Does Free Market mean everything is fair game for monetization, no matter what the destructive impact?
Is it a credible business model that a Standard Oil be allowed to contaminate a Nigerian delta, once inhabited by thousands of fishing communities, destroy their lively hood and 'environment' (there is that dirty word), hire a private Blackwater mercenary army of thugs to impose this, protect their assets and keep the current corrupt government in power while draining an enoumously resource rich land of it's assets, plunging the entire population in poverty. Is this Free Market? No restraints?
There seems to be a utopian concept that Free Market corrects the dark side of human nature....
Published: February 21, 2008 9:41 AM
to tokyo tom:
george soros may have a great talent for playing the market, but i seriously doubt his economic sense. check out brookesnews.com editorial of july 24, 2007.
“too much competition and too little cooperation threaten democracy” - these are soros' words. he criticizes markets for “excessive individualism”, and ignoring “common interest”.
this is what victor niederhoffer, a fellow hedgefunder, said of soros:
"Most of all, George believed even then in a mixed economy, one with a strong central international government to correct for the excesses of self-interest."
his theory of reflexivity is opaque, but seems to draw heavily on keynes' "animal spirits" - ie speculators' humours are a danger to the economy, and must be tempered by state intervention.
check out his charities before you dig yourself in too deep. "move-on", grameen bank etc, gun-control lobby-groups, not to mention his funding of various pro-democrat action groups in the run-up to the 2004 elections.
that's not to say all of his philanthropic work reflects a statist stance - he funded solidarnosc and supported drug liberalization worldwide. though the latter, along with euthanasia, seems a uniting theme in all major green parties.
Published: February 21, 2008 9:53 AM
I know I said I would bow out and I feel a bit of a fool for bothering to check back here at all. I just had the feeling I'd receive an 'attack dog' response from somewhere.
Ok J Wright, I'll dignify you with a response.
"The commenter, PCLP, seems to think that "anti-communism" is a bad thing. [etc.]"
Anti-anything is, in my opinion, a poor way to formulate or support an alternate ideology. As I had hoped was clear in my subsequent post.
"Reactionary" is a codeword in the lexicon of the English language. There are several online dictionaries that allow participants of this forum to 'decode' it at their leisure. Reisman's argument does little to support the causes of liberalism or progressive change, it simply denigrates the character of "environmentalism" in strokes. Hence I believe it is an appropriate term.
"What in the world makes a communist think [etc.]"
No idea, not being a communist myself. I'm certainly not fond of "crazy solipsism" (thanks Hess) but I absolutely have no time for authoritarian statism of any sort. Which appears to be the only model of communism you seem to, very roughly, comprehend (though comprehension does not, in general, appear to be your forte).
"Communists are illiterate..[etc.]"
I'm afraid you've misplaced that unreasoning fanatical hatred. Certainly if it's specifically aimed at me.
You have no idea who I am or what my moral and mental statures are. You have leapt to an assumption that I am some kind of Stalinist simply because I used the term "Anti-communism" in the pejorative.
"I am still amazed that anyone would think anti-Communism [etc.]"
I'm more amazed that I bothered to type this.
Once again. I was referring to "anti-communism" when used as a propagandist tool (e.g. The Red Scare, McCarthyism) which seeks to provoke support for one ideology by demonising another and creating a disingenuous bi-polar relationship between the two. Much "Anti capitalist" agit-prop is just as guilty of the same, but is not as relevant in critiquing G.R.'s original post.
(I have completely failed to read the "Don't feed the troll" signs, haven't I?)
Published: February 21, 2008 10:40 AM
Ping: "There seems to be a utopian concept that Free Market corrects the dark side of human nature...."
Actually, Austrians care very much about the environment. We just think the best way to protect it is via stronger protection for property rights. For example, how is it possible for Standard Oil to pollute Nigerian deltas? Because the government owns the land and those in power don't care. If the locals owned the land, they wouldn't allow Standard Oil to pollute their water.
Published: February 21, 2008 10:54 AM
George Reisman wrote:
"If your motivation in calling yourself an environmentalist is merely such things as that you like to see flowers bloom on open meadows, and love trees, whales, and polar bears, and the like, then you owe it to yourself to put as much intellectual and moral distance as possible between you and those who advocate mass impoverishment and mass death."
Judging by some of the comments here, this paragraph was simply lost on you.
There is no doubt in my mind the the environmentalists are out to destroy us. This is evident merely from their proposals to cut our energy base, which is the base of our industrial production. (It is also evident from the fact that they are running a continuous and, as far as I can see, successful campaign to ridicule every "climate sceptic" and pretend that their agenda is a "settled issue".) Well, not distancing oneself from such people is certainly a very different thing from just wanting "to see flowers bloom on open meadows".
We should be grateful that there are a few lonely voices (such as George Reisman's) to oppose this trend. The only question in my mind is whether there is still time to stop it.
Published: February 21, 2008 11:03 AM
I'm not sure what Ping is reading exactly on Austrian economics. Mises' own quotations provided by TT demonstrate that he was deeply concerned about the status of common, unowned land.
Published: February 21, 2008 11:35 AM
If Mises was concerned about common lands, did he address the destructive aspects of the industrial revolution and child labor. Please advise.
Yes, strenghtening property rights is a powerful tool but is not effective retroactively in regions where the 'Standard Oils' have had their way for so long. They have effectively installed the government that suited their 'Free Market' purposes and anyone who got in the way answered to their mercenary security forces.
Also, strenghtened property rights dosn't protect me from a factory upwind dumping mercury into the air I breath or contaminating the groundwater.
The devastation and toxic production occuring in China's new embrace of unfettered Free Market is striking.
I don't understand how these issues are bridged.
Published: February 21, 2008 1:43 PM
"Judging by some of the comments here, this paragraph was simply lost on you."
Not lost, no. We just don't think his preferred method of distancing is particularly constructive or strategically advantageous.
Published: February 21, 2008 1:44 PM
Dennis,
The problem with "private property" as one of your alternatives is that there are many alternative variants of it, with different rules for transfer and abandonment; and none of them, neither Lockean nor usufructory, can IMO be self-evidently derived from human self-ownership. All alternative private property systems are attempts to maximize humans' ownership of their labor-product mixed in with the land, given the unique problems created by the non-portability of land. But none of them is entirely satisfactory, and each of them promotes ownership of the labor-product better in some circumstances, and worse in others, than its rivals.
The socialist movement of the 19th century was a very broad spectrum that included some classical liberals like Hodgskin and Tucker (and the other American individualists), and a wide variety of cooperativist strands as well. Many of them assumed some version of private property (usually usufructory). Tucker's classical liberal wing identified socialism with the economic power of the working class, specifically labor's receipt of its full product, and saw the means of accomplishing this as eliminating the state-enforced privileges and monopolies and artificial scarcity-rents that existed under capitalism, and opening up the supply of credit and land to full-blown market competition.
Even Engels, the most vulgar of vulgar Marxists and most statist of state socialists in his time, did not view state ownership and planning *as such* as equivalent to "socialism." Even for Engels, socialism was primarily defined by the political and economic power of the working class. He saw state control of the economy as something that would be brought about under capitalism, by the capitalists at the helm of the state using state power to promote their own interests. It would become "socialism" only if workers replaced capitalists in control of the state and used state control to socialize profit for workers rather than stabilize it for the capitalists.
Mises took state ownership and planning, as such, as the defining characteristics of socialism.
Published: February 21, 2008 2:08 PM
Dr. Reisman appears to champion the un-hyphenated versions of libertarian and genuine liberalism. There is no need to be a "libertarian environmentalist" - the concern for one's own property embodied in the word "libertarian" implies a concern for the environment.
Published: February 21, 2008 5:41 PM
Brian: "Dr. Reisman appears to champion the un-hyphenated versions of libertarian and genuine liberalism. There is no need to be a "libertarian environmentalist" - the concern for one's own property embodied in the word "libertarian" implies a concern for the environment."
Two points:
1) That "un-hyphenated" approach is inadequate strategically. If we've learned anything from the history of liberty, it is that marketing is important and getting and keeping control of popular labels is an important part of that. (Witness the history of the term 'liberal'.)
2) That "un-hyphenated" approach may allow for the possibility of an environmentalist concern for the environment but it does not emphasize it. It's perfectly compatible with a libertarian hating pristine nature and preferring the concrete jungle. The whole point of the "hyphenation" is to emphasize something that certain libertarians believe to be of particular importance to them. It distinguishes them from libertarians in general and from that kind of libertarian in particular. I happen to prefer cities myself, particularly for living in, or suburbs near cities rather, but I would like to preserve some pristine and near-pristine tracts of nature for sight-seeing, hunting, etc. Some libertarians couldn't care less. Hence, the "hyphenation."
Published: February 21, 2008 6:12 PM