Zeal For Truth

Last time we look at the two major philosophies we can use to solve global warming: capitalism or socialism. I believe that we have employed a socialist solution since the Industrial Revolution, and only a capitalist solution will get us out of the mess. Global Warming is a long-term problem that must be fixed by sustainable systematic changes, not by the whims of politicians or socialist elites.

The Socialist Nature of the Problem
Presuming Global Warming has been caused by air pollution, we have noted that this is a natural consequences of having the air as commons. Governments have prevented air from being seen as property as early as the 1860’s. As the Industrial Revolution took off, people living near factories began to go to the courts with nuisance lawsuits when their health and property were adversely affected. And they won - that is, until the government stepped in to stop these “frivolous” lawsuits in the name of both national industrial competition and streamlining of the justice system. Frank Bubb outlined this back in 1970:

Air and water pollution caused by industry obviously fall into the category of public, rather than private, nuisance because it often affects thousands of people. And since it affects the people in a given area relatively uniformly, no private individual is allowed to sue. The only thing left is government prosecution, but government has typically been the “partner” of industrial polluters until now.

Why does government prohibit private suits for public nuisances? The official reason is to prevent a “multiplicity of suits”, but the reason underlying that is to prevent the hindrance of industrial expansion by making industry pay for its pollution or stop polluting.

Pollution has reached its present destructive level largely because people whose rights have been violated have not been provided a legal remedy, and because the monopolistic nature of government prevents them from turning elsewhere for a remedy. It is as if the government were to tell you that it will (attempt to) protect you from a thief who steals only from you, but that it will not protect you if the thief also steals from everyone else in the neighborhood, and further, that it will prevent you from protecting yourself.

Now that the pollution problem has literally thrust itself into people’s faces, they attack the profit system and demand that government “go after” industry. To continue the above analogy, it is as if people were to respond to a rash of thefts by attacking the character of everyone who enters the neighborhood and by demanding that the government lock up all such strangers.

In other words, a “commons” has been created which the government has no idea how to distribute, protect or even use. They have attempted to distribute it socialistically, and it has reaped the consequences we have today.

Government has made the air into a virtual “free” good, protecting it as though it has no price and essentially banning the instruments of valuation. It should be no surprise that people have treated it thusly, overusing and exploiting it.

The Capitalist Solution
Capitalism accounts for the tragedy of the commons by de-commonizing it as everything else throughout history has been - through private property. We only have the tragedies because the natural selfishness of man has been hindered by the artificial preservation of commons. Because of examples like the Industrial Revolution, we now have no legal precedent and no laws regulating property rights in the air and it’s been trashed by pollution.

There is a solution to the problem of the atmosphere being polluted (or eroded as in global warming’s case) - and it isn’t going to change by mere taxes and cap trades. The commons will still exist - it will just be all the more ripe for the picking when the tax and trade structures are either corrupted or the bodies that force them are dissolved. Thus a non-private property solution is short-term at best.

We don’t have a shortage of cows precisely because the commons in cows was homesteaded. We don’t have a shortage of potatoes because they were homesteaded. We do have a shortage of fish stock, and, more importantly, massive destruction and pollution of oceanic habitat because it has been legislated and preserved as commons. When any good is kept as commons, there is no self-interest in preserving it. In many places there is even a government led tax system meant to wisely distribute fish resources (similar to Global Warming proposals) which has completely failed.

For example, if I don’t own rights to fish (or a share of them), why would I seek to preserve them or have them reproduce? I’d run in and butcher them, grab as many as possible and sell them for as much money as I could get. However, if I can claim property rights and those rights are protected, then it is in my selfish interest not to be so wanton. In fact, I would be very careful to do whatever it takes to ensure their survival and plentiful reproduction. But continue to make things public or “common” property and whatever is desired to be preserved will be destroyed, raped and wasted faster than can be imagined.

What is the Answer?
The solution may be that all smoke and smog should be banned. Right now, there is no legal or principled justification for it because it isn’t based on anything other than “commons.” Base it in the most fundamental human construct of property rights and there’s actually real and reasonable methods to stop pollution, now. Right now there is no precedent, only a vague concept of “our” collective atmosphere - tribal property if you will. No wonder it’s an industrial cesspool.

But I also want to add that the polluters are responsible for these affects and they need to be tracked down and severely punished. Just blaming “industry” or “car users” or whatever and legislating taxes really isn’t justice. It can be measured who is responsible individually - it’s complicated, but it can still be done.

That is another reason why some form of homesteading needs to happen - because when the taxes don’t work and you actually have people’s property being submerged (if the sea levels rise, for example) you actually have a crime. Not an environmental problem - but an aggression against innocent people. Making these kinds of distinctions is really important and illustrates my point that there is a lot more to this than these over-simplified tax/cap solutions.

People’s air rights are being violated now - but government monopolies on justice refuse to allow adequate prosecution. Instead they propose industry-friendly solutions like gradual taxes or trading schemes. Polluters are quantifiable criminals - if government doesn’t have the intelligence and ethical zeal to go after them, then they should step out of the way. Anything less is to perpetuate injustice for the victims, and potential planetary catastrophe for the rest of us.

Bubb gets it right again:

The solution is not to protect businessmen from paying for their own pollution, nor is it to penalize businessmen for being businessmen. The solution is to recognize the right of individual people to protect their property rights.

At this point, the problem becomes: how in the world can we homestead air? I would like to argue some possibilities in the last installment of this series tomorrow.