Tag Archive for carbon-caps at Zeal For Truth

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Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part III

Published by Colin April 10, 2008 in General, Essays and Politics. 2 Comments

Presuming that global warming is indeed a pending crisis caused by pollution, we began (Part I) by looking at the two approaches one can take to solving this issue - a socialist solution, where resources protected, controlled, managed, utilized and/or distributed by the state as common property; or a capitalist solution, where resources are homesteaded as private property and managed through economic law.

It was then argued (Part II) that we have been attempting to solve environmental problems with socialism for some time, and capitalism is the only way out of the mess we’ve created via unintended consequences. In fact, global warming is an unintended consequence of socialism.

“Don’t Crap Where You Live”
The primary problem with the socialist solution is that there is no incentive for a person to “regulate” themselves on common property. I have seen this, for example, in every single one of my employer’s company kitchens. No matter where I work, there is always problems with the cleanliness of the corporate kitchen. People leave out dirty dishes and make messes for others to clean up - no one is responsible because “everyone” is responsible.

Private property, on the other hand, is someone’s capital asset. They need it to make profit of some kind - that could mean money, but it could just as easily mean psychological, moral or charitable profit. The point is that it is an asset to them rather than a dumping ground - it has real value. There is a principle hard-wired into many of nature’s creatures: “don’t crap where you live.” Private property would force polluters to “crap where they live.” Allow what is public and common to be “where someone lives” and they wont “crap” there.

The solution is to use the natural state of man - self-preservation, territorialism, value maximization, to harmonize with nature. The atmosphere is no different than any other part of nature, in that no one will care about it unless someone is using it. As soon as it is homesteaded, private property laws will apply like anything else. Just like you can’t go and dump your trash on my lawn, companies and individuals won’t be able to let their carbon go to the atmosphere.

Ideas for Implementation
Let’s look at some practical ways we can introduce these ideas.

Use the Court System - The first step is to go back to where we were in the 1860’s - people were allowed property rights in the air they homesteaded for breathing, sunlight, rain, etc… Lawsuits over pollution damages should not be laughed at and should instead be upheld and huge fines should be levied. The next time someone blows smoke in my face, I should be able to sue them (even for a nickel) on principle. If just one of the biggest polluters, such as the US, actually enforced their constitution and prosecuted all their factories, autos and so on that are damaging everyone’s air, then it would at least be started.

Allow Airlines to Homestead Air Tracts - Another possible way of “propertizing” would be allowing Airlines to homestead tracts of air. They would jump at this because the efficiency of running Rhumb Lines makes certain tracts of air very valuable. The airlines running these routs would now have a vested interest in not polluting their own airspace, because moving to other airspace costs in fuel, time, wages, etc…The point is that airlines themselves would have an incentive not to pollute in their air and they would be sued if they polluted in some other airline’s air.

Allow “Airfills” for Extra Carbon - What if we simply allowed companies to homestead tracts of air for storing pollution and carbon. There would likely be a rush for them. These “airfills” would fill up pretty fast with pollution, no doubt, and there’d be less and less air to fill. Meanwhile, every unit of fill would drive up the value of clean air as it becomes more and more scarce. Now there is a profit motive for cleaning air! Air cleaning companies may arise and create technology to purify old “airfills.” Just like water now: there’s no problem with water in more capitalistic countries. The market consistently generates profit signals in producing water, using water, then cleaning it again. It’s not even hard to imagine this with air. Moreover, maybe that technology allows weather stabilization, or ozone rebuilding or some other unintended good?
Continue reading ‘Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part III’

Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part II

Published by Colin April 9, 2008 in Essays and Politics. 10 Comments

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.
Continue reading ‘Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part II’

Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part I

Published by Colin April 8, 2008 in Essays, Politics and Philosophy. 11 Comments

While global warming no longer seems to be the issue of the day (that is, I am not hearing about it every five minutes on cable news), there is still much fear and trepidation about what exactly we are to do about it. I have decided to proceed as though Global Warming is a significant problem and that it is man-made, or at least significantly so, despite yet being convinced of this last point. I want to take a look at what kind of approaches we have open to us in the event of such a dire scenario.

Philosophically, we generally have two structures to work with - a capitalist/market-based solution or a socialist/collectivist solution.

The Socialist Solution
A socialist solution holds the collective good (as defined in units as small as a single company’s union, a state, nation or even a global community but no smaller than two), above everything as principle. Global warming, like global anything (hunger, disease, war, etc..) is best solved through collectives owning and distributing (by force against the individual) the solutions to these problems through central planning. If a threat is seen as dire, a collective-wide plan will be established by popular elites and experts to deal with the solution in the spirit of utilitarianism. Compliance will be mandatory for all individuals who are part of the collective. This solution includes anything that follows these principles - carbon taxes, carbon caps, mandated alternative energies, subsidies to energy corporations, etc…

Socialism declares that people are not educated, motivated or otherwise able to make the best decision for themselves so the collective, on their behalf, will help them comply which what the collective deems is in their best rational interest. Moreover, people’s greed and selfishness creates exploitative relationships between people (virtual masters and slaves) and also between people and resources.

The Capitalist Solution
A capitalist solution holds individual rights above everything as principle. Global warming, like global anything (hunger, disease, war, etc..) is best solved through the voluntary cooperation of individuals all acting in their own self interest as determined by their own priorities. In the same way you don’t have to compel people to defend themselves from hordes of Hunns, you should not need to compel people to defend against a global catastrophe such as the worst prognostics of global warming.

If the threat is seen as dire, people on all levels of the world will act voluntarily - they won’t need to be forced. Individuals will cut down on their carbon use. Corporations will invest in earth-friendly technology. Insurance companies will start assessing risk. People will readily give up money, time and energy to preserve themselves in the face of such a threat.

Any other industry-wide, market-wide or even global-wide crisis is dealt with in this manner. Consider global sickness and disease: the market produced and built healthcare systems (through insurance and risk management) purely out of self-interest. Look at the crisis of financial accountability - the market creates independent standards and audit commissions to self-regulate. Even the global problem of standardizing communication and media devices - all done by people acting in self-interest without government.

Thus, if there is a disconnect between industry leaders and the more extreme global warming predictions, it’s not because of bottom line self-interest, but clearly because business leaders have not been convinced of the problem. The other option is that there really isn’t a major problem, but we are presuming the worst in this article.
Continue reading ‘Global Warming: Markets or Socialism? Part I’

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