Would you describe vandalism as a "market failure"? How about shoplifting? If not, why are they a different problem from littering?
If there is a problem with plastic bag litter, it is the fault of the litterers, which is a subset of all users of plastic bags. Shifting what should be the liability of the polluters onto the entire population of plastic bag users doesn't right any wrong--in my view the wrong is even greater.
> Would you describe vandalism as a "market failure"? How about shoplifting? If not, why are they a different problem from littering?
Yes. This is exactly why we don't expect markets to take care of these issues: instead, we have a public police force.
> If there is a problem with plastic bag litter, it is the fault of the litterers, which is a subset of all users of plastic bags. Shifting what should be the liability of the polluters onto the entire population of plastic bag users doesn't right any wrong--in my view the wrong is even greater.
The problem is that enforcing this liability is somewhere between impractical and impossible. It doesn't matter how much ideological sense your proposed solution makes if it can't actually be executed.
>Yes. This is exactly why we don't expect markets to take care of these issues: instead, we have a public police force.
Markets can and do take care of these problems. Businesses employ loss prevention and security staff, install security cameras and do a myriad of other things to prevent these problems from happening. Furthermore, when preventative measures are not enough, insurance is also available.
Police officers do very little to prevent these kind of problems. I would guess that very few cases (percentage wise) of shoplifting or vandalism were actually prevented by an on duty police officer. In almost all crimes on property or person police only show up afterwards--if they show up at all.
>The problem is that enforcing this liability is somewhere between impractical and impossible. It doesn't matter how much ideological sense your proposed solution makes if it can't actually be executed.
Maybe so, depends on the case. If I have video footage of a neighbor dumping a plastic bag in my front yard, I can pursue it if I want. Perhaps the wind blew it into my tree from a careless person many miles away. If I wanted to, I could hire an expert to do forensics on the bag and track down the culprit. In reality when the cost is so low for me to go pick up the bag from my property, that's what I'll do. The point is, it's up to the property owner to determine how they want to handle a trespass on their property. It is a cost/benefit analysis and the markets are working just the way they should.
> Markets can and do take care of these problems. Businesses employ loss prevention and security staff, install security cameras and do a myriad of other things to prevent these problems from happening. Furthermore, when preventative measures are not enough, insurance is also available.
Yeah. Businesses pay for something. Consumers pay for them.
But unless you actually create a crime-fighting unit, then you have innocent people paying for the crimes of others.
Look, if you're going to go anarcho-capitalist, please at least do the correct response and talk about "Dispute Resolution Organizations" or voluntary "Arbitration Courts". Because talking about those anarcho-capitalist concepts at least demonstrates to me that you're following the argument.
>Yeah. Businesses pay for something. Consumers pay for them.
>But unless you actually create a crime-fighting unit, then you have innocent people paying for the crimes of others.
So what? My local grocery store has a publicly accessible bathroom. Even though I may not go in and use the bathroom, I pay for other customers' use when I purchase a box of Cheerios.
>Look, if you're going to go anarcho-capitalist, please at least do the correct response and talk about "Dispute Resolution Organizations" or voluntary "Arbitration Courts". Because talking about those anarcho-capitalist concepts at least demonstrates to me that you're following the argument.
Perhaps you posted in the wrong thread because this thread wasn't even discussing private courts so I'm not sure what you're referring to when you talk about "following the argument".
> So what?
Nice argument. I guess we're done here. If you want to debate about philosophy and morals with me, the bare minimum requirement is that you do care.
As noted before, the $0.05 bag tax is a very, very, very minor issue. It barely costs anything. Frankly, I'm surprised you cared enough to discuss the matter this long on an issue so mundane.
If you were to ask me how much I cared about this subject, I'd tell you straight up: about $0.05, the amount of "bag tax" in my county. I'm not asking for a miracle or anything here. I'm just saying this is clearly more fair for plastic-bag users to pay for the costs associated with their behavior (however small it is), rather than other people paying for it.
If you can demonstrate to me that using the bathroom at stores is a major enough concern that a tax is required, then we can discuss creating a tax on that behavior as well. Somehow, I bet you're being facetious.
> Would you describe vandalism as a "market failure"? How about shoplifting? If not, why are they a different problem from littering?
In the great scheme of things, yes. Although the definition kinda gets silly and I see your point. At the end of the day, you cannot trust the "free market" to solve vandalism or shoplifting.
You need to create a justice system, hire cops, and then use these cops to persecute vandals or other criminals. Under a free market devoid of crimefighting units, vandals and shoplifters will cause prices to rise (as stores increase prices to offset losses). IE: market failure. Otherwise innocent people are forced to pay for the crimes of others.
The creation of a police force requires innocent citizens to pay taxes for the police force as well. And the state will require the use of force to extort the money from these innocent citizens. So in the great scheme of things, the whole setup is extremely anti-market and demonstrates how much of a market failure the whole crime system is.
So from the perspective of "we can't trust only the free market to solve this problem", yes, Vandalism and Shoplifting require more than just straight capitalism to solve.
Most problems can be solved with capitalism btw. Which is why I'm generally a conservative on issues. But I educate myself on the failures of the free market so that I understand when we need to look at other solutions.
I'm mostly happy with the police system we have by the way. It seems like the "least bad". I see many issues, but I can't figure out a way to make the system better. And when I travel the world and look at other country's police systems, I'd much rather have the American system.
> If there is a problem with plastic bag litter, it is the fault of the litterers, which is a subset of all users of plastic bags. Shifting what should be the liability of the polluters onto the entire population of plastic bag users doesn't right any wrong--in my view the wrong is even greater.
Here's the primary difference: plastic bag pollution occurs even if you are 100% compliant with the law.
Plastic bags get thrown away into a dump, or otherwise discarded by some means. Then they degrade into micro-particles (since there's very few bacteria that can actually break down the bag), and then you start running into long-term pollution problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_pollution#Microdebris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_pollution#Microdebris
Someone needs to pay for this. And naturally, making the users of the bags pay for this seems like the most fair solution.
>In the great scheme of things, yes. Although the definition kinda gets silly and I see your point. At the end of the day, you cannot trust the "free market" to solve vandalism or shoplifting.
See my above response. Markets do deal with vandalism and shoplifting, probably better than the police.
>You need to create a justice system, hire cops, and then use these cops to persecute vandals or other criminals. Under a free market devoid of crimefighting units, vandals and shoplifters will cause prices to rise (as stores increase prices to offset losses). IE: market failure. Otherwise innocent people are forced to pay for the crimes of others.
>The creation of a police force requires innocent citizens to pay taxes for the police force as well. And the state will require the use of force to extort the money from these innocent citizens. So in the great scheme of things, the whole setup is extremely anti-market and demonstrates how much of a market failure the whole crime system is.
Private police forces do exist. There are currently examples of this in Detroit where the public police is defunct. As for the court system, the closest thing I can think of in the private sector would be arbitration. There are theories out there of how the market might operate an entire court system. Just because these private systems are not more prevalent due to government monopolies does not denote a market failure.
>Here's the primary difference: plastic bag pollution occurs even if you are 100% compliant with the law.
>Plastic bags get thrown away into a dump, or otherwise discarded by some means. Then they degrade into micro-particles (since there's very few bacteria that can actually break down the bag), and then you start running into long-term pollution problems.
If the dump is incurring a cost by putting plastic bags into its landfill, than it behooves the dump to recuperate those costs from those consuming and throwing away those bags. If the dump's consumption of plastic bags is causing pollution to neighboring properties than the dump is liable.
This can all be handled with the market. No bans, and no taxes necessary.
Maybe you could frame them that way. Vandalism causes damage to society (and a cost to repair/clean). There may be smaller prices society could pay, by providing some kind of alternative to tagging or destruction of property.
Hypothetically, with plastic bags, maybe you were paying 6 cents per bag, through taxes, for the city to send people out to clean up litter. With a 5 cent tax, the cost is more obvious, but discourages everyone (including litterers) from using as many bags. With fewer bags to pick up, the city can spend less on cleaning crews (now easily covered by the 5 cent tax), and the 6 cents can go to something more productive. As a bonus, you've lowered the long-term environmental damage rate from bags that get away.
The thing is, the liability caused by the polluters was already on the entire population, whether or not they polluted, and even whether or not they used plastic bags at all. It feels worse (and more unfair) because you're made more aware of the costs involved, even though there's been an improvement in the overall situation (including for you, the non-polluter).