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The free market is incapable of valuing the environment. How do you place a dollar amount on the survival of our species? Every gallon of petrol burned causes d

The free market is incapable of valuing the environment. How do you place a dollar amount on the survival of our species? Every gallon of petrol burned causes damage to the environment. How do you calculate the cost of that damage? How can the free market ever solve our problem if this very real cost is not reflected in the price of the product? Don't you think it's fishy that oil companies are now actually pushing for more taxes on fossil fuels? It's because they know that they'll get a bargain; the tax will always be lower than the value of the damage they're causing to our planet, and by the time everyone else realizes that it will be too late. They will be even more rich, and our species will be franticly scrambling to deal with the consequences of our inaction. We've seen it time and time again; the free market is prone to the same short-sightedness as the rest of the human race. It will continue advancing in exactly the same way until it is either forced to change or eats itself whole, except instead of a depression we will face extinction.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
The work of Coase and Pigou both imply that the free market is perfectly capable of "valuing the environment" - these things just don't adhere well to states in which identity politics make reasoning about these things in a price way off limits. I freely admit for myself - it seems rather a cold and .. Vulcan way of looking at it, but what other choice is there? It's humanity that is short-sighted ( because of time pressure in decision processes causing things like hyperbolic discounting )and free markets reflect that, as would any thinking other than purest central planning. We're back to "no straight thing was ever constructed from the crooked timber of humanity." Trying to ... sawmill it straight has a pretty poor track record. Meanwhile, the hydrocarbon industry sowed the wind by drinking the zero-coupon bond Kool-Aid and will reap the whirlwind.
- masklinn 10y ago
  > The work of Coase and Pigou both imply that the free market is perfectly capable of "valuing the environment" […] It's humanity that is short-sighted I'm not sure there's anything more worthless than purely theorical econ, if you assume perfectly spherical cows in a vacuum all economic systems will end up at the same point and it doesn't really matter which one you pick. > We're back to "no straight thing was ever constructed from the crooked timber of humanity." Trying to ... sawmill it straight has a pretty poor track record. And yet that's the entire point of political and economic system, if you unmoor the system from the "crooked timber of humanity" it has no application.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    Systems which use the noises in people's heads to cancel each other out do better. That's Smith's point abut his scorn for "the Man Of System" - nobody is that smart. It's important to understand the limitations of such things.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

The work of Coase and Pigou both imply that the free market is perfectly capable of "valuing the environment" - these things just don't adhere well to states in which identity politics make reasoning about these things in a price way off limits. I freely admit for myself - it seems rather a cold and .. Vulcan way of looking at it, but what other choice is there? It's humanity that is short-sighted ( because of time pressure in decision processes causing things like hyperbolic discounting )and free markets reflect that, as would any thinking other than purest central planning. We're back to "no straight thing was ever constructed from the crooked timber of humanity." Trying to ... sawmill it straight has a pretty poor track record. Meanwhile, the hydrocarbon industry sowed the wind by drinking the zero-coupon bond Kool-Aid and will reap the whirlwind.

masklinn 10y ago
> The work of Coase and Pigou both imply that the free market is perfectly capable of "valuing the environment" […] It's humanity that is short-sighted I'm not sure there's anything more worthless than purely theorical econ, if you assume perfectly spherical cows in a vacuum all economic systems will end up at the same point and it doesn't really matter which one you pick. > We're back to "no straight thing was ever constructed from the crooked timber of humanity." Trying to ... sawmill it straight has a pretty poor track record. And yet that's the entire point of political and economic system, if you unmoor the system from the "crooked timber of humanity" it has no application.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Systems which use the noises in people's heads to cancel each other out do better. That's Smith's point abut his scorn for "the Man Of System" - nobody is that smart. It's important to understand the limitations of such things.