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When I was younger, I honestly believed in the explanation that left to their own devices, free enterprise will work to protect the environment, as anything tha

• andrewclunn 9y ago
  Even most libertarians recognize that in situations where the very physical nature of something (like air) means that pollution won't stay where it was created, it's an unavoidable tragedy of the commons. Free markets are much better at avoiding such situations in most circumstances, but when the tragedy of the commons is inescapable, regulation is the only weapon we have. Now issues with the current form of the EPA may arise, but the notion of removing it with nothing to fill the void doesn't even fly with my Any Rand loving self.
• jeroldmcfiggen 9y ago
  The problem is the modern 'corporation'. First govermnent allows anonymous structures like this that are free to pursue maximum profitability with minumum legal responsibility for the individuals behind this structure. Then afterwards it needs to regulate that which it allowed in the first place.
• filleokus 9y ago
  I consider myself a really pro market guy, but I can't agree with the statement: > free enterprise will work to protect the environment, as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits I mean, isn't the environment the prime example of a situation where externalities and the tragedy of the commons describe the problems for the free market to solve the problems at hand? Further, free enterprises exist to maximise their own profit and not to protect the "market". The only circumstance under which I expect the free market to freely solve any environmental issues is if the consumer demands more (truly) environmentally friendly products and services, moving the demand and hence the profit from polluting products.
  • _red 9y ago
    Imbued in your statement is an even more difficult knot to undo. "Tragedy of the Commons" is caused by the very existence of the modern state. Common land = public land. In a truly private system, one in which all land was owned, every parcel of land would have some advocate who cared very deeply about the environmental quality of their land. You producing pollution on your land that negatively affected mine would result in a lawsuit. It is really the very existence of the legal-fiction of "public land" (ie. land that everyone owns), which gives rise to many of the real environmental abuses. *typo
    • titzer 9y ago
      Well, American Indians and probably most of the indigenous peoples of the Earth would thoroughly and fundamentally disagree that the invented concept is "public land", but rather "private land". In a world where corporations buy land, pillage all of its natural resources, then sell off a smoking crater, the loser is always the environment, as corporations and people downcycle real estate constantly, extracting their profits, destroying what was there before, dodging externalities, and then often defrauding the next investor. Look what was there before and what is left over after the whole cycle. It's shit. You should take a look at the forests of New Zealand and the movement to make logging on public lands illegal.
      • golergka 9y ago
        If you're talking about the pre-colonization state of these cultures, they would disagree with a lot of concepts we use now. For example, zero and negative numbers. Does it mean that zero and negative numbers are morally bankrupt?
        • titzer 9y ago
          The universe is amoral and mathematics doubly so, but the OP was talking about how the "invented concept" of public land gives rise to this tragedy of the commons. I am directly disagreeing in that A.) public land is the invented concept (it isn't, private land is) B.) public land is where the tragedy of the commons occurs (it isn't always, as tragedy happens on private lands, perhaps moreso). I can give more examples of B.) where corporations visit environmental destruction on lands they own (e.g. gold mines) and then sell off the leftover, ruined real estate, having still profited handsomely in the end.
• lend000 9y ago
  A society isn't free (and neither are its markets) if there isn't a strong rule of law preventing aggression. Polluting non-localized/public resources aggresses against others and therefore reduces net freedom if there are no protections and countermeasures. This is all very consistent with a free market ideology, although some do not see it that way.
• ekianjo 9y ago
  On the contrary. Give property rights to everything and individuals and corporations will have every incentive to protect what they own, be it environmental resources or anything else.
  • zaarn 9y ago
    Corporations have incentives to maximize short-term profits at the sacrifice of environmental resources and common decency (dump the chemical waste in the river and pay your employees the lowest possible wage). This obviously means the company will quickly run out of resources and employees but depending on the severity of the deployed sacrifice, this can take decades, a time span that corporations have shown on several occasions to not care about.
    • ekianjo 9y ago
      My point was, make the river a private resource worth money to some organization or someone, and they will fight that corporation where it matters. Counter-balancing incentives work best, and we have already seen this kind of system work better than regulations.
      • zaarn 9y ago
        As a public utility, the river is worth money to the government. If it goes to waste, less people will be able to use it to make money, which leads to less taxes. Any agency brought up to protect the environment has per it's mission an incentive to protect the environment and doesn't suffer the problems of a corporation, namely limited funding. A government agency doesn't need to make profit to receive lots of funding if it's important enough.
  • hliyan 9y ago
    Unfortunately, assigning property rights to breathable air is going to be problematic.
    • ekianjo 9y ago
• BigTex420 9y ago
  I think Adam Smith's invisible hand develops a bit of Parkinsons when it comes to issues like the environment. I agree with your sentiment but I also fall prey to cynicism a little too easily. If there is one thing I've learned about the markets, it's this: Things move much more quickly or much more slowly than anyone ever expects.
• dspillett 9y ago
  The problem with "as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits" is that while capitalist idealists believe the market is capable of long term thinking required for this to work, it very much isn't and probably never has been. There are many environmentally damaging actions that offer short-to-medium term gain, and many of the changes necessary for long term gain have costs in the short term so are not attractive to the short/medium term thinkers. The problem isn't even constrained to issues that will come to a head after our lifespans. There are many issues that are going to start biting hard in our lifetime, but to "the market" even that is long term: companies are thinking about profits/costs over the next five or ten years and individuals are thinking about maximising what they can get out of their current company in the next year or two before they move on. Heck, many (both companies and individuals) are just thinking about how they will maximise (or in some cases, simply survive) the next quarter and anything else is too far in the future.
• ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Markets are a powerful tool that have been used to solve environmental problems cheaply and effectively before. Unfortunately there's so much propaganda that effectively argues that corporations should be allowed to do anything they want and it'll all work out for the best that the whole thing has been tainted.
• icelancer 9y ago
  You're just describing negative externalities and the tragedy of the commons issues, well explored in economics. It also has little to do with the limited lifespans and more to do with the minimal negative impact any one person has on the environment, but with great gains that can be realized by not caring (hence, tragedy of the commons issue).
• twsted 9y ago
  Very well said. Besides that I think that enterprises in some cases "dilute" ethics of individual beings.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• ianai 9y ago
  Adam Smith also said the wealth of nations depended on the economic empowerment of its populace. Policies and regulations meant to better the citizens and not the corporations add the most to the wealth of the nation. Quote:”What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” And:“[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity…they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.” https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/ https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/
  • da_chicken 9y ago
    That second one is a bit... unclear. I think it's the 18th century grammar and its propensity for a dozen clauses. However, it seems to contradict the generally held belief that the poor have a much higher marginal propensity to consume than the rich do.
    • ianai 9y ago
      No, he’s saying exactly that they (the non-rich) have both a higher marginal propensity to consume and thus the wealth of a nation grows much faster with their income growth. But undoubtedly, he nestled it in crazy grammar.
      • da_chicken 9y ago
        I'll take your word for it. I keep getting turned around in the middle!
        • ianai 9y ago
          He’s using the word “they” confusingly there. It’s clear from the rest of the book that he means the wealth of nations follows the wealth of the non-rich.
• scotty79 9y ago
  > as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits That's the core mistake. It's often very profitable to damage the market.
• crimsonalucard 9y ago
  You drive a car. Everyone drives a car knowing that the exhaust pushes toxic fumes into the air. You do it and i do it. What invisible hand is stopping this? The evidence is right in front of your face.... you don't need a life time addendum to free market theory to show that it is wrong.
• fsloth 9y ago
  Adam Smith's invisible hand idea was in the context of nail factories operated by maybe ten people, and with logistics chains maybe spanning to the next village. It would be very efficient in finding the best nail maker in the close vicinity. Or, the best monopolist that burnt down or purchased all competing nail factories. Efficient markets NEED an efficient government to put down ground rules and enforce them.
• da_chicken 9y ago
  It's not so much that humans have limited lifespans, it's just that corporations have profit incentives to offload costs. Treating toxic byproducts is massively more expensive than dumping them in the wilderness, and if management doesn't live near the dumping ground they're less likely to care about the costs. There's even a name for this type of behavior: negative cost externalization. There are even situations of negative externality[1] where the value of the externalized costs exceeds the profit gained so that the net productivity to the nation is negative. Since the company never need pay those costs and they're applied to society as a whole, however, the company is still motivated to do it. I wonder what Adam Smith would have said about the tragedy of the commons. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative