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In a capitalist economy, why would anyone maintain a forest? Unless you get enough direct personal benefit, or someone else is paying you enough, you wouldn't.
by gregknicholson 8y ago
In a capitalist economy, why would anyone maintain a forest? Unless you get enough direct personal benefit, or someone else is paying you enough, you wouldn't.
This isn't a failure of capitalism; this is capitalism.
- CalRobert 8y agoBecause not maintaining it is too expensive after you pay for the externalities. Which you must, of course, in any reasonable regime.
- kornakiewicz 8y agoNot in Q4.
- CalRobert 8y agoThus the "reasonable" bit.
- icebraining 8y agoIn a capitalist economy, why would anyone maintain a forest? Because you own the forest and want it to keep producing income? That said, a non-capitalist model would probably work better, since implementing the full capitalist solution (by allowing people to sue polluters, who harm them and their property) is politically infeasible.
- adrianN 8y agoPristine rainforest produces very little income compared to cleared land that can be used for agriculture.
- icebraining 8y agoSorry, I edited the post later.
- nickik 8y agoThe countries that are most capitalistic actually have a situation where the woods are coming back. Massive forests are growing all over Europe and North America because we don't need to cut them down and farm them like we did in the middle ages. Deforestation is mostly a problem in poor society, with bad institutions, governments not caring or understanding the problems faced by the people who deforests and are thus unable to find a reasonable way to manage forest resources. > In a capitalist economy, why would anyone maintain a forest? Go back in history and you will see how false that is. Forest have been maintained for profit for 1000s of years. Some for forestry, others for hunting, some for human enjoyment, some for tourism. In fact forests today or usually less managed then historically, forest all over Europe were not eradicated completely precisely because they could be exploited for wood over time, and thus were maintained.
- vixen99 8y ago'Why?' Do you only do something for personal benefit or payment? I doubt it and neither do most of the rest of us. Socialism is where property is communally or governmentally owned and treated as a free resource and the evidence shows us that resources are inevitably overused with little regard for future consequences. Driving through Romania and other countries in Eastern Europe after 1989 provided ample illustration of the above. The comparison was stark and pitiful.
- eigenstuff 8y agoI have my own little forest. I do get personal enjoyment out of it everyday. But I also feel an enormous obligation to protect it as precious habitat for the critters who live there as their habitat all around my woods slowly shrinks and they run out of places to go. I am, in particular, very protective of my box turtle population (quarantined one girl this summer to [successfully!] stop another outbreak of a virus that killed over a dozen turtles last summer) and would like to see if my family is willing to plant some large patches of butterfly weed to let run wild in our hay field, especially since the drop in non-monarch butterflies this year compared to last is distressing to me. (It was a good year for monarchs, though.) When I'm in charge and get to call the shots, I want to let nature reclaim the fields entirely. I do it because if I don't, who will? It's priceless to me that I am privileged enough to have this .5 sq mi plot of undeveloped land to call mine, I feel a sense of responsibility to care for it. If I was a millionaire, I'd absolutely buy up undeveloped land just to let it sit and run wild. I fantasize about it all the time.