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> The free market is not going to solve this one We’ve known this for over 100 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E

> The free market is not going to solve this one We’ve known this for over 100 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality). And solutions to the problem have been proposed for as long (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax). The problem with implementing these taxes are political; people with vested interests will argue long and hard against any new taxes, and any working solution needs to be global.

cheez 7y ago
Where I live, there is a waste tax and guess what, it goes into the general fund and is not used for reducing waste.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  the purpose of a waste tax is not to get money for the government to use to reduce waste, it is to get companies to reduce waste because they want to reduce their tax burden.
  - cheez 7y ago
    The consumer pays the tax.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      If the consumer pays the tax the prices rise, if the prices rise the consumer goes elsewhere, therefore you look at if you can reduce pollution, reduce the tax and keep the cost for the user the same hopefully leading over time to more of that wonderful thing - profit.
      - cheez 7y ago
        If the price of everything goes up 15%, you can't pocket that 15% if you spend money to reduce price by 15%. Inertia dictates that the tax will be permanent. But I hope you're right of course.
- torinmr 7y ago
  The point of the tax is not that the revenue will be used to reduce waste. The point is that it will increase the cost of producing waste for the polluter, ideally exactly to the point where it matches the cost to society of that waste. The purpose isn't to make people stop polluting entirely, but to make it so they will only do so when it brings them a benefit larger than the societal cost of the pollution.
  - michaelt 7y ago
    Right, but if the public wants to reduce X, and makes a tax on X a big contributor to city revenue, a city can improve their finances by increasing X, i.e. doing the opposite of what the public wants. Why spend $$$ promoting and supporting recycling if a landfill tax is paying your wages?
    - bobwaycott 7y ago
      It seems incorrect to conclude the public wants to reduce X when it taxes X. The minimally logical conclusion (to me) is the public doesn’t want to pay for the externalities of X. Taxing X—assuming the tax levied is an appropriate amount to cover the externalities of X—makes actor Y who is doing X pay for X and its externalities, alleviating the burden on the public while avoiding taking an actual stand and/or engaging an effort to reduce X. Y does X? Y pays for it, not the public. How much taxes on X adds to public revenue is mostly irrelevant, so long as it is enough to cover the costs of dealing with X without shifting that burden onto the general public via other taxes. If the revenue from X is enough to cover the costs of X’s externalities and also pays for wages and/or other public needs, that’s a net win for the public. You likely won’t see a city starting up a campaign to increase undesirable thing X just because it’d increase revenues. Now, if the public really wants to reduce X by means of taxing X, it will likely choose to levy heavy, punitive taxes on X as doing X increases/continues, hoping to make it financially painful to those doing X to have to pay for X—for example, look at cigarette taxes. That can only go so far, though, before you encounter those for whom the added punitive tax is not a sufficient deterrent. Then it’s either a choice between more increases to get X to zero, or some other type of concerted public or legal effort to curtail X. The act of taxing X isn’t enough of a signal to conclude the public is using the tax as a reduction effort. But it’s certainly a signal that the public doesn’t want to pay for X via standard revenues—and the public absolutely should not bear the burden for the negative externalities of any X. There’s no doubt a built-in hope that, assuming the costs of X’s externalities are known, taxing Y to pay for X will encourage reduction because—especially if Y is a company—Y wants to keep their expenses low, and really doesn’t want to pay for X. A city levying such taxes, assuming it is even moderately well-managed, will hope to see that the tax revenue for X will hit zero in tandem with X itself hitting zero—the success state[0]. [0]: I’m going to ignore the real-world chance that revenues from X get allocated to previously non-existing programs that then need to find a new source of revenue—but that’s a different problem.
perlpimp 7y ago
Yes, give the corporations this as something to be sold then it can be a part of a product, making people(or corporations) do things is last resort imo.
beefield 7y ago
> We’ve known this for over 100 years It looks to me like outside this we there is a significant bunch of people who do not know or accept this. Actually, at some point I was pondering whether the main distinction [1] between conservative-populist movements and "the elite" these movements are against is exactly the point that "the elite" understands and acknowledges the concept of externality and wants to address this market failure with something, while the populists refuse to understand or accept the issue. [1] At least we can be confident that the distinction is not wealth, money or political influence, what one could naively think elite has and non-elite not.
- ianlevesque 7y ago
  It's encouraging to me how much sentiment on this site alone has moved in the last couple years. People are starting to get it.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  > It looks to me like outside this we there is a significant bunch of people who do not know or accept this. Actually, at some point I was pondering whether the main distinction [1] between conservative-populist movements and "the elite" these movements are against is exactly the point that "the elite" understands and acknowledges the concept of externality and wants to address this market failure with something, while the populists refuse to understand or accept the issue. If the populists refuse to understand or accept the issue, the population refuses to understand or accept the issue. It really depends on the population. Green parties are often pretty strong in wealthy European countries. Unfortunately, Greens also tend to be leftists that refuse whole idea of a free market. They'd rather ban things than handling externalities with prices. The other problem is that externalities are hard to price. If the price is too low, the problem isn't solved. If the price is too high, people won't want to pay it. In any event, the underlying problem isn't free markets itself, it's what the people want (or think they want).
amelius 7y ago
> The problem with implementing these taxes are political; people with vested interests will argue long and hard against any new taxes. Why not have these taxes and also have subsidies that cancel them? At least you're naming the problem then, which would be a great step forward. > and any working solution needs to be global. I suppose you could introduce import taxes to solve this problem.

cheez 7y ago

Where I live, there is a waste tax and guess what, it goes into the general fund and is not used for reducing waste.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago
the purpose of a waste tax is not to get money for the government to use to reduce waste, it is to get companies to reduce waste because they want to reduce their tax burden.
- cheez 7y ago
  The consumer pays the tax.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    If the consumer pays the tax the prices rise, if the prices rise the consumer goes elsewhere, therefore you look at if you can reduce pollution, reduce the tax and keep the cost for the user the same hopefully leading over time to more of that wonderful thing - profit.
    - cheez 7y ago
      If the price of everything goes up 15%, you can't pocket that 15% if you spend money to reduce price by 15%. Inertia dictates that the tax will be permanent. But I hope you're right of course.
torinmr 7y ago
The point of the tax is not that the revenue will be used to reduce waste. The point is that it will increase the cost of producing waste for the polluter, ideally exactly to the point where it matches the cost to society of that waste. The purpose isn't to make people stop polluting entirely, but to make it so they will only do so when it brings them a benefit larger than the societal cost of the pollution.
- michaelt 7y ago
  Right, but if the public wants to reduce X, and makes a tax on X a big contributor to city revenue, a city can improve their finances by increasing X, i.e. doing the opposite of what the public wants. Why spend $$$ promoting and supporting recycling if a landfill tax is paying your wages?
  - bobwaycott 7y ago
    It seems incorrect to conclude the public wants to reduce X when it taxes X. The minimally logical conclusion (to me) is the public doesn’t want to pay for the externalities of X. Taxing X—assuming the tax levied is an appropriate amount to cover the externalities of X—makes actor Y who is doing X pay for X and its externalities, alleviating the burden on the public while avoiding taking an actual stand and/or engaging an effort to reduce X. Y does X? Y pays for it, not the public. How much taxes on X adds to public revenue is mostly irrelevant, so long as it is enough to cover the costs of dealing with X without shifting that burden onto the general public via other taxes. If the revenue from X is enough to cover the costs of X’s externalities and also pays for wages and/or other public needs, that’s a net win for the public. You likely won’t see a city starting up a campaign to increase undesirable thing X just because it’d increase revenues. Now, if the public really wants to reduce X by means of taxing X, it will likely choose to levy heavy, punitive taxes on X as doing X increases/continues, hoping to make it financially painful to those doing X to have to pay for X—for example, look at cigarette taxes. That can only go so far, though, before you encounter those for whom the added punitive tax is not a sufficient deterrent. Then it’s either a choice between more increases to get X to zero, or some other type of concerted public or legal effort to curtail X. The act of taxing X isn’t enough of a signal to conclude the public is using the tax as a reduction effort. But it’s certainly a signal that the public doesn’t want to pay for X via standard revenues—and the public absolutely should not bear the burden for the negative externalities of any X. There’s no doubt a built-in hope that, assuming the costs of X’s externalities are known, taxing Y to pay for X will encourage reduction because—especially if Y is a company—Y wants to keep their expenses low, and really doesn’t want to pay for X. A city levying such taxes, assuming it is even moderately well-managed, will hope to see that the tax revenue for X will hit zero in tandem with X itself hitting zero—the success state[0]. [0]: I’m going to ignore the real-world chance that revenues from X get allocated to previously non-existing programs that then need to find a new source of revenue—but that’s a different problem.

perlpimp 7y ago

Yes, give the corporations this as something to be sold then it can be a part of a product, making people(or corporations) do things is last resort imo.

beefield 7y ago

> We’ve known this for over 100 years It looks to me like outside this we there is a significant bunch of people who do not know or accept this. Actually, at some point I was pondering whether the main distinction [1] between conservative-populist movements and "the elite" these movements are against is exactly the point that "the elite" understands and acknowledges the concept of externality and wants to address this market failure with something, while the populists refuse to understand or accept the issue. [1] At least we can be confident that the distinction is not wealth, money or political influence, what one could naively think elite has and non-elite not.

ianlevesque 7y ago
It's encouraging to me how much sentiment on this site alone has moved in the last couple years. People are starting to get it.
gridlockd 7y ago
> It looks to me like outside this we there is a significant bunch of people who do not know or accept this. Actually, at some point I was pondering whether the main distinction [1] between conservative-populist movements and "the elite" these movements are against is exactly the point that "the elite" understands and acknowledges the concept of externality and wants to address this market failure with something, while the populists refuse to understand or accept the issue. If the populists refuse to understand or accept the issue, the population refuses to understand or accept the issue. It really depends on the population. Green parties are often pretty strong in wealthy European countries. Unfortunately, Greens also tend to be leftists that refuse whole idea of a free market. They'd rather ban things than handling externalities with prices. The other problem is that externalities are hard to price. If the price is too low, the problem isn't solved. If the price is too high, people won't want to pay it. In any event, the underlying problem isn't free markets itself, it's what the people want (or think they want).

amelius 7y ago

> The problem with implementing these taxes are political; people with vested interests will argue long and hard against any new taxes. Why not have these taxes and also have subsidies that cancel them? At least you're naming the problem then, which would be a great step forward. > and any working solution needs to be global. I suppose you could introduce import taxes to solve this problem.