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> Being held accountable for your pollution of others’ property is a tenant of libertarianism The air we share and breath isn't "others' property" though is it

> Being held accountable for your pollution of others’ property is a tenant of libertarianism The air we share and breath isn't "others' property" though is it? Like the parent commenter, I've also met and debated many libertarians over the past couple of decades. I've yet to meet one who cares in the least bit about polluting the air I breath. Or if they do claim to care they offer solutions that history has proven to not work: just remove every last regulation and the magic of free markets will make abuse magically disappear. When the opposite is true. The very worst air pollution happened when there were no regulations.

kortilla 5y ago
> The air we share and breath isn't "others' property" though is it? It is. It can be modeled as shared property. Libertarianism does not imply you don’t believe in commons. > I've yet to meet one who cares in the least bit about polluting the air I breath. Well allowing pollution is a violation of property rights. So again, it sounds like you’re just debating people who don’t believe in pollution. You encounter anti-science regardless of market regulation ideology. > just remove every last regulation and the magic of free markets will make abuse magically disappear. When the opposite is true. No, a libertarian solution to this problem would be something like cap and trade. Use the government to enforce the protection of the air and then allow the free market for carbon credits to find the best solution. > The very worst air pollution happened when there were no regulations. Well China has terrible air pollution and far more regulations than the US. The government regulating every aspect of life is irrelevant if the government isn’t regulating the right things. Some of the worst atrocities in the last couple of centuries were done at the direction of a government authority.
- tchaffee 5y ago
  > It can be modeled as shared property. It's already shared property by its very nature, so I'm not sure what the extra step of it being "modeled" as that does. But sure, let's do it. Can you explain how my air would no longer be polluted using this model? Or how pollution would at the very least be significantly reduced on a year by year basis until it is no longer polluted? > Use the government to enforce Wait, a libertarian asking for government regulations and enforcement? Not the libertarians I talk to. Unless they are very very moderate in their libertarian views. All the libertarians I talk to are against government regulations. They want free markets and insist that it's regulations cause all the problems and prevent free markets from functioning properly. I also think that calling cap and trade a market solution is disingenuous. The important part of it is the cap. It does all the heavy lifting of achieving the actual goal of reducing carbon emissions. A cap without the trade would achieve the goal, although possibly would be politically unpopular. Trade without the cap would be meaningless. So at very best its a hybrid solution. And not one that I'm against. Markets are good at some things. But without the cap itself, markets would do almost nothing to improve the situation. Or they would start when it's already far too late. But the point is that I'm not libertarian and I think cap and trade is a reasonable approach. So do many people. So we are really talking about a very moderate libertarian stance in the case of cap and trade. Because again, the important part of it is the regulation part. > Well China has terrible air pollution and far more regulations than the US. How many regulations does China have compared to the US and what's your source? When you look at a city like Beijing for example, the air pollution was so bad because you had literally millions of people individually burning coal for their personal heat. Personal and individual liberty at work. When they banned heating coal (along with other measures), PM2.5 levels went from 89.5µg/m³ to 58µg/m³, a reduction of about 35%. Very quick and effective. Not very popular, but for everyone who values the freedom to breath clean air it was a quick and significant accomplishment that benefited everyone by limiting everyone These are the kinds of liberties that libertarianism fails hard at achieving. Because of the part where you have to limit everyone in one area to achieve an overall shared liberty in another area. > if the government isn’t regulating the right things Who determines what the right things are? > Some of the worst atrocities in the last couple of centuries were done at the direction of a government authority. That's the spirit! Exactly the kind of arguments I've heard from libertarians when they insist that regulations are the wrong approach and we must just trust that free markets will somehow sort it all out.

kortilla 5y ago

> The air we share and breath isn't "others' property" though is it? It is. It can be modeled as shared property. Libertarianism does not imply you don’t believe in commons. > I've yet to meet one who cares in the least bit about polluting the air I breath. Well allowing pollution is a violation of property rights. So again, it sounds like you’re just debating people who don’t believe in pollution. You encounter anti-science regardless of market regulation ideology. > just remove every last regulation and the magic of free markets will make abuse magically disappear. When the opposite is true. No, a libertarian solution to this problem would be something like cap and trade. Use the government to enforce the protection of the air and then allow the free market for carbon credits to find the best solution. > The very worst air pollution happened when there were no regulations. Well China has terrible air pollution and far more regulations than the US. The government regulating every aspect of life is irrelevant if the government isn’t regulating the right things. Some of the worst atrocities in the last couple of centuries were done at the direction of a government authority.

tchaffee 5y ago
> It can be modeled as shared property. It's already shared property by its very nature, so I'm not sure what the extra step of it being "modeled" as that does. But sure, let's do it. Can you explain how my air would no longer be polluted using this model? Or how pollution would at the very least be significantly reduced on a year by year basis until it is no longer polluted? > Use the government to enforce Wait, a libertarian asking for government regulations and enforcement? Not the libertarians I talk to. Unless they are very very moderate in their libertarian views. All the libertarians I talk to are against government regulations. They want free markets and insist that it's regulations cause all the problems and prevent free markets from functioning properly. I also think that calling cap and trade a market solution is disingenuous. The important part of it is the cap. It does all the heavy lifting of achieving the actual goal of reducing carbon emissions. A cap without the trade would achieve the goal, although possibly would be politically unpopular. Trade without the cap would be meaningless. So at very best its a hybrid solution. And not one that I'm against. Markets are good at some things. But without the cap itself, markets would do almost nothing to improve the situation. Or they would start when it's already far too late. But the point is that I'm not libertarian and I think cap and trade is a reasonable approach. So do many people. So we are really talking about a very moderate libertarian stance in the case of cap and trade. Because again, the important part of it is the regulation part. > Well China has terrible air pollution and far more regulations than the US. How many regulations does China have compared to the US and what's your source? When you look at a city like Beijing for example, the air pollution was so bad because you had literally millions of people individually burning coal for their personal heat. Personal and individual liberty at work. When they banned heating coal (along with other measures), PM2.5 levels went from 89.5µg/m³ to 58µg/m³, a reduction of about 35%. Very quick and effective. Not very popular, but for everyone who values the freedom to breath clean air it was a quick and significant accomplishment that benefited everyone by limiting everyone These are the kinds of liberties that libertarianism fails hard at achieving. Because of the part where you have to limit everyone in one area to achieve an overall shared liberty in another area. > if the government isn’t regulating the right things Who determines what the right things are? > Some of the worst atrocities in the last couple of centuries were done at the direction of a government authority. That's the spirit! Exactly the kind of arguments I've heard from libertarians when they insist that regulations are the wrong approach and we must just trust that free markets will somehow sort it all out.