5 ms·

Of course it accounts for externalities. If someone is dumping toxic waste onto your property, there is nothing anti-libertarian about suing them to stop it and

by djbebs 4y ago

Of course it accounts for externalities. If someone is dumping toxic waste onto your property, there is nothing anti-libertarian about suing them to stop it and compensate you for the damages.

Eisenstein 4y ago
> If someone is dumping toxic waste onto your property If they own that part of the river, they are dumping it on their property. This is the definition of an externality.
- commoner 4y ago
  If someone dumps toxic waste onto their property, which then bleeds into your property because they failed to contain it, the dumper is effectively dumping toxic waste onto your property and you are able to respond with legal action. This is the case in any society that recognizes and enforces property rights, libertarian or not.
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    How far away does it have to be from you to count? What do I need to prove that it is getting into my water? Do I need to hire a lab to prove that a certain chemical causes cancer 20 years later and that it is in the product they are putting in the water? What if it is air, instead? What about climate change? What if they operate a business, say, they buy tiger feet, and it is causing a growth in a market for tiger feet which leads to poaching of tigers who have been endangered and are needed for a local ecosystem which I rely on to work?
    - commoner 4y ago
      The courts will decide how the damages for the toxic waste dumping should be assessed. The government regulates the use of public and common goods, and it can also file lawsuits. When you said: > The state works because they have a monopoly on violence and imprisonment. As long as they operate for general good and operate via a strict system of laws which prevents abuses and maintains rights, then that is a good thing. did you think that most libertarians would disagree? The status quo is that the state has a role in protecting human and property rights, and in regulating public and common goods. No pragmatic libertarian would suggest removing the state from these roles without finding a suitable replacement.
      - Eisenstein 4y ago
        > did you think that most libertarians would disagree? If you believe that a state should exist and should protect human rights, even so far as to use their monopoly on violence to shut down a private property holder who is causing damage to property owners no where near them based on economic externalities such as providing markets for endangered species parts, then what is the difference between a 'statist' and a 'pragmatic libertarian'?
        commoner 4y ago
        The government with jurisdiction over the tigers would be filing the lawsuit against the poachers for misusing common goods (killing endangered species), not necessarily the purchaser. Because most libertarians are not anarchists, and because statism encompasses all sizes of governments, statism can be compatible with libertarianism. However, people who want to abolish government altogether cannot be statists, and people who support government expansion to an excessive and unnecessary extent cannot be libertarians.
        Eisenstein 4y ago
        You haven't clarified anything except that you don't actually consider externalities. If buying endangered animal parts and thus creating a market for poaching animals is not an externality then I must not understand what an externality is. Let's try another one. I put kiddie pools full of stagnant water all around my property in order to breed mosquito larvae to feed my pets. These mosquitos end up causing a malaria epidemic for everyone around including you but I am not affected by malaria and don't care. Are you saying that you have to go to court to sue me and prove that it is my mosquitoes giving you malaria? Why not sue the person the mosquito bit who had malaria who then gave it to you? You say the government would do this, but I have trouble believing a libertarian state would allow them to act in such a way since it would involve having departments extremely similar to the EPA and CDC. The problems I have with libertarianism are around these issues and your handwaving of them, and this is compounded by the fact that you haven't defined what libertarianism actually is, besides that it is 'not anarchy'. Have you really thought about these things, or do you just find the idea of self-sufficiency and absolute personal freedom enticing?
piva00 4y ago
"Suing it". Sure, me as a small-time citizen with not much money in this libertarian utopia will have the power and money to sue a massive corporation who installed a factory to dump their toxic waste unto me. It doesn't account for massive differences in power, there's nothing in libertarian philosophy which takes into account that a multi-trillion dollar corporation will, always, have absurdly more power than any citizen or small collection of citizens. Suing someone/something is not a magic bullet, in your utopian libertarian world you'd have to pay lawyers for that. You'd require lawyers that want to work with you instead of large corporations, corporations which would be free to blacklist any lawyer working against them to work for them. Not taking into account that these corporations can just slowly dial up the inconvenience to communities they'd like to push out, are you gonna sue them multiple times? What exactly do you expect that your powerless minimal government be able to do if you win a trial against such actors, to fine them? If they can just pay the fine, over and over, and they calculate those fines are just a cost of business that will be paid off by ROI, is that ok? Or do you expect the government to take action and shutdown a company that's constantly breaking the law? I simply cannot understand why you really believe that suing a massively more overpowering force in a libertarian world is achievable, not only achievable but required to keep a balance of... Power. It's absurd.
- commoner 4y ago
  What do you think a "libertarian world" is, and how would that differ from an "authoritarian world"? Libertarianism vs. authoritarianism is a spectrum, and nobody in this discussion has advocated for eliminating legal systems or law enforcement. In general, libertarians support systems that are required to enforce property rights.
  - piva00 4y ago
    If you want the extremes: Libertarian world = no control of the government over any aspect of the economy, no public ownership, only private property is a right, everything is negotiated through contracts between private parties in society. Authoritarian = almost total to total control of society by the government. Economy, customs, culture, speech. No dissent to the official government line of policies is tolerated, the people are completely controlled and submissive to the whims of the leadership. Decision-making is reserved to the political elites and the people have no voice in the process of it. One is an economic-political philosophy, the other is a political system of control, not sure why you want to compare both.

by djbebs 4y ago

Of course it accounts for externalities. If someone is dumping toxic waste onto your property, there is nothing anti-libertarian about suing them to stop it and compensate you for the damages.

Eisenstein 4y ago

> If someone is dumping toxic waste onto your property If they own that part of the river, they are dumping it on their property. This is the definition of an externality.

commoner 4y ago
If someone dumps toxic waste onto their property, which then bleeds into your property because they failed to contain it, the dumper is effectively dumping toxic waste onto your property and you are able to respond with legal action. This is the case in any society that recognizes and enforces property rights, libertarian or not.
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  How far away does it have to be from you to count? What do I need to prove that it is getting into my water? Do I need to hire a lab to prove that a certain chemical causes cancer 20 years later and that it is in the product they are putting in the water? What if it is air, instead? What about climate change? What if they operate a business, say, they buy tiger feet, and it is causing a growth in a market for tiger feet which leads to poaching of tigers who have been endangered and are needed for a local ecosystem which I rely on to work?
  - commoner 4y ago
    The courts will decide how the damages for the toxic waste dumping should be assessed. The government regulates the use of public and common goods, and it can also file lawsuits. When you said: > The state works because they have a monopoly on violence and imprisonment. As long as they operate for general good and operate via a strict system of laws which prevents abuses and maintains rights, then that is a good thing. did you think that most libertarians would disagree? The status quo is that the state has a role in protecting human and property rights, and in regulating public and common goods. No pragmatic libertarian would suggest removing the state from these roles without finding a suitable replacement.
    - Eisenstein 4y ago
      > did you think that most libertarians would disagree? If you believe that a state should exist and should protect human rights, even so far as to use their monopoly on violence to shut down a private property holder who is causing damage to property owners no where near them based on economic externalities such as providing markets for endangered species parts, then what is the difference between a 'statist' and a 'pragmatic libertarian'?
      - commoner 4y ago
        The government with jurisdiction over the tigers would be filing the lawsuit against the poachers for misusing common goods (killing endangered species), not necessarily the purchaser. Because most libertarians are not anarchists, and because statism encompasses all sizes of governments, statism can be compatible with libertarianism. However, people who want to abolish government altogether cannot be statists, and people who support government expansion to an excessive and unnecessary extent cannot be libertarians.
        Eisenstein 4y ago
        You haven't clarified anything except that you don't actually consider externalities. If buying endangered animal parts and thus creating a market for poaching animals is not an externality then I must not understand what an externality is. Let's try another one. I put kiddie pools full of stagnant water all around my property in order to breed mosquito larvae to feed my pets. These mosquitos end up causing a malaria epidemic for everyone around including you but I am not affected by malaria and don't care. Are you saying that you have to go to court to sue me and prove that it is my mosquitoes giving you malaria? Why not sue the person the mosquito bit who had malaria who then gave it to you? You say the government would do this, but I have trouble believing a libertarian state would allow them to act in such a way since it would involve having departments extremely similar to the EPA and CDC. The problems I have with libertarianism are around these issues and your handwaving of them, and this is compounded by the fact that you haven't defined what libertarianism actually is, besides that it is 'not anarchy'. Have you really thought about these things, or do you just find the idea of self-sufficiency and absolute personal freedom enticing?

piva00 4y ago

"Suing it". Sure, me as a small-time citizen with not much money in this libertarian utopia will have the power and money to sue a massive corporation who installed a factory to dump their toxic waste unto me. It doesn't account for massive differences in power, there's nothing in libertarian philosophy which takes into account that a multi-trillion dollar corporation will, always, have absurdly more power than any citizen or small collection of citizens. Suing someone/something is not a magic bullet, in your utopian libertarian world you'd have to pay lawyers for that. You'd require lawyers that want to work with you instead of large corporations, corporations which would be free to blacklist any lawyer working against them to work for them. Not taking into account that these corporations can just slowly dial up the inconvenience to communities they'd like to push out, are you gonna sue them multiple times? What exactly do you expect that your powerless minimal government be able to do if you win a trial against such actors, to fine them? If they can just pay the fine, over and over, and they calculate those fines are just a cost of business that will be paid off by ROI, is that ok? Or do you expect the government to take action and shutdown a company that's constantly breaking the law? I simply cannot understand why you really believe that suing a massively more overpowering force in a libertarian world is achievable, not only achievable but required to keep a balance of... Power. It's absurd.

commoner 4y ago
What do you think a "libertarian world" is, and how would that differ from an "authoritarian world"? Libertarianism vs. authoritarianism is a spectrum, and nobody in this discussion has advocated for eliminating legal systems or law enforcement. In general, libertarians support systems that are required to enforce property rights.
- piva00 4y ago
  If you want the extremes: Libertarian world = no control of the government over any aspect of the economy, no public ownership, only private property is a right, everything is negotiated through contracts between private parties in society. Authoritarian = almost total to total control of society by the government. Economy, customs, culture, speech. No dissent to the official government line of policies is tolerated, the people are completely controlled and submissive to the whims of the leadership. Decision-making is reserved to the political elites and the people have no voice in the process of it. One is an economic-political philosophy, the other is a political system of control, not sure why you want to compare both.