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> If there's some negative externality you think the market isn't capturing, well, capture that externality. Put a number on it; don't make it a moral issue. T
by kelnos 2y ago
> If there's some negative externality you think the market isn't capturing, well, capture that externality. Put a number on it; don't make it a moral issue.
The problem is that the people not paying for these externalities don't want to, have no incentive to, and are not required to. They lobby to avoid laws and regulations that would make them do it.
So meanwhile we have people dying due to air and water pollution created by people who don't want to pay for their externalities. FooCorp doesn't care if the country's health care costs go up because of that; they still make more money than they would if they had to pay for their externalities.
The economic argument doesn't work, so it's a little hard not to frame it as a moral issue instead.
- quotemstr 2y ago> The problem is that the people not paying for these externalities don't want to, have no incentive to, and are not required to. They lobby to avoid laws and regulations that would make them do it. Perhaps the externalities are exaggerated then? If you say something is scarce and the market says it's abundant, who's right? You? Why? The fact is that Lego isn't, to any meaningful degree, contributing to adverse outcomes by using petroleum as a feedstock. The market tells them they got the right answer. Their oil use is a drop in the bucket. They shouldn't feel pressured to worsen their product over moral and aesthetic pressure from activists. > The economic argument doesn't work, so it's a little hard not to frame it as a moral issue instead. The market is working just fine. The trouble is that the moralizers don't like the priority stack rank the market produces and seek to use various forms of non-market power to get the outcomes they want. People doing this makes us all worse off. Trust the market.
- chiggsy 2y ago>Trust the market. We do not.