39 ms·

> If there were not negative externalities being subsidized, i.e. perversely encouraged, then growth would always be good. That's a good start, but it's a bit

by eru 1y ago

> If there were not negative externalities being subsidized, i.e. perversely encouraged, then growth would always be good. That's a good start, but it's a bit more complicated. Reasonable people can disagree what counts as a positive vs negative externality. Eg if you like to be warm, perhaps you see global warming as positive externality. (Really silly example, but you can come up with better ones.) Also reasonable people can disagree about discounting rates. If current interest rates are very high, it can be economically rational to cut down a forest completely to get lots of lumber now, but severely damage long running production. If discounting rates are very low, then you'd leave the forest standing. If you internalise externalities, the problem becomes less extreme, but sufficiently large differences in discounting rates will still make it surface. > Once large corporations start making money where there is a negative sum conflict of interest, growth by definition very very bad. Why single out large corporations? If anything, large multinationals are about the best run businesses on the planet.

eightysixfour 1y ago
> Why single out large corporations? If anything, large multinationals are about the best run businesses on the planet. Having been in consulting for a long time, for many of these companies, let’s just say reasonable people can disagree with this.
- eru 1y ago
  I'm not saying that large multinationals are better than you think. I'm saying that the other actors (small companies, governments, private individuals, NGOs, etc) ain't any better, and many of them are worse. Have a look at what used to be the Aral Sea for an example.
  - suddenlybananas 1y ago
    >Have a look at what used to be the Aral Sea for an example. Yes large multinationals have never adversely affected the environment.
    - badpun 1y ago
      The Soviet Union holds pretty much all the trophies in large-scale environment devastation.
      - suddenlybananas 1y ago
        The amount of environmental devastation in the third world by multinationals dwarfs anything the USSR did.
        decimalenough 1y ago
        Citation needed. Multinationals aren't angels, but I'm hard pressed to think of anything they've done that's on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster, the Aral Sea drying up, the Kyshtym disaster, Lake Karachay, etc. Even things like clear-cutting the Amazon are usually done by locals (although bigcos are more than happy to buy the resulting soybeans, beef, etc).
        suddenlybananas 1y ago
        I think you live on another planet. Union Carbide alone killed thousands and thousands of people. Like there are so many industrial disasters caused by corporations that it's patently absurd to act like the USSR did more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disasters#Industrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disaster... Like on this list, the vast majority are done by corporations.
        eru 1y ago
        The Soviet Union was only one country. You'd probably want to normalise the industrial disaster score per capita (or even per dollar-equivalent of GDP). Would be an interesting research project. Look for cost of QALY-lost per capita or so from environmental damage.
        timschmidt 1y ago
        100,000 years from now no one will remember Bhopal as sad as that thought is. But Chernobyl will still be spicy.
  - southernplaces7 1y ago
    Agreed and good that someone else mentions this specific point. It's common to rail at large multinational corporations and their acts of ineptitude, malfeasance and outright destructiveness in some cases but many of these complaints leave implicit that if only some other kind of large organization had managed the same X or Y, things would have turned out better. Why? There's no innate quality of any government or NGO that makes either somehow less likely to ruin something or cause harm than is the case for a corporation. For many governments, given their local monopoly on control and greater lack of clear financial accountability to a specific bottom line, malfeasance is if anything more likely. The Aral sea is one glaring example of this, but there are many, many others.
    - eightysixfour 1y ago
      > For many governments, given their local monopoly on control and greater lack of clear financial accountability to a specific bottom line, malfeasance is if anything more likely. I am going to guess you and I have some underlying philosophical differences. I fully believe in the power of competitive markets, however, the primary market structured around profit is not always (or even often) the best for global scale issues. Given that we cannot appropriately price externalities nor enforce them, we often want organizations which are motivated socially or by values. The trade off in efficiency is irrelevant. I don’t want a company seeking maximum efficiency in some areas, I want things that are driving for stability or durability. Or social good. Or other measurements. You actually said it best: > If anything, large multinationals are about the best run businesses on the planet. Yes, but they’re businesses, not everything is a business problem.
      - eru 1y ago
        > I am going to guess you and I have some underlying philosophical differences. I fully believe in the power of competitive markets, however, the primary market structured around profit is not always (or even often) the best for global scale issues. Profit might not be a particularly good incentive, but the others are worse. > Given that we cannot appropriately price externalities nor enforce them, we often want organizations which are motivated socially or by values. Just waving your wand doesn't automagically make any organisation (government or otherwise) motivativated socially or by values. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice > The trade off in efficiency is irrelevant. I don’t want a company seeking maximum efficiency in some areas, I want things that are driving for stability or durability. Or social good. Or other measurements. Sure, but just stating that desire that doesn't make it happen.
atoav 1y ago
> Reasonable people can disagree what counts as a positive vs negative externality. Eg if you like to be warm, perhaps you see global warming as positive externality. I know this was just an example (and you said you weren't entirely happy with it), but the thing about externalities is that yeah someone may like it warm, but just because the damage doesn't happen where you are, doesn't mean it does not happen. E.g. I could totally argue that I like draining that old oil from my car into the river next door since the river flows by and will carry the dirt away from my house. I externalize the pollution I'd have to deal with to the environment where other people live. Just because that cost is not affecting me in regards to that individual act, does not mean I didn't produce it. Or to stay with the climate example: Yeah someone might like it warmer, but do they also like rising sea levels, more extreme wheather events, draught, higher food prices, climate migration, the cultural changes it brings and/or the violence coming from trying to prevent it? And what when the temperature is reached that they no longer like? Climate systems have multiple decades of lag, so when they decide to stop the tanker moves on, and on, and on. Externalities are called that because they have to be paid by someone or something eventually. And not pricing them in is how you get neighbours who start to throw their dirt onto your lawn.
- eru 1y ago
  I agree that you can get a handle on the specific problem I pointed out with externalities this way. However, there are two more hurdles: - First, you need to define what counts as the status quo, ie what do you measure externalities against? (But this is more of a problem in theory than in practice, I suspect.) - Second, you need to explain why Coasian bargaining isn't enough. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem

by eru 1y ago

eightysixfour 1y ago

> Why single out large corporations? If anything, large multinationals are about the best run businesses on the planet. Having been in consulting for a long time, for many of these companies, let’s just say reasonable people can disagree with this.

eru 1y ago
I'm not saying that large multinationals are better than you think. I'm saying that the other actors (small companies, governments, private individuals, NGOs, etc) ain't any better, and many of them are worse. Have a look at what used to be the Aral Sea for an example.
- suddenlybananas 1y ago
  >Have a look at what used to be the Aral Sea for an example. Yes large multinationals have never adversely affected the environment.
  - badpun 1y ago
    The Soviet Union holds pretty much all the trophies in large-scale environment devastation.
    - suddenlybananas 1y ago
      The amount of environmental devastation in the third world by multinationals dwarfs anything the USSR did.
      - decimalenough 1y ago
        Citation needed. Multinationals aren't angels, but I'm hard pressed to think of anything they've done that's on the scale of the Chernobyl disaster, the Aral Sea drying up, the Kyshtym disaster, Lake Karachay, etc. Even things like clear-cutting the Amazon are usually done by locals (although bigcos are more than happy to buy the resulting soybeans, beef, etc).
        suddenlybananas 1y ago
        I think you live on another planet. Union Carbide alone killed thousands and thousands of people. Like there are so many industrial disasters caused by corporations that it's patently absurd to act like the USSR did more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disasters#Industrial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disaster... Like on this list, the vast majority are done by corporations.
        eru 1y ago
        The Soviet Union was only one country. You'd probably want to normalise the industrial disaster score per capita (or even per dollar-equivalent of GDP). Would be an interesting research project. Look for cost of QALY-lost per capita or so from environmental damage.
        timschmidt 1y ago
        100,000 years from now no one will remember Bhopal as sad as that thought is. But Chernobyl will still be spicy.
- southernplaces7 1y ago
  Agreed and good that someone else mentions this specific point. It's common to rail at large multinational corporations and their acts of ineptitude, malfeasance and outright destructiveness in some cases but many of these complaints leave implicit that if only some other kind of large organization had managed the same X or Y, things would have turned out better. Why? There's no innate quality of any government or NGO that makes either somehow less likely to ruin something or cause harm than is the case for a corporation. For many governments, given their local monopoly on control and greater lack of clear financial accountability to a specific bottom line, malfeasance is if anything more likely. The Aral sea is one glaring example of this, but there are many, many others.
  - eightysixfour 1y ago
    > For many governments, given their local monopoly on control and greater lack of clear financial accountability to a specific bottom line, malfeasance is if anything more likely. I am going to guess you and I have some underlying philosophical differences. I fully believe in the power of competitive markets, however, the primary market structured around profit is not always (or even often) the best for global scale issues. Given that we cannot appropriately price externalities nor enforce them, we often want organizations which are motivated socially or by values. The trade off in efficiency is irrelevant. I don’t want a company seeking maximum efficiency in some areas, I want things that are driving for stability or durability. Or social good. Or other measurements. You actually said it best: > If anything, large multinationals are about the best run businesses on the planet. Yes, but they’re businesses, not everything is a business problem.
    - eru 1y ago
      > I am going to guess you and I have some underlying philosophical differences. I fully believe in the power of competitive markets, however, the primary market structured around profit is not always (or even often) the best for global scale issues. Profit might not be a particularly good incentive, but the others are worse. > Given that we cannot appropriately price externalities nor enforce them, we often want organizations which are motivated socially or by values. Just waving your wand doesn't automagically make any organisation (government or otherwise) motivativated socially or by values. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice > The trade off in efficiency is irrelevant. I don’t want a company seeking maximum efficiency in some areas, I want things that are driving for stability or durability. Or social good. Or other measurements. Sure, but just stating that desire that doesn't make it happen.

atoav 1y ago

> Reasonable people can disagree what counts as a positive vs negative externality. Eg if you like to be warm, perhaps you see global warming as positive externality. I know this was just an example (and you said you weren't entirely happy with it), but the thing about externalities is that yeah someone may like it warm, but just because the damage doesn't happen where you are, doesn't mean it does not happen. E.g. I could totally argue that I like draining that old oil from my car into the river next door since the river flows by and will carry the dirt away from my house. I externalize the pollution I'd have to deal with to the environment where other people live. Just because that cost is not affecting me in regards to that individual act, does not mean I didn't produce it. Or to stay with the climate example: Yeah someone might like it warmer, but do they also like rising sea levels, more extreme wheather events, draught, higher food prices, climate migration, the cultural changes it brings and/or the violence coming from trying to prevent it? And what when the temperature is reached that they no longer like? Climate systems have multiple decades of lag, so when they decide to stop the tanker moves on, and on, and on. Externalities are called that because they have to be paid by someone or something eventually. And not pricing them in is how you get neighbours who start to throw their dirt onto your lawn.

eru 1y ago
I agree that you can get a handle on the specific problem I pointed out with externalities this way. However, there are two more hurdles: - First, you need to define what counts as the status quo, ie what do you measure externalities against? (But this is more of a problem in theory than in practice, I suspect.) - Second, you need to explain why Coasian bargaining isn't enough. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem