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What makes you think that what's cost effective (in terms of money, of course) for a given company involves optimally conserving resources? The obvious counter
by joe_the_user 8mo ago
What makes you think that what's cost effective (in terms of money, of course) for a given company involves optimally conserving resources?
The obvious counter-example is that polluting is very cost-effective in an unregulated environment there are others - such as this.
- quotemstr 8mo ago> What makes you think that what's cost effective...involves optimally conserving resources The words "cost" and "effective "perhaps? > Polluting Pollution is an economic externality. If I buy a shift and throw it out unworn, I've wasted only my own resources. (I'm paying for the landfill of course.) You could argue that my wasting that shirt hurt you because I could have instead spent those resources on productive activity that benefits you, and therefore I had a duty to keep it -- but that's just communism with extra steps.
- Atreiden 8mo agoAre you under the impression that the planet has effectively infinite carrying capacity and ability to support an "optimal market" indefinitely?
- quotemstr 8mo agoI am of the opinion that markets and prices, not EU regulators, should tell us where scarcity is. We're bad at optimizing manually for the same reason we're bad at guessing where program hotspots are. The market is a profiler.
- mulmen 8mo agoDo you honestly believe this? Where did you study economics? This regulation is not about scarcity. It is about over abundance. Overproduction is a failure mode in capitalist systems. The market can’t correct for this because negative externalities do not feed back into supply or demand.
- quotemstr 8mo agoActors in a capitalist system have an incentive to maximize profit. How is it profit-maximizing to pay to produce an item and throw it away unsold? > negative externalities do not feed back into supply or demand. What is the unaccounted externality? Clothing makers pay for material inputs and labor inputs. They pay for transportation. If they discard goods, they pay for more transportation and for the landfill. What specific externality is unaccounted?
- mulmen 8mo agoThe unaccounted externality is the wasted energy to create a thing and destroy it without ever using it. This may be profit maximizing because it maintains the exclusivity of the brand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
- quotemstr 8mo agoAnd you presume to know better than they do what to do with that energy? Do you think you have a general right to override people's resource allocation decisions when you believe they're being wasteful?
- mulmen 8mo ago> Do you think you have a general right to override people's resource allocation decisions when you believe they're being wasteful? Me personally? No, of course not. But I do think our government has the responsibility to govern.
- sehansen 8mo ago1. In this case, not using the energy at all would have been better. 2. The legislature of a sovereign polity would have, and be able to delegate, that right. If and when the legislature should make use of that right is a political question.
- mulmen 8mo agoWhat if I dump toxic industrial waste in the river upstream of your house? I pay for access to the river. Does that hurt you?