Topic: Seriously, though, how would a libertarian society address global warming? - page 13. (Read 30176 times)

Global warming, if it is in fact a problem and being caused by human activity, is a tragedy of the commons that can only be dealt with by government. The problem is that a collection of governments is no different than a collection of people: there is nothing to enforce compliance among them to a plan them without a higher authority.

The minarchic variant of libertarianism accepts the legitimacy of government action to prevent destruction of the commons, so in this sense is no different than how other political ideologies would deal with global warming.

I'm saying that if we think we want less pollution, and respond by exerting downward pressure on the amount of pollution, we may wind up with an amount of pollution that's inefficiently low.

I agree. That's because most people don't understand the issues. They just assume that we'd be better off with less of bad things without thinking that a bit less of bad things may mean much less of good things. There is a tendency to assume that bad consequences are inherently inefficient, but that reasoning is bogus. In fact, that reasoning may be so bogus that the level of bad things we have is already inefficiently low.

For example, many people are worried that they might die in a plane accident. But if they responded by putting downward pressure on their chances of dying in a plane accident, they would most likely wind up increasing their chances of dying in a car accident or irrationally forgoing opportunities for business or pleasure travel. While plane accidents are certainly bad, there's no reason to think they're inefficiently bad. If the government, for example, put downward pressure on plane accidents, it would likely result in higher ticket prices, which would actually kill more people in car accidents.

You can't say "that's bad, put pressure to reduce it". You need to say "that's *inefficiently* bad".

I'm not clear how suggesting that exerting downward pressure on automobile accidents analogizes with your statement that perhaps we want *more* pollution. I thought that wanting *more* pollution analogized with wanting *more* automobile accidents.

For the record, I think most people would agree that we want *less* pollution and *less* accidents, and solutions that will improve those ratios of good to bad.

There is hope: Futarchy. Take for example this global warming debate. Let us create prediction markets for global temperature, contingent on global emissions levels. People will bet on these markets, and based on these predictions governments could determine a transparently optimized emissions cap. If global warming really is a myth, then on average the conservatives here would make money AND raise the cap so high as to be irrelevant.

The problem, up until now, is that long-term bets require you hand over inflating currency so rational people would rarely use them. Why invest in negative-sum markets? Bitcoin helps with this since eventually it will appreciate in value as quickly as the Bitcoin economy growth, making savings (and bets) more attractive.

No, but it does mean that if you apply external downward pressure on automobile accidents, you may just increase the amount of efficient driving that's suppressed.

That's like saying you want more automobile accidents because you want more people driving. You may accept a higher incident rate of accidents to realize more people driving, but that does not mean you don't want to strive towards maximizing the ratio of people driving to automobile accidents.

Likewise, you want to maximize the ratio of cooked food to smoke. And regarding automobiles as I mentioned in my prior post, you want to maximize the miles that can be driven quickly and in comfort to the cost of doing so, which is generally fuel burned and pollutants generated.

In all cases, artificial constraints placed upon the markets to maximize the ratios is better than assuming that the markets will figure it out sans those constraints, because the markets usually flow and gravitate towards some other local minima or maxima which has less regard for many detrimental external factors, which ultimately come back to haunt everyone in the future.

The optimum amount of pollution is not zero. (If it was, we couldn't cook food or breathe.) Unless you have evidence that the present level of pollution is above the optimum level, it is entirely possible that what we actually want is *more* pollution.

Using taxes to engineer society in this way requires a government that can make these decisions rationally. I have little hope that such a thing is likely to ever exist.

Regarding taxes, acknowledging that they aren't fun, and government spending can be wasteful, consider:

Tax what we want less of. Apply a zero tax, or even a negative tax to what is better. Think creatively. What do we want less of? Pollution, destruction of the environment, excessive consumerism of wasteful products, hunger. What do we want more of? Efficient solutions, not efficient exploitation. That's the problem with capitalism today - it encourages efficient exploitation, not necessarily efficient solutions for the consumer.

Tax pollution. Tax resource exploitation. Tax wasteful products. As for hunger, that's where thinking creatively helps.

I made a long post about automobile design and production. I mentioned the Volkswagen XL1 as an example. The key is to get businesses to compete effectively in a constructive way. Right now, automakers compete by determining the most efficient way to sell expensive automobiles. We want to get them to compete at building the most efficient automobiles. Big difference.

I've been thinking of one way to do it, and I'm not entirely sure of the mathematics behind it, but follow along.

Take the full lineup of new automobiles available today. Split them into ten tiers, numbered one through ten, where the least efficient autos are in tier one, and the most efficient are in tier ten. Tier one gets the highest tax. Tier five gets the lowest positive tax. Tier ten gets the largest negative tax. Now the automakers will compete like crazy to get their auto lineup into the top tier.

If most everyone buys only automobiles in tier ten, then it becomes even more difficult to get your auto placed into tier ten, because the negative tax has to be paid by the positive taxes below it.

Wealthy people can afford whatever auto they want, regardless of tax. People who aren't wealthy will embrace the negative tax on the most efficient autos, and benefit from their efficiency.

Efficiency should increase drastically, much more aggressively than today, as automakers compete to always have autos in the top tiers. New auto startups will obviously strive to only have autos in the top tiers, and by doing so, they'll be able to compete because of the negative tax. This will increase competition for efficiency even further.

Notice that this system does not mandate a specific MPG requirement. For example, the government currently might be mandating 30+ MPG for future automobiles. The problem is, that might be too difficult or too easy for automakers to meet. But what I'm proposing drives the market to competitively up the MPG continuously with no upper limit, and the end result should approach the MPG of the Volkswagen XL1, which happens to be 260 MPG.

That's more or less the way I feel. I know all the problems with pollution taxes, but I don't know of any better way.

That's actually the general way I feel about Libertarianism overall. I can't see my way all the way through to a perfect Libertarian utopia, and such a thing probably doesn't exist. But I can certainly see a lot of ways we can make things a lot better than they are, and maybe we will figure out the rest once we get closer. (Maybe not, but as long as things keep getting better, I won't complain about the fact things aren't yet perfect.)

Yes. It's called steady state economics, otherwise known as ecological economics.

I think there are some worrying Malthusian issues. we have a problem that money disguises the true workings of the economy - energy supplies are low, yet the markets think further investment in old sources is most profitable.

Unfortunately, our political economy remains governed on market principles - next 10 years, things can only get worse. Unless we see a strong turn towards towards a greater focus on resources rather than currency.

Its bad that the economy isn't producing enough jobs for everyone.  And its safe to say that this could go on for a long time.  But social collapse is a very rare event.  Iraq in 2003 is the only modern example I can think of.  Our societies will be just fine - what's at issue is how to make them better.

No, but I think everyone should prepare for the worse financial times possible.

In my opinion, a collapse like that will never ocurr. What will happen is increasing prices...hyperinflation. That will be (is) our collapse. So, the more you can do for yourself in a true sustainable fashion, the more money you will save (or spend less if you cant save). The politicians will ensure a total colapse of society and infrastructure will never happen. They will create a new currency before that happens, giving the poorest people the most (percentage) in return because thats where the majority of the votes will come from.

What I was saying was that they will never take away social services, because those addicted to them will rise up, revolt, kill and steal, and pretty much do anything within their ability TO survive.

Cold and hungry people are not afraid of prison and certainly wont concern themselves with the law.

Very few people have the skills to survive on their own in this day and age ... by design.

You know, I know alot of well-off people and alot of poor people. A huge part of my family lives very meager existances with very little money, and they do it by farming and raising livestock. They are some of the happiest people I know and they do better than others in lean financial times like we are experiencing right now.

In fact, I had many conversations with my grandparents before their deaths, and they almost didnt even know there was a great depression, if it wasnt for the newspapers telling them. It simply did not affect them because they did everything for themselves on their farm and through trade/barter within their community.

Are you seriously thinking that you need to grow your own potatoes and raise pigs ?  Is life in America really that bad or are you also stockpiling tinfoil for hats ?

People dont want to take personal responsibility anylonger.

They have gradually and systematically been weened off taking any responsibility for themselves.

They are now addicted to money they have yet to earn (credit debt) and government subsidies in order to survive.

This need to change, but let me tell you it will be bad if it happens.

Stockpile lots of guns, ammunition, tradable tangible goods, food, and seeds. Then be prepared to defend it all with your life if they ever take those social programs away, because the vast majority of the population is NOT prepared to fend for themselves, either financially, mentally, or physically.

Think about this:

The majority has the power, therefore, if the majority really wants to, the majority will do whatever the hell it wants, whenever the hell it wants - whether you think it's right or not is irrelevant.  Your system, while it may condemn "might makes right" does absolutely nothing to stop it, because in unregulated-no-governmentland, the man with the biggest gun will make the rules.

Under the current system, society has agreed to entrust an entity (government) with enough power to suppress the majority, in order to protect the minority.  Government says it's not ok to kill all the Mexicans, because that's what society thinks is reasonable and the government enforces society's wish.  If society changes its mind and begins to think it is ok to kill Mexicans, then they have the option to change the laws to make it ok.  It will be massive, massive costly and time consuming, will require great effort and tremendous backing by the populace, but it is theoretically possible.  That doesn't mean the current system is a failure.  That means the current system is realistic.  Because you can pretend that in your system might doesn't make right and no one would be allowed to decide it's ok to kill all the Mexicans, but until you have a centralized entity in place that's powerful enough to control the majority that might want to kill all the Mexicans, your promises are hollow and your system is a pie in the sky joke.

A good point, and retort.

If we allow free immigration, social services will be overrun with freeloaders. Solution? Get rid of social services.

No country in the world allows free immigration. It's not liberal. It's suicidal.

That illegals part is the worst. I don't even consider people who don't support free immigration to be real libertarians. Oh ok, you're "libertarian" so long as we do everything in the order you think is best... But for now you are just another nationalist conservative. "Libertarians" who would send armed men to break apart peaceful families. Makes me sick.