157 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
157 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
Ecology or "anarcho" capitalism
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by
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Iain MacSaorsa
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* Can "absolute" private property rights protect the environment?
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According to Libertarians, only private property can protect the
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environment. Rothbard claims that "if private firms were able to
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own the rivers and lakes... anyone dumping garbage... would
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promptly be sued in the courts for their aggression against
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private property... Thus, only private property rights will insure
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an end to pollution-invasion of resources" [Rothbard, For a New
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Liberty, page 256].
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This ignores one major point, why *would* the private owner be
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interested in keeping it clean? Why not just assume that the
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company makes more money turing the lakes and rivers into a
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dumping site, or trees into junk mail. Its no less plausible,
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in fact more likely to happen in many cases. Its just another
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example of Libertarianism's attempt to give the reader what
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he or she whats to hear.
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But, of course, the Libertarian will jump in and say that if
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dumping was allowed, this would cause pollution which would
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affect others, who would sue the owner in question. Maybe, is
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the answer to that. What if the locals are slum dwellers
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and cannot afford to sue, or if they are afraid that their
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land-lords will evict them if they do so (particularly if
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they also own the polluting property in question)?
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But, beyond these points lies the most important one. Namely,
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is the option to sue about pollution *really* available in the
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free market? Rothbard thinks it is. Taking the case of factory
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smoke in the 19th Century, he notes that it and "many of its bad
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effects have been known since the Industrial Revolution, known
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to the extent that the American courts, during the... nineteenth
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century made the deliberate decision to allow property rights
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to be violated by industrial smoke. To do so, the courts had
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to -and did- systematically change and weaken the defences
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of property rights embedded in Anglo-Saxon common law...
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the courts systematically altered the law of negligence and
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the law of nuisance to *permit* any air pollution which
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was not unusually greater than any similar manufacturing firm"
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[Rothbard, op cit, page 257].
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In this remarkably self-contradictory passage, we are invited to
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draw the conclusion that private property *must* provide the
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solution to the pollution problem from an account of how it
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clearly did *not* do so! If the nineteenth century USA - which
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for many Libertarian's is a kind of "golden era" of free market
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capitalism - saw a move from an initial situation of well
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defended property rights to a later situation were greater
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pollution was tolerated, as Rothbard claims, then property
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rights cannot provide a solution to the pollution problem.
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It is, of course, likely that Rothbard and other "Libertarians"
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will claim that the system was not pure enough, that the
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courts were motivated to act under pressure from the state
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(which in turn was pressured by powerful industrialists). But
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can it be purified by just removing the government and placing
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courts into a free market? The pressure from the industrialists
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remains, if not increases, on the privately-owned courts trying
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to make a living on the market.
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The characteristically Libertarian argument that if X was
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privately owned, Y would almost certainly occur, is just
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wishful thinking.
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From cllv13@ccsun.strath.ac.uk Thu Oct 19 15:28:23 1995
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Return-Path: <cllv13@ccsun.strath.ac.uk>
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Delivery-Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 15:28:22 +0100
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Received: from ness.cc.strath.ac.uk by harris.cc.strath.ac.uk with SMTP (PP);
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Thu, 19 Oct 1995 15:26:37 +0100
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Received: by ness.cc.strath.ac.uk (5.x) id AA05393;
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Thu, 19 Oct 1995 15:25:15 +0100
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Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 15:25:15 +0100
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From: cllv13 <cllv13@ccsun.strath.ac.uk>
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Message-Id: <9510191425.AA05393@ness.cc.strath.ac.uk>
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To: cllv13@ccsun.strath.ac.uk, anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie,
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jamal@bronze.lcs.mit.edu, z429701@cts.com, mhuben@world.std.com
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Subject: RLF - more pollution stuff
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X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII
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Content-Length: 3307
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X-Lines: 67
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Status: RO
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Hi all
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this is an addition to my early post on libertarianism
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and pollution. It indicates why sueing to defend "absolute"
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property rights may not be a viable option in "economic
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freedom" and is highly unlikely to stop pollution.
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Feel free to make suggestions, change bits
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bcnu
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Iain
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* Does economic power affect pollution controls?
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The last section notes that wealth can affect how environmental
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and other externalities are delt with in a capitalist system. This
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critique, however, ignores other important factors in society, such as
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the mobility of capital and economic power. These are important weapons
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in ensuring that the agenda of business is untroubled by social
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concerns, such as pollution.
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Let us assume that a company is polluting a local area. It is usually
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the case that capitalist owners rarely live near to the workplaces
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they own, unlike workers and their families. This means that
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the decision makers do not have to live with the consequences
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of their decisions. The right libertarian argument would be that
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those affected by the pollution would sue the company. We will assume
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that concentrations of wealth have little or no effect on the social
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system (which is a *highly* unlikely assumption, but nevermind).
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Surely, if local people did sue, the company would be harmed
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economically - directly, in terms of costs, indirectly in terms
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of new, eco-friendly processes. Hence the company would be handicapped
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in competition and this would have obvious knock-on effects for the
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local (and wider) economy.
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Also, if the company was sued, it could just up and move to an
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area which would tolerate the pollution. Not only would existing
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capital move, but fresh capital would not invest in an area
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where people stand up for their rights. This, the natural result
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of economic power, would be a "big stick" over the heads of the
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local community and when combined with the costs and difficulties
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in taking a large company to court would make sueing an unlikely
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option for most people. That this would happen can be seen
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from history, where multi-national have moved production to countries
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with little or no polluation laws and court cases take years, if
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not decades, to process.
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Of course, in a "libertarian" society companies which gather lists
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of known "trouble-makers" would be given free reign. These "black-lists"
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of people who could cause companies "trouble" (ie by union organising
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or sueing employers over "property rights" issues) would often ensure
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employee "loyality", particularly if new jobs need references. Under
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wage labour, if you cause your employer "problems", your position
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can become difficult - being black-listed will mean no job, no wages,
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and little chance of being re-employed. Continually sueing in defense
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of your "absolute" property rights would soon fall into this
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category (assuming, of course, you could afford the time and
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money). Hence a working class person would be a weak position to
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defend their "absolute" rights in "libertarian" capitalism due
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to the power of employers within and without the workplace.
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All these are strong incentives *not* to rock the boat, particularly if
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employees have signed a contract which ensured that they would be
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fired if they discussed company business with others (e.g. lawyers, unions).
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