I just wanted to warn what might happen with the 2 extremes. Too much government which results in the public being shut out of environmental use actually IS happening now. Reisman is warning us about it. The idea that rich elites might wall off the public while plundering property is a theoretical thing that COULD happen, if we forget that “no man is an island”. We’ve got to be sure that the public is satisfied enough with the system to be willing to defend it.

In addition to the 2 examples I used above (Romans unenthusiastic about their big bureaucracy and welfare system and inflation, and Southern slaves not interested in defending their system) here’s a third – the people of the USSR and Warsaw Pact who demonstrated AGAINST their system instead of for it when the chips were down.

People of Libertarian persuasion actually have a good opportunity to take advantage of the growing public disgust at the Gaia worshippers in control of government today…if they are smart enough not to replace them with an equally onerous system.

“will the pure version lead to a better life for all or will it lead to an opinion among the great majority of “hey we’re just slaves, so why fight for this system?”

I’m part way through DiLorenzo’s book “How Capitalism Saved America” and i recommend it highly. It shows how despite having an abundance of natural resources, the vast proportion of the first settlers of America starved due to socialism. Once private property was allowed to these people, and the free market was allowed to run unhampered by government, wealth and prosperity grew for everyone. Today, despite the regression back to socialism to some extent, Americans are still one of the wealthiest people in the world and few would prefer living elsewhere where the systems are even more socialistic.

That members of a free society will consider themselves as slaves is not theoretically likely nor is it empirically born out by history. It is the coercive state that makes slaves of us.

I’ve seen examples of tax “reforms” which led to new types of taxes, more bureaucracy and higher rates, so you don’t need to convince me! However, I’m in favor of getting rid of our abominable income tax system and replacing it with a consumption (sales) tax. ONLY IF the income tax is abolished. That would for sure be the lesser of the evils as the income tax increases gov’t power through it’s myrids of byzantine deductions for special interests. Besides, us enviro interested people want to see consumption taxed instead of incomes.

Now, the other side of the coin – you may like this one better: It’s 2015 and China with its 1.6 billion people is attempting to invade the USA.

The call goes out to raise a 10 million man army to defend America.

By now, the government ownes every bit of environmentally desirable land. Whatever beaches, springs, parks, forests and mountains that were privately owned have been seized by eminent domain. The Gaia worshippers in charge of the Dept. of Natural resources have assurred us it is for our own good.

Houses on beaches have been demolished and people are only allowed to see the ocean from observation decks. Feet might step on turtles and sandcastle building has been outlawed since sandcastles interfere with natural tidal action. Surfing prohibited for the same reason. Certainly no boats can be allowed in our rivers or lakes and swimming by humans would upset the purity of nature. Human exhaling in Smokey Mountains Nat’l Park was the cause of a new regulation prohibiting the disgusting 2 legged animals from this region. This keeps them from wading into the pure mountain streams too, thus pleasing Gaia.

If anybody thinks I’m being silly, some of these things have already occurred. At one spring, as people are being removed from the water because manatees might come there, a statue of a manatee has been placed alongside the water. It is strikingly similar to a statue placed in veneration to a saint.

Anyway, the members of the Dept. of Natural Resources have noticed that there isn’t nearly enough of them to fill the 10 million needed to fight the Chineese. Won’t the people Puuleeze volunteer for the army?

The great unwashed masses, who have very little money left after paying the huge taxes, fold their arms and say “Screw it! I don’t feel much like fighting for this system. Maybe the Chineese will treat us better, like letting us go to the beach or go swimming or something. After all, they promised they would on the Radio Bejing broadcasts.”

So folks, is this extreme just the other side of the same coin? Will Libertarianism lead to a better life for all, or will it lead to a privatization takeover by Neocon Nobles as Bob envisions (and seems to be the case presently)?

Incidentally, I’ve read that there is historical precidence for my scenario #2 above. At the end of the Roman empire, the taxes, bureaucracy and inflation got so oppresive that some Romans welcomed the arrival of the Barbarians. “At least their money is good.” they said.

“The point is, don’t try to fix one problem brought on by state power by introducing yet further measures that enhance state power.”

I don’t propose introducing “further measures that enhance state power” and never will. I propose getting State government involved in creating GENUINE free markets. Without their involvement or without a revolution, only the phonied-up, strictly-controlled faux markets of the neocons will exist. Sometime very soon Libertarian ideas have to become reality before it’s too late.

Someone recently wrote to me about privatization of highways suggesting that automobile companies and the oil industry would be great caretakers of such enterprise. I thought at first it was a joke. The oil companies owning the roads? Unbelievable! And their companion industry the auto makers?! The oil companies are doing everything they can to lead consumers into believing there is enough oil to last a couple of generations, or more—so use, use, USE! The auto makers make it easier to use more all the time. And if any progress in the market place is made in using alternative fuels from renewable resources, the lost profits to the oil industry will of course NOT be made up in toll charges on roads! And of course Big Oil’s buddy system with auto makers will surely encourage auto makers to accelerate technology in making affordable vehicles that use alternative energy—right? And let’s not forget about the Conservation Hoax. Should people begin to conserve, the reduction in demand provides the opportunity for lower oil and gas prices, right? And of course the oil industry, co-king of the roads, will not make up for lost revenue from dastardly citizens’ efforts to conserve with increased toll fees—right?

Why not sell the parks with the biggest lakes and largest rivers running through them to the chemical industry? The environmentalists deceive the public all the time, of course, and it’s really not dangerous to dump X, Y, and Z chemicals into these bodies of water.

Why not sell the parks with the biggest timber acreages to the insurance industry? “Liberals” and “environmentalists” killed the timber industry anyway, so it’s payback time. They can clear cut them and sell the timber to generate revenue to keep from raising our premiums to make up for the losses they’ll suffer from payouts resulting from Katrina and other disasters. Uh-huh.

Why not sell the parks with mountainous terrain and forests to a coalition of mega-developers? They can scab off high points and hillsides to install $multi-million homes for the nobles. They can develop mega-complexes with all sorts of facilities to hose the consumer. And as consolation for losing too much money in the gambling casinos, they’ll give away coupons for reduced-rate tickets to visit the areas of the parks not set aside and guarded for use only by the super-rich “special” people.

Libertarianism has some really great ideas and it makes more sense than anything I’ve encountered thus far. But there seems to be a major precept missing in many of the discussions. The Libertarian world, if I envision it correctly, is one of unlimited choices. If a business or industry is offensive and destructive in its practices, people can choose to take their business elsewhere. Got any bio-diesel in your area? Are coolants and lubricants made from renewable sources readily available in your area?

If an insurance consortium buys a national forest and clear-cuts it “to reduce our insurance premiums,” what is the recourse for the people when they find out that the insurance consortium was playing games; it gave slight reductions to people in premiums, but they could have reduced them significantly with the revenue generated by butchering the forest? If the insurance consortium does not replant the enormous filtration system that cleans the air of carbon dioxide and produces fresh oxygen, what power do the people have to withhold reward to the consortium?

Parks should be privatized alright, but not in the way that the neocons are drooling over. These are my opinions:

Parks within State boundaries must belong to that State. The parks should be owned by the people in that State who want to buy them. The owners get reduced rates for using them, non-owners pay higher rates. Shares of ownership are not for sale to non-residents of the State. All revenue is exempt from tax nor or costs deductible from anyone’s taxes. It is a free market completely devoid of tax basis and government policy. It is exempt from paying State and Federal taxes on purchases, it receives no State or Federal funds, etc, etc—whatever removes the business operation totally from governmental interference.

Market forces will work. Owners will want their own fees to be affordable, so proper business practices will be used to conserve capital, while at the same time usage of the parks must be encouraged to generate revenue, so the park will be well maintained to attract paying visitors. Proper business practices will lead to affordable rates for visitors and practices to manage ingress and egress to make it as pleasant as possible will develop. Owners will receive income, tax exempt, in some form from the usage of the park. In forested parks, owners will receive income, tax exempt, from sustainable practices such as commercial thinning, such practices if performed properly invigorating growth and beauty of the forest. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

Everything should be privatized, but some things should be privatized at the EXCLUSION of business interests who will NOT employ morals to economic decisions and who are able to eliminate or manipulate choices thus creating a NOT-FREE market. A GENUINE free market is a fair market, the “level playing field” that people seek, one in which everyone has the opportunity to make choices and gain reward from creativity and hard work. Any market not devoid of all taxes, governmental interference, and influence by special interests (resulting in large part due to the previous 2 elements), is not a free market and if it is not a free market it is not a fair market. Somehow Libertarians have to emphasize the differences between neocon free markets and the reality. Neocons promote FAUX markets and Libertarians promote FREE markets. Or maybe I misunderstand the whole concept and I’m wasting my time.

“This would be a concession contradictory to the cause of liberty and to the goal of reducing state power.”

Transferring economic power through controlled privatization by the neocons is not reducing state power; it is merely a name change. The major difference now, then, is that we will have the “Jurrasic Park” attitude of, “This is great! We can charge anything we want–$10,000 per day, $20,000!”

Getting involved in the push to eliminate taxes by showing fellow citizens and State politicians how to begin GENUINE free markets makes much more sense to me.

The tricky part is the timing; if it takes too long to do it, then the chosen NOBLES of the regime will be in the best position to take claim of most of what is available–they already have ownership of over 70% of America’s assets.

However, if it’s done too early, like tomorrow, then there is still some chance for those outside of the circle of nobles, but the tax structure still exists and the outcomes of the various privatizations may end up corrupted.

It’s a dilemma, but I disagree with your conclusions. I’m sure neocons are hoping for support from Libertarians for the upcoming privatization frenzy. When mistakes are made and the nobles own the assets, how will you dislodge them? It will be worse than being wounded by a barbed arrow; push it on through and risk death, or drag it back through the wound channel causing much more damage but POSSIBLY surviving after a very long recovery.

I think what you’re saying is given that purely free markets are an unlikely condition to arise in the foreseeable future, is it possible that because of this, certain forms of coercive government invoked property-rights-infringing regulation might enhance this imperfect situation. For instance, because parks might be sold to the connected politically favored albeit private parties, should they therefore be regulated by the state as well.

Rothbard addresses this in “For a New Liberty”

http://mises.org/rothbard/newliberty14.asp

“How, then, can we know whether any halfway measure or transitional demand should be hailed as a step forward or condemned as an opportunistic betrayal? There are two vitally important criteria for answering this crucial question: (1) that, whatever the transitional demands, the ultimate end of liberty be always held aloft as the desired goal; and (2) that no steps or means ever explicitly or implicitly contradict the ultimate goal. A short-run demand may not go as far as we would like, but it should always be consistent with the final end; if not, the short-run goal will work against the long-run purpose, and opportunistic liquidation of libertarian principle will have arrived.

“An example of such counterproductive and opportunistic strategy may be taken from the tax system. The libertarian looks forward to eventual abolition of taxes. It is perfectly legitimate for him, as a strategic measure in that desired direction, to push for a drastic reduction or repeal of the income tax. But the libertarian must never support any new tax or tax increase. For example, he must not, while advocating a large cut in income taxes, also call for its replacement by a sales or other form of tax. The reduction or, better, the abolition of a tax is always a noncontradictory reduction of State power and a significant step toward liberty; but its replacement by a new or increased tax elsewhere does just the opposite, for it signifies a new and additional imposition of the State on some other front. The imposition of a new or higher tax flatly contradicts and undercuts the libertarian goal itself.”

Therefore, I would argue that it would not be ok to introduce a new governmental power that would force this class of property owner to guarantee public access to his property. This would be a concession contradictory to the cause of liberty and to the goal of reducing state power.

Now here’s a philosophical question for Libertarians in this enviro/private/government subject. Back in the Civil War, the South had a few million slaves. Most of us have heard about the blacks who fought against the South. (There were also some who fought FOR the South – they get no publicity). But granted, more blacks fought against the South than for it. The South’s white citizens enthusiastically joined the Cause and fought hard. It could have used a million more soldiers to fight the invading Northerners but we can all understand why they didn’t much want to. I mean, they were slaves, right? Not too enthusiastic about fighting for the system they were under. The South lost and it’s system was destroyed.

Fast forward to 2015. China with its now 1.6 billion population is attempting to invade the USA. It needs land and resources and plans to drive out the Americans and take over North America. This is really not too far fetched.

The call goes out to raise a 10 million man army from the Americans to defend America from a Chineese takeover.

The rich Elites have taken over America. Every spring and park is privately owned. The beaches, mountaintops, Yellowstone Park, every bit of scenic waterfront have private estates overlooking them and the great unwashed masses are walled out and prohibited. They’re mostly working long hours without breaks for minimum wages, too.

Now the gov’t suddenly needs these unwashed masses, 10 million of them, to fight to defend us from a foreign takeover. They’ve noticed that the rich Elites behind the walled off properties don’t come close to 10 million. Won’t they Puuleeeze volunteer to fight?

What happens if the unwashed masses say, “Screw it. I don’t feel much like fighting for this system. Maybe the Chineese will treat us better, like opening up the beach or the parks to us, or something. After all, they promised they would on the Radio Bejing broadcasts.”

Now – is this a fatal flaw of pure Capitalism and privatization? Comments please! Do we need some kind of socialist sounding rules in a limited government that say, “OK to privately own parks as long as public access is guarranteed” or something like that?

Caveat – I agree with Libertarians that pure capitalism and privatization works best – in theory. Given completely free markets, it would all work out – parks would seek highest profits which would come from public access. But in our Greenspan skewered economy, that’s not how it would work today.

Please let me know if this is too far off the thread – I’ll stop.

Once again you nailed my thoughts exactly! As I learn more about privatization, the more I’m convinced that in a GENUINE free market it will eventually find the proper balance in virtually all circumstances. But it is the fact that we do not have anything resembling GENUINE free markets anywhere in the US, or the world that I’m aware of, that bothers me about going too far with privatization yet. Some things simply are too damaging for the future to permit privatization at this point, as you point out so emphatically in your post.

This is the discussion I was hoping would develop eventually, though I didn’t expect it in this thread! I hope we will see some ideas brought out now about how to achieve some of the goals, maybe plans to approach State Senators and State Representatives about choosing an industry to experiment with models for converting to GENUINE free markets absolutely devoid of taxes, monetary and fiscal policy developed at the governmental level, etc.

Or maybe start it in another thread if this one is not agreeable.

Paul – I agree that those 4 points are a great way to smoke out the anti-human Gaia worshippers Reisman was talking about.

Bob – You seem to be sensitive that some of the environmental leaders might have some of those 4 opinions. I think some of them do. But that doesn’t discredit the whole idea of environmental reasonableness. None of us thinks you are an anti-human enviro type, though I can’t speak for Reisman and his possible blanket condemnation of all things environmental. That was my concern in my first blog above.

David – Good point that the GOVERNMENT and not the people own gov’t property. Not necessarily any better than a greedy corporation..maybe akin to Mafia ownership. As long ago as 1972 I listened to a college professor tell us his socialist ideas that gov’t should own all property and people should pay a small rental fee for it. I replied to him, “Government ownes all property NOW. Oh, you think you own your property because you have a deed? That deed is really a rental agreement. The rent you pay says “Tax Bill” on it, but it is really a rental payment. If you don’t think so, try not paying your rental payment and YOU WILL FIND OUT WHO REALLY OWNES YOUR PROPERTY!” That was a pretty unpopular thing to say in ’72.

Now despite what I wrote about my great preference for the private property owners of spring 2 above and the crummy government ownership of spring 1, here’s another Caveat: Right now I wouldn’t support putting up the gov’t owned springs for sale to private owners. The reason is that because Mr. Greenspan has interfered with the natural economy by holding down interest rates and printing trillions of fiat dollars thus creating a real estate bubble. If these springs are put up for sale, I have no doubt that nobody will buy them to create private parks/campgrounds. They will be bought by the super rich who will build expensive condos around them. The public will be walled off and prohibited from ANY access to them. This would make even the government’s abysmal record look tolerable. Can we have a system with public support if a handful of super rich monopolize beautiful places and the lowly citizens are kept out? Does this sound socialist to you? Paul – what do you say?

“Do you feel this way Bob? . . . However, since I don’t think you feel this way, I think you should take this article less personally. Reisman is talking about the prominent people behind the movement.”

Paul, you know me well without even having met me!

None of these positions or statements represent my views regarding humans. But here’s the thing: none of the groups I am active with take these positions either. You say that those people who buy into the 4 listed positions are prominent, but they are not.

1.”They [animals, rivers, ecosystems] have intrinsic value, more value — to me — than another human body, or a billion of them.” i.e. a river is more valuable than a billion human lives. Cool.
2. “I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true. Somewhere along the line …we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth.” i.e. if the human race were exterminated tomorrow, it would be good.
3. “Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” i.e. since we are likely to remain as we are, the best solution is mankind’s destruction. Lovely.
4. “‘Honorable representatives of the great saurians of older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of a dainty!’” i.e. it would be better or at least as acceptable for alligators to feast on a man as the other way around. I get the picture.

Reisman, in my opinion, uses typical neocon style and is quite the wordmeister. He did make a few, veiled comments that were offhand attempts to placate those who might think he was a little over the top, but the following 2 paragraphs on page 2 (as I printed them out) clearly indicate his hatred of environmentalism and people involved in it (I’ve capitalized for emphasis):

“Such statements represent pure, unadulterated poison. They express ideas and wishes which, if acted upon, would mean terror and death for enormous numbers of human beings.

These statements, and others like them, are made by prominent members of the environmental movement. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SUCH STATEMENTS CANNOT BE DIMINISHED BY ASCRIBING THEM ONLY TO A SMALL FRINGE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT. Indeed, even if such views were indicative of the thinking of only 5 or 10 percent of the members of the environmental movement — the “deep ecology,” Earth First! wing — THEY WOULD REPRESENT TOXICITY IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT AS A WHOLE not at the level of parts per billion or even parts per million, but at the level of parts per hundred, which, of course, is an enormously higher level of toxicity than is deemed to constitute a danger to human life in virtually every other case in which deadly poison is present.

BUT THE TOXICITY LEVEL OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT AS A WHOLE IS SUBSTANTIALLY GREATER EVEN THAN PARTS PER HUNDRED. It is certainly at least at the level of several parts per ten. This is obvious from the fact that the mainstream of the environmental movement makes no fundamental or significant criticisms of the likes of Messrs. Graber and McKibben. Indeed, John Muir, whose wish for alligators to “be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of a dainty” McKibben approvingly quotes, was the founder of the Sierra Club, which is proud to acknowledge that fact. The Sierra Club, of course, is the leading environmental organization and is supposedly the most respectable of them.”

He carries this hatred throughout the balance of his essay.

Humans are not a cancer, but they have developed many actions that act like a cancer. The present government/corporate plutocratic oligarchy is spreading like a cancer that continues to kill freedoms and limit choices. The human body that contracts cancer receives treatments some of which are effective but all of which cause the cancer to go into survival mode to defend itself; it will spread as fast as it can.

a) The best way for the body to defeat cancer is for its antibodies to become strong enough to eat the cancer until the cancer is no longer present.

b) The best way to keep weeds from coming back is to keep mowing so the heads cannot transfer nutrients to the roots; the healthy grass will overcome if it is cared for.

Both methods a) and b) are analogous to what Americans must do to defeat the government that is growing like a cancer. And THESE are issues that Reisman should be addressing rather than attacking people who think as I do about my environment.

Remember that the only tool environmentalists have is government at the present time. Although groups’ funds come from contributions, the government is the only available method to affect change unless/until changes are made to permit GENUINE free market participants to work on the problems.

Industry in the present economic system has no reason to use morals in their decisions and they will use government to keep from having to use them to the greatest extent possible. And industry doesn’t get its funds to battle environmentalists from contributions; they come from taxpayers one way or another.

First convince me that you subscribe to the following sorts of thinking and you will have also convinced me that Reisman is attacking people who think like you:

1.”They [animals, rivers, ecosystems] have intrinsic value, more value — to me — than another human body, or a billion of them.” i.e. a river is more valuable than a billion human lives. Cool.

2. “I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn’t true. Somewhere along the line …we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth.” i.e. if the human race were exterminated tomorrow, it would be good.

3. “Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.” i.e. since we are likely to remain as we are, the best solution is mankind’s destruction. Lovely.

4. “‘Honorable representatives of the great saurians of older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of a dainty!’” i.e. it would be better or at least as acceptable for alligators to feast on a man as the other way around. I get the picture.

Do you feel this way Bob? If you do, then Reisman’s article is an attack on you, and I’m not going to apologize for it. However, since I don’t think you feel this way, I think you should take this article less personally. Reisman is talking about the prominent people behind the movement. They are prominent, and yet you will not hear any other mainstream environmentalists disassociate themselves with their views on the value of human life. There is a reason they don’t. They are the true movement.

Thank you for your glob (a long blog) that fortunately is not a blahglob (no explanation necessary), as you’ve nailed it on the public/private property issue. As Rothbard said, the public does not in fact own “public” property, the government does; just try getting title to your share and selling it.

P.S. Even good globs need paragraphs. You should try them sometime.

“Alle Ding sind Gift und nichts ohn Gift; alein die Dosis macht das ein Ding kein Gift ist”

” all things are poison and there is nothing without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison”

My favorite quote from Toxicology class. I use it when I teach about toxicology too.

I was reminded of this when I read a while back about a fraternity hazing where a pledge was killed by forced consumption of water. He died of water poisoning.

If “environmentalists” like malevolent philosophists McKibben and Graeber, wish to masquerade as scientists, they should be paid no more heed than the creationists or the intelligent design adherents when it comes to setting policy.

Good points. You selected the only parts of Reiman’s article that didn’t attack me as an environmentally-conscious capitalist active in environmental issues. Try this exercise: select all the invective used to describe my low intellect, my hatred for humanity, my wish to abolish all industrialization, my wish to kill my fellow human companions, my constant struggle to bring us back to the dark ages, my willingness to lie at every opportunity to dupe my fellow citizens, my . . . Copy and paste all of it into a post.

I’m so bad, I’m surprised someone hasn’t put me out of their misery already.

Let’s not go into the claims of faulty science that have been proven true since 1990. And let’s wait until the appropriate time to discuss privatization of certain items. Privatization can solve most of America’s problems, I see more and more examples of that as I read the great Libertarian and Austrian economics literature available.

However, please imagine putting up the most beautiful places in America on the auction block tomorrow; which selected people, groups, and corporations do you think will end up with them? Why the rush for the neocons to funnel so much capital into the hands of its selectees in the last several years? Right now there is an outside chance that some citizen groups and corporations outside of the circle of “Nobles” can compete, and for that reason, the regime will wait. When the time is right and competition has been done away with, don’t you worry, they’ll be putting up the properties for privatization.

That’s a much deeper subject than can be discussed in this thread discussing the merits of Reisman’s outrage at me and those who think like me.

Thank-you for your further comments. It sounds like we are not very far apart after all. Sorry for the rude “Marxist” comments. I think i won’t write rebuttals at 1am anymore.

Further on Reisman’s article, it seems i only thought i had read the whole thing the first time, or else i missed a section. I had suggested in one of my posts that Reisman hadn’t had the space to make suggestions on solving environmental issues, and in fact he certainly did:

“This brings me back to the possibly truly good objectives that have been mixed in with environmentalism, such as the desire for greater cleanliness and health… If one wants to advocate such objectives … one must first of all accept unreservedly the values of human reason, science, technology, and industrial civilization, and never attack those values. They are the indispensable foundation for achieving greater cleanliness and better health and longer life.

“In the earlier years of the Industrial Revolution, the process of improvement was accompanied by the presence of coal dust in towns and cities, which people willingly accepted as the by-product of not having to freeze and of being able to have all the other advantages of an industrial society. Subsequent advances, in the form of electricity and natural gas, have radically reduced this problem. Those who seek further advances along these lines, should advocate the freedom of development of atomic power, which emits no particulate matter of any kind into the atmosphere. Atomic power, however, is the form of power most hated by the environmentalists.

“Also essential for further improvements in cleanliness and health, and for the long-term availability of natural resources, is the extension of private ownership of the means of production, especially of land and natural resources. The incentive of private owners is to use their property in ways that maximize its long-term value and, wherever possible, to improve their property. Consistent with this fact, one should seek ways of extending the principle of private ownership to lakes, rivers, beaches, and even to portions of the ocean. Privately owned lakes, rivers, and beaches, would almost certainly be clean lakes, rivers, and beaches. Privately owned, electronically fenced ocean ranches would guarantee abundant supplies of almost everything useful that is found in or beneath the sea. Certainly, the vast land holdings of the United States government in the western states and in Alaska should be privatized.”

I alluded to privatizing rivers and lakes with Bob, when i observed how much more devastation occurs on public land and waters than on private, but i didn’t give Reisman’s article credit for having provided an answer to the problem.

“It is easy to see pollution and attribute it to industry and the ‘free market’. It is not so easy to see that it is statist intervention in the first place that promotes and exasperates the problem so profoundly.”

I do not attribute pollution to the free market because it does not yet exist. And I agree with anyone who believes that statist intervention is preventing in some cases and distorting in others the workable solutions that a GENUINE free market would find (I saw the word “genuine” used in another fine article at this site; the word “true” that I have been using is getting tiresome).

After my blood pressure settles down I appreciate, sort of, seeing these anti-environmentalism and anti-conservationism articles because they permit addressing the issues publicly. The choir receiving the sermon that pleases them gives a warm and fuzzy feeling to both choir and preacher, but it doesn’t get much work done.

However, I’m about ready for some positive news about the environment and conservation in a Libertarian world. And, at the risk of dragging out too many cliches, if grass roots efforts are to get much past the front lawn, it needs more seeding.

If i recall it correctly, and i followed it correctly to start with (it’s been a while since i read the Block article), the point was that libertarian law (promoted by Block) asks: “who was there first?” to answer who is encroaching on whom. Since the farmer was there first, the decision SHOULD go to the farmer. But the coase attitude is to ask “who represents a more substantial economic interest?” to decide who to favour. This is the statist position as well, in my view. So the small farmer loses because he is small. And on it goes. Then one day, the statists turn around and say “look what disastrous pollution, damage and waste all this ‘free market’ activity has brought us; people are flawed and ruthless; we need (guess what) more state intervention to fix this up”.

It is easy to see pollution and attribute it to industry and the ‘free market’. It is not so easy to see that it is statist intervention in the first place that promotes and exasperates the problem so profoundly.