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From: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Reply to Rich Cowan
Message-ID: <12254914609.42.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Fri, 14-Nov-86 13:56:31 EST
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Posted: Fri Nov 14 13:56:31 1986
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Rich Cowan writes:

> ... serving the needs of institutions.  To show why this is "bad," 
> I must give some examples of how institutions can affect BASIC 
> human needs.  How about:

> -The freedom to breath [sic] :  Before federal emissions standards, 
> automobile companies like General Motors (with oil companies) were 
> perfectly content to produce inefficient cars that guzzled leaded 
> gas and polluted the air.  Lots of health hazards from this have 
> been greatly reduced by regulation.

Why concentrate on institutions?  People smoke cigarettes and
burn garbage, activities just as contemptible as industrial
pollution if they damage another person.  In any case, the
problem of air pollution arises because property rights
aren't protected *enough*, not because they're overenforced.
The only right way to regulate pollution is to hold individuals
(and, yes, institutions) responsible for the damages they cause
other persons.  The problem with standards is that they could
be too severe (see any problems with forbidding *all* pollution?)
or too lax (see any problems with allowing too much?).  The only
way to get the balance right is throught the protection of
property rights, concentrating on the individuals involved,
and *not* through arbitrary political feat.

As for General Motors being perfectly content to produce
inefficient cars, that's only part of the story.  General Motors
was perfectly happy to make gas guzzlers because *THE PRICE
OF GASOLINE WAS CONTROLLED*.  Why should consumers worry
about fuel economy when gas sells for a quarter a gallon?
Never mind that prices should reflect the abundance or scarcity
of a commodity, we've got to protect those big bad institutions
from raping our poor stupid consumer, right?  I have no
doubt that the few intelligent policymakers opposed to
gasoline price controls in the sixties and seventies were
shouted down by well-meaning people with your beliefs, Rich,
who simply didn't understand how free markets work, or how
important they are.

Contrast this with the Japanese.  While we were living in
our fantasy world of cheap, controlled gasoline, they were
paying a buck a gallon.  While it's true that gasoline is
in general more expensive in Japan because they import all
their oil, the fact remains that they knew just how much
gasoline was worth, and the consumer (who's not as dopey
as you think) wanted the most fuel-efficient car he could
get.  Moral: if you're really interested in getting the
right things produced, Rich, you ought to let the market
work.

> -The freedom to drink clean water: There are unsolved serious 
> problems with public water supplies all over the country -- hence 
> the growth in popularity of bottled water.  The amount of inorganic 
> garbage our society generates, and ultimately dumps in landfills, 
> contributes directly to this problem.

Quite true.  *Public* drinking water has problems precisely because it
is *public*; it belongs to everybody, so it belongs to nobody.  Water
supplies that are privately own can be protected from pollution
through the tort system.  The same with landfills; land that noone has
an incentive to preserve won't be preserved.  Isn't it interesting,
Rich, that the institutional problems you point out all have to do
with the absence of private property rights: public drinking water,
public air, public landfills?

> -The freedom to enjoy nature:  The amazon jungles are being 
> decimated, in part by McDonald's, which needs more space to raise 
> beef.  

Wrongo, Rich.  The amazon jungles are being decimated by South
American *governments* (a class of institution you curiously avoid),
because they need the money and the jungles are not privately owned.
Private ownership of natural resources is the *only* to protect and
preserve your "freedom to enjoy nature".  Could the U.S.
Government or lumber industry deforest the millions of acres
owned by the Nature Conservancy?  Not on your life.

> -Survival:  My right to live is being threatened by a nuclear 
> balance of terror, perpetuated and intensified by the economic 
> interests of military contractors who exaggerate the vulnerability 
> of the US deterrent.

I agree.

> I could go on, but I think that these examples aptly illustrate that
> we can't trust "free enterprise" to take care of all our concerns.

Au contrare, they show that you don't understand what "free
enterprise" is.  Most of the concerns you point out can be addressed
quite effectively through the marketplace and property rights.

--Barry
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