- 07 Nov 2012 15:05
#14100153
You are absolutely right.
I should have said that it is a very poor approximation. On second thought, your statement is so vague as to fall into the category of "not even false".
That assumes that the only alternative to taxes (or other regulatory tools such as outright prohibition on certain polluting activities) is doing nothing.
My position is that the best solution to pollution problem is strict and effective enforcement of property rights, together with various forms of non-violent social pressure (e.g. consumer action) against polluters.
The advantage of using property rights is that, based on Cause Theorem, an economically-efficient result will emerge (subject to transaction cost). No similar tendency should be expected from the political process.
Global Warming is not a pollution problem. Change to Earth's climate is both part of nature and, even in the presence of human action, incredibly slow. We could speculate on how we might act if facts were different, but that would be a waste of time.
By-and-large, only pollution for which identifiable victims can be found is worth preventing.
lucky wrote:It makes no logical sense to call an approximation "false". An approximation can only be more or less accurate than another one.
You are absolutely right.
I should have said that it is a very poor approximation. On second thought, your statement is so vague as to fall into the category of "not even false".
If what you mean to say is that it is possible for the approximation to be so bad that a zero tax fares better, then yes, that's a possibility, but that's not an argument for one or the other, since the reverse is also a possibility.
That assumes that the only alternative to taxes (or other regulatory tools such as outright prohibition on certain polluting activities) is doing nothing.
My position is that the best solution to pollution problem is strict and effective enforcement of property rights, together with various forms of non-violent social pressure (e.g. consumer action) against polluters.
The advantage of using property rights is that, based on Cause Theorem, an economically-efficient result will emerge (subject to transaction cost). No similar tendency should be expected from the political process.
Nunt wrote:But since we have no identified victim, to who can we pay those damages? Maybe pay each inhabitant of earth and equal share of the damages for global pollutants such as CO2 or pay out to more local people for local pollutants such as smog? Even though this may not provide perfect restitution, it may be a good proxy.
Global Warming is not a pollution problem. Change to Earth's climate is both part of nature and, even in the presence of human action, incredibly slow. We could speculate on how we might act if facts were different, but that would be a waste of time.
By-and-large, only pollution for which identifiable victims can be found is worth preventing.
Free men are not equal and equal men are not free.
Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.
Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.