Fred Weiss
papertig.com> wrote:> Jonah Thomas
gmail.com> wrote:>> Fred Weiss
papertig.com> wrote:>>> tg
earthlink.net> wrote:>>
>>>>...motor cars didn't 'naturally arise' to solve the
>>>> problem of horseshit in the streets of London.
>>
>>> No, but they arose to solve the problem of the relative
>>> inefficiency, limits, and cost of horses.
>>
>> I think they arose because people were interested in the engines,
>> and then they looked for things they could use them for.
>
> Well, yes, but why were they interested in the engines? Engines in
> other applications - most especially the steam engine - had already
> amply demonstrated economic viability.
Sure, but when they started out on them the things weren't economicly
viable. It was all potential that people got excited about. And how did
we get onto internal combustion anyway? Steam engines had and have more
potential, but the guys who did the best marketing were using internal
combustion engines, so....
> So that we don't get bogged down in historical minutia, keep in mind
> that I'm just responding to Tiggy's absurd claim that "externalities"
> cannot be addressed by the free market.
Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't. Sometimes they do get
addressed, sometimes they don't.
>>... We went to space because we wanted to,...
>
> No, we went to space because gov't funded it - and because it was seen
> as a military necessity. It has of course gone in other directions
> since and it has become of considerable commercial importance. Whether
> the gov't should still be involved for military, scientific or other
> reasons is debatable.
The government funded it because they had captured german rocket
scientists. The germans got the nazi government to fund their hobby
because it was something they wanted to do, something they'd been doing
as hobbyists on their own dime.
>>>> Likewise, less-polluting cars will not 'naturally arise' to
>>>> solve the problem of pollution.
>>
>>> No, they will arise when and if the cost of gasoline gets higher
>>> than people want to pay.
>>
>> That implies we should raise the price of gasoline without making
>> people poorer.
>
> How does it imply that?
If you care about global warming you'll want to switch away from oil
before the oil is all burned. The more oil that stays in the ground, the
better. But there's no obvious way for the market to pay people not to
burn oil, if that's what you want to happen. The free market doesn't
give you that mechanism.
If you care about pollution you'll probably want to switch away from
oil-burning engines. But when you pollute, it doesn't much cost you. It
costs all the people whose health is hurt, but there's no economic way
for them or anybody to charge you for that. They can't buy nonpollution
in bottles to breathe. (We can pollute the public water supplies and
then sell pure water in bottles though.) You can't market pollution
until you can sell it.
So the government has been selling pollution. Every year they have an
auction where businesses buy the right to pollute. Then the government
fines the businesses that get caught polluting more. For some things
(sulfate and nitrogen in rainwater) it's reached the point that
businesses make almost exactly the amount of pollution the pollution
market tells them to. If you believe the Bush administration.
> If it is true that we have hit "peak production" in oil, then the
> price will inevitably rise providing ample incentive to find either
> alternate fuels or more efficient ways to burn it. That takes care of
> that "externality" without any necessity whatever of gov't
> interference - and the inherent market distortions which it
> introduces.
If you assume that whatever the market does is right, then you're kind
of right about that. So it would make sense to pollute the water and
when somebody wants clean water they can pay to have it cleaned -- and
GDP goes up. Pollute the air and people who breathe can pay for clean
air -- GDP goes up more. Here's the ideal marketing scheme, you put
something in the air that keeps men from getting erections, and then you
sell them viagra. Guaranteed money-maker.
> Btw, when we complain today about the "polluting" effects of the
> automobile, we forget the far worse pollution which it replaced.
It depends. Horse manure was 100%% biodegradable. And a drunk driver
could let his horse find the way home, provided the horse wasn't drunk
too. On the whole people preferred autos, particularly they were cheaper
and faster and you only had to feed them when you used them. They didn't
know that gasoline caused cancer. How do you put a price on things you
don't even know yet?
>>>> There's something in economic theory called externalization, ...
>>
>>> There's also something in economic theory called the motivating
>>> power of profits.
>>
>> Exactly. It's the government's job to distort the economy so that
>> profits come to those who do the right things instead of the wrong
>> things.
>
> What are the "right" things vs. the "wrong" things - and by what right
> do you or anyone get to decide what that is?
The government chooses what's right, on their authority as our elected
representatives and our paid servants.
If you think they don't have that right then vote Libertarian.
>>> That's the little thing Malthus overlooked when he predicted that
>>> increasing population would lead to famine.
>
>> Too soon to say on that one.
>
> You mean after 150 years of massive population increases without
> starvation and you still think it's an open question? You need another
> 150 years when we are comfortably feeding 10 or 20 - or 50 - billion
> people before you can make up your mind?
Without starvation? You've never talked to an irishman about that, have
you?
>> The kind of people who starve aren't the kind ...
>
> ...that embrace the free market system. They've been brutalized by
> communist forced collectivization or they are stagnating in primitive,
> tribalistic, and corrupt societies.
Yes, the free market english shipped food away from ireland while the
irish were starving, because the starving irish couldn't pay for it. No
communists there.
