Ecology or "anarcho" capitalism

by

Iain MacSaorsa

* Can "absolute" private property rights protect the environment?

According to Libertarians, only private property can protect the
environment. Rothbard claims that "if private firms were able to
own the rivers and lakes... anyone dumping garbage... would
promptly be sued in the courts for their aggression against
private property... Thus, only private property rights will insure 
an end to pollution-invasion of resources" [Rothbard, For a New
Liberty, page 256].

This ignores one major point, why *would* the private owner be
interested in keeping it clean? Why not just assume that the
company makes more money turing the lakes and rivers into a
dumping site, or trees into junk mail. Its no less plausible,
in fact more likely to happen in many cases. Its just another 
example of Libertarianism's attempt to give the reader what 
he or she whats to hear.

But, of course, the Libertarian will jump in and say that if
dumping was allowed, this would cause pollution which would
affect others, who would sue the owner in question. Maybe, is
the answer to that. What if the locals are slum dwellers
and cannot afford to sue, or if they are afraid that their
land-lords will evict them if they do so (particularly if
they also own the polluting property in question)? 

But, beyond these points lies the most important one. Namely,
is the option to sue about pollution *really* available in the 
free market? Rothbard thinks it is. Taking the case of factory
smoke in the 19th Century, he notes that it and "many of its bad
effects have been known since the Industrial Revolution, known
to the extent that the American courts, during the... nineteenth 
century made the deliberate decision to allow property rights 
to be violated by industrial smoke. To do so, the courts had 
to -and did- systematically change and weaken the defences 
of property rights embedded in Anglo-Saxon common law... 
the courts systematically altered the law of negligence and 
the law of nuisance to *permit* any air pollution which 
was not unusually greater than any similar manufacturing firm"
[Rothbard, op cit, page 257].

In this remarkably self-contradictory passage, we are invited to
draw the conclusion that private property *must* provide the
solution to the pollution problem from an account of how it
clearly did *not* do so! If the nineteenth century USA - which 
for many Libertarian's is a kind of "golden era" of free market
capitalism - saw a move from an initial situation of well
defended property rights to a later situation were greater
pollution was tolerated, as Rothbard claims, then property
rights cannot provide a solution to the pollution problem.

It is, of course, likely that Rothbard and other "Libertarians"
will claim that the system was not pure enough, that the
courts were motivated to act under pressure from the state
(which in turn was pressured by powerful industrialists). But
can it be purified by just removing the government and placing
courts into a free market? The pressure from the industrialists
remains, if not increases, on the privately-owned courts trying
to make a living on the market. 

The characteristically Libertarian argument that if X was
privately owned, Y would almost certainly occur, is just
wishful thinking.


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    jamal@bronze.lcs.mit.edu, z429701@cts.com, mhuben@world.std.com
Subject: RLF - more pollution stuff
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Hi all

this is an addition to my early post on libertarianism
and pollution. It indicates why sueing to defend "absolute"
property rights may not be a viable option in "economic
freedom" and is highly unlikely to stop pollution.

Feel free to make suggestions, change bits

bcnu

Iain


* Does economic power affect pollution controls?

The last section notes that wealth can affect how environmental
and other externalities are delt with in a capitalist system. This 
critique, however, ignores other important factors in society, such as
the mobility of capital and economic power. These are important weapons 
in ensuring that the agenda of business is untroubled by social 
concerns, such as pollution.

Let us assume that a company is polluting a local area. It is usually
the case that capitalist owners rarely live near to the workplaces
they own, unlike workers and their families. This means that 
the decision makers do not have to live with the consequences 
of their decisions. The right libertarian argument would be that 
those affected by the pollution would sue the company. We will assume
that concentrations of wealth have little or no effect on the social
system (which is a *highly* unlikely assumption, but nevermind). 
Surely, if local people did sue, the company would be harmed 
economically - directly, in terms of costs, indirectly in terms 
of new, eco-friendly processes. Hence the company would be handicapped 
in competition and this would have obvious knock-on effects for the 
local (and wider) economy. 

Also, if the company was sued, it could just up and move to an 
area which would tolerate the pollution. Not only would existing 
capital move, but fresh capital would not invest in an area 
where people stand up for their rights. This, the natural result 
of economic power, would be a "big stick" over the heads of the 
local community and when combined with the costs and difficulties 
in taking a large company to court would make sueing an unlikely 
option for most people. That this would happen can be seen 
from history, where multi-national have moved production to countries 
with little or no polluation laws and court cases take years, if
not decades, to process.

Of course, in a "libertarian" society companies which gather lists
of known "trouble-makers" would be given free reign. These "black-lists"
of people who could cause companies "trouble" (ie by union organising
or sueing employers over "property rights" issues) would often ensure
employee "loyality", particularly if new jobs need references. Under
wage labour, if you cause your employer "problems", your position
can become difficult - being black-listed will mean no job, no wages,
and little chance of being re-employed. Continually sueing in defense 
of your "absolute" property rights would soon fall into this 
category (assuming, of course, you could afford the time and 
money). Hence a working class person would be a weak position to 
defend their "absolute" rights in "libertarian" capitalism due 
to the power of employers within and without the workplace.
 
All these are strong incentives *not* to rock the boat, particularly if 
employees have signed a contract which ensured that they would be 
fired if they discussed company business with others (e.g. lawyers, unions). 

