Subject:
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Re: Rolling Blackouts
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 1 Jun 2001 11:11:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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1010 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher Tracey writes:
> > Works fine for resources that are fixed (Grazing lands, timber stands,
> > etc... as an aside I think a lot of the overgrazing, overlogging and
> > overirrigating in the US (which is shameful!) is directly caused by the fact
> > that the land being grazed or logged or the water being used to irrigate is
> > government owned, and thus the true costs aren't being passed through to the
> > users. 10 cents a head a day to graze a cow??? I don't think that sounds
> > like a true cost).
>
> Aren't there corporate lobbies that want grazing (continuing with your
> example) prices that low? I'm not sure you can place all the blame on
> the goverment.
Uh! It is appropriate for organizations to lobby for the government to do the
things that that organization thinks are good. It is inappropriate for the
government to do bad things with our mutual resources. I think all the blame
for anything done poorly with our common lands rests with the departments of
the government specifically, and the administration in general. You don't
blame a kid for asking for too much candy do you? You blame the parent for
giving it to them.
> > But this scenario deals with resources that are mobile. Fish schools just
> > don't seem all that ownable to me. How are you going to tag them??? And
> > owning the oceans themselves means that if some owner that the school passes
> > through lets overfishing happen, it hurts all owners.
>
> I'm still not sure why they should be owned.
Well, Larry's kind of saying that in this case, they shouldn't be. But in
general, if they are "owned" by some body with the interests of the
critter/ecosystem/whatever at heart, then they will be in a place to protect
that natural resource through our property-law courts.
If you own seven Monarch winter reserves so that you can keep Monarchs
protected, you can really only sue if someone disrupts your land (spills
chemicals, sets fire, clearcuts, etc) But if you own the butterflies and a
flight covenant on the entire west of North America, and someone releases toxic
gas at just the right time to kill them all, then you can sue them for that
too. You have more options for protection under law if you own the thing.
But wouldn't have to be that way. We could arbitrarily place stiff penalties
on that kind of behavior. It's just a less elegant solution if you're
concerned with internal consistency and simplicity.
> I've of the opinion that
> nature exists for it's own sake, which makes ownership a dumb, yet
> somehow necessary (in our society) idea. If something has to be 'owned'
> why can't if be owned by everyone?
That's what we have right now...are you happy with the results? Only where
there is a common, can you have a tragedy of the commons.
> Of course, our public lands are
> supposed to be ours, whether that's true or not....
Hey, when I took my SUV out west four years ago and decided to pull off onto a
patch of Utah that had BLM signs up and go off-roading down creek beds and up
hills, I sure felt like it was "ours." I had a blast! That all said, I'm
opposed to that land being public unless it's going to be managed in our
interest. Frankly, it ought to either be privatized or operated at a profit to
pay down our debt.
> > And that's where there's a clear economic value! What is the economic value
> > of biodiversity? Who "owns" the fact that there are a lot of undiscovered
>
> I thought the answer was that it is uncalculatable.
Such a value assignment would be arbitrary, IMO.
> > species still in the amazon? There IS value to that but how do you measure,
> > assign, track, hold title, etc? Seems silly to even contemplate it.
>
> I don't think so... that's why I'm still here.
You're dedicated to titling all aspects the Amazon? He's just talking about
the rituals of ownership, not basic science.
> > So no, this area isn't as well addressed as other tragedies by Libertarian
> > orthodoxy, hence my posing the question to others in search of concrete
> > solutions or suggestions. We got some suggestions which was good, plus the
>
> I wish we could set up some microcosms were we can try these
> polictical/economic ideas...
Yeah! We'll get there with sims some day. But we need many guys on the ground
collecting data so that we can eventually do that.
Chris
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Rolling Blackouts
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| (...) That's what I thought. (...) Aren't there corporate lobbies that want grazing (continuing with your example) prices that low? I'm not sure you can place all the blame on the goverment. (...) I'm still not sure why they should be owned. I've of (...) (23 years ago, 1-Jun-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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