This should be even less controversial than imprisoning murderers
Sadly it isn’t. I consider(ed) myself libertarian, and then found that most self-identified ones reject that reasoning entirely. Pity.
I was also unpleasantly suprised to find that there was a group of people griping about programs that would make it easier to identify cars that weren’t liability-insured or pollution-tested, and this was called a “libertarian” position.
ETA: And libertarian-leaning academics don’t seem to “get” why paying polluters to go away isn’t a solution, and don’t even understand what problem is supposed to be solved, even when hypothetically placed in such a situation! (See the exchange between me and Hanson in the link.)
It’s not so much that it doesn’t solve the problem as things just don’t work that way. For starters, current energy distribution methods are local monopolies, so they are strongly regulated on price because the competition mechanism doesn’t work as it should. The idea that a customers might “choose” cleaner energy doesn’t always work.
Second, some logging companies tried that. They had an outside company, come in, do an inspection, and certify the ecological viability of their practices. There were a fair number of people who actually were willing to pay a little more. The problem is, another set of companies came by, inspected and approved themselves (with a different label that they invented) , and customers weren’t able to tell the difference. That’s a problem.
It’s not so much that it doesn’t solve the problem as things just don’t work that way. For starters, current energy distribution methods are local monopolies, so they are strongly regulated on price because the competition mechanism doesn’t work as it should. The idea that a customers might “choose” cleaner energy doesn’t always work.
Also, to a great extent, electricity is fungible. Suppose you have both windmills and coal-fired plants connected to the same electrical grid, and they both generate equal amounts of power. Now suppose I tell the electric company that I only want to buy power from the windmills, so instead of getting half wind power and half coal power, I get 100% wind power (on paper). However, the electric company doesn’t actually have to change the way it produces electricity in order to do this. All they have to do slightly increase the percentage of coal power that they deliver to everyone else (on paper). So all that changes is numbers on paper, and there’s exactly as much coal power being generated as before.
Your noise pollution example is a potentially problematic one for libertarians but the obvious answer that occurs to me is the one I would expect many thoughtful libertarians to make. You are assuming a libertarian world with largely unchanged amounts of public space which is a problematic combination. The space outside your window has no reason to be public space. You would see a lot more ‘gated community’ type arrangements in a more libertarian society. People with low noise tolerance could choose to live in communities where the ‘public’ space was owned by a municipal service provider with strict rules about noise pollution. Anyone not adhering to these rules could be ejected from the property.
Many common problems with imagined libertarian societies dissolve when you allow for much greater private ownership of currently public land than currently exists.
It’s easier to move out? You are not born under a landlord. You do not swear fealty to the flag of the landlord. Nobody thinks the landlord should be able to draft you for civil service. The landlord cannot put you in jail for failing to pay rent. There’s a long, long list of other differences where the landlord as government analogy breaks down. I’m surprised anyone still brings it up.
EDIT: Ha. You changed it. In reality, not necessarily that much, although it’s nice to have extra governmental agency that you can choose to pay or not, and that is accountable to the government in a transparent way. Asking the government to regulate itself is almost as dumb as asking a logging company to regulate itself.
Well, If you expect a landlord to perform the functions of a government, by, say, regulating noise levels for the benefit of tenants, then doesn’t the analogy hold in this particular case? If regulation is bad, does it matter if it’s regulation by landlord or regulation by city council?
If a landlord tries to have you evicted, and you refuse to leave when a court rules that you must do so, local law enforcement is allowed to physically remove you from the property. That doesn’t sound non-violent to me.
This is a fair point. I would note, however, that eviction typically requires repeated notification, and opportunities for you modify your behavior before encountering violence.
Contrast with how your local sheriff can bust down your door in the middle of the night, shoot your dogs, destroy your property, and arrest you merely for suspecting you of possessing marijuana. And then be praised for it even if you are innocent.
Municipal services are generally provided by a local government but this is largely an artifact of the way modern democracies are organized. Private arrangements are fairly rare in the modern world but cruise ships, private resorts, corporate campuses and on a smaller scale large managed apartment buildings provide examples of decoupling the idea of provision of municipal services and government.
What if you had a dozen different companies that provided services like that. They would have a monopoly in different areas, however, the local governments would still be able to choose which one they wanted, and at any time they were displeased they could switch. Actually, this is a good idea!
You can probably go further than that. Municipal services can be unbundled and can operate without a geographical monopoly. This is already widely done for cable and telecoms in the US and UK and for electricity and gas in the UK. Some countries do it for water and sanitation services. There are examples worldwide of it being done for transportation, refuse collection, health and education. Arguments that such services are a ‘natural monopoly’ are usually promoted most strongly by those who wish to operate that monopoly with government protection.
If the “municipal service provider” has the power to enforce its edicts on noise level (because it has the power to exile those who violate them), then doesn’t that mean that it has exactly the same power over noise that a government would—and the same potential to misuse that power?
I tend to think that the right of exit is the ultimate and fundamental check on such abuses of power. This is why I favour decentralization / federalization / devolution as improvements to the status quo of increasing centralization of political power. I think that on more or less every level of government we would benefit from decentralization of power. City-wide bylaws on noise pollution are too coarse-grained for example. An entertainment district or an area popular with students should have different standards than a residential area with many working families. Zoning rules are an attempt to make such allowances but I think private solutions are likely to work better. I’d at least like to see them tried so we can start to see what works.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Sadly it isn’t. I consider(ed) myself libertarian, and then found that most self-identified ones reject that reasoning entirely. Pity.
I was also unpleasantly suprised to find that there was a group of people griping about programs that would make it easier to identify cars that weren’t liability-insured or pollution-tested, and this was called a “libertarian” position.
ETA: And libertarian-leaning academics don’t seem to “get” why paying polluters to go away isn’t a solution, and don’t even understand what problem is supposed to be solved, even when hypothetically placed in such a situation! (See the exchange between me and Hanson in the link.)
ETA2: I edited an EDF graphic to make this cute picture about the pollution issue and Coasean reasoning. ETA3: Full blog post with original graphic
It’s not so much that it doesn’t solve the problem as things just don’t work that way. For starters, current energy distribution methods are local monopolies, so they are strongly regulated on price because the competition mechanism doesn’t work as it should. The idea that a customers might “choose” cleaner energy doesn’t always work.
Second, some logging companies tried that. They had an outside company, come in, do an inspection, and certify the ecological viability of their practices. There were a fair number of people who actually were willing to pay a little more. The problem is, another set of companies came by, inspected and approved themselves (with a different label that they invented) , and customers weren’t able to tell the difference. That’s a problem.
Also, to a great extent, electricity is fungible. Suppose you have both windmills and coal-fired plants connected to the same electrical grid, and they both generate equal amounts of power. Now suppose I tell the electric company that I only want to buy power from the windmills, so instead of getting half wind power and half coal power, I get 100% wind power (on paper). However, the electric company doesn’t actually have to change the way it produces electricity in order to do this. All they have to do slightly increase the percentage of coal power that they deliver to everyone else (on paper). So all that changes is numbers on paper, and there’s exactly as much coal power being generated as before.
Your noise pollution example is a potentially problematic one for libertarians but the obvious answer that occurs to me is the one I would expect many thoughtful libertarians to make. You are assuming a libertarian world with largely unchanged amounts of public space which is a problematic combination. The space outside your window has no reason to be public space. You would see a lot more ‘gated community’ type arrangements in a more libertarian society. People with low noise tolerance could choose to live in communities where the ‘public’ space was owned by a municipal service provider with strict rules about noise pollution. Anyone not adhering to these rules could be ejected from the property.
Many common problems with imagined libertarian societies dissolve when you allow for much greater private ownership of currently public land than currently exists.
What’s the difference between a government and a “municipal service provider”?
It’s easier to move out? You are not born under a landlord. You do not swear fealty to the flag of the landlord. Nobody thinks the landlord should be able to draft you for civil service. The landlord cannot put you in jail for failing to pay rent. There’s a long, long list of other differences where the landlord as government analogy breaks down. I’m surprised anyone still brings it up.
EDIT: Ha. You changed it. In reality, not necessarily that much, although it’s nice to have extra governmental agency that you can choose to pay or not, and that is accountable to the government in a transparent way. Asking the government to regulate itself is almost as dumb as asking a logging company to regulate itself.
Well, If you expect a landlord to perform the functions of a government, by, say, regulating noise levels for the benefit of tenants, then doesn’t the analogy hold in this particular case? If regulation is bad, does it matter if it’s regulation by landlord or regulation by city council?
It does matter if one has guns (or SWAT teams) and the other relies on non-violent persuasion.
::does some Googling::
If a landlord tries to have you evicted, and you refuse to leave when a court rules that you must do so, local law enforcement is allowed to physically remove you from the property. That doesn’t sound non-violent to me.
This is a fair point. I would note, however, that eviction typically requires repeated notification, and opportunities for you modify your behavior before encountering violence.
Contrast with how your local sheriff can bust down your door in the middle of the night, shoot your dogs, destroy your property, and arrest you merely for suspecting you of possessing marijuana. And then be praised for it even if you are innocent.
Municipal services are generally provided by a local government but this is largely an artifact of the way modern democracies are organized. Private arrangements are fairly rare in the modern world but cruise ships, private resorts, corporate campuses and on a smaller scale large managed apartment buildings provide examples of decoupling the idea of provision of municipal services and government.
What if you had a dozen different companies that provided services like that. They would have a monopoly in different areas, however, the local governments would still be able to choose which one they wanted, and at any time they were displeased they could switch. Actually, this is a good idea!
You can probably go further than that. Municipal services can be unbundled and can operate without a geographical monopoly. This is already widely done for cable and telecoms in the US and UK and for electricity and gas in the UK. Some countries do it for water and sanitation services. There are examples worldwide of it being done for transportation, refuse collection, health and education. Arguments that such services are a ‘natural monopoly’ are usually promoted most strongly by those who wish to operate that monopoly with government protection.
Allow me to rephrase.
If the “municipal service provider” has the power to enforce its edicts on noise level (because it has the power to exile those who violate them), then doesn’t that mean that it has exactly the same power over noise that a government would—and the same potential to misuse that power?
I tend to think that the right of exit is the ultimate and fundamental check on such abuses of power. This is why I favour decentralization / federalization / devolution as improvements to the status quo of increasing centralization of political power. I think that on more or less every level of government we would benefit from decentralization of power. City-wide bylaws on noise pollution are too coarse-grained for example. An entertainment district or an area popular with students should have different standards than a residential area with many working families. Zoning rules are an attempt to make such allowances but I think private solutions are likely to work better. I’d at least like to see them tried so we can start to see what works.
So the issue is that of scale, then?
And the right of exit is conditional on there being somewhere to go. Finding such a place can sometimes be difficult.
It worked out pretty well for the US.
It worked out pretty well for the US, but a distressingly high proportion of Americans don’t seem to know that.