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Guest Post: Free Market Ecology
Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics
Free Market Ecology
These gargantuan global conferences where the emissaries of governments meet in hallowed halls to thrash out a global planning agenda — dressed in the clothes of ecology, or sustainable development, or whatever the buzzword of the day — are a waste of time.
They are a waste of time for the taxpayer, who has to stump up to pay for such efforts. They are a waste of time for the protestors who swarm to such events holding placards and shouting slogans. They are a waste of time for the ecologists who — whether right or wrong — believe that the present shape of human civilisation is unsustainable. Possibly the only group that really benefits are the self-perpetuating bureaucratic classes, who often take home huge salaries they could never earn in the private sector.
And the Malthusian targets of the bureaucracy have a history of missing.
The Guardian notes:
Rio+20 was intended as a follow up on the 1992 Earth Summit, which put in place landmark conventions on climate change and biodiversity, as well as commitments on poverty eradication and social justice. Since then, however, global emissions have risen by 48%, 300m hectares of forest have been cleared and the population has increased by 1.6bn people. Despite a reduction in poverty, one in six people are malnourished.
If these bureaucratic classes knew the first thing about economics or markets, they would begin to question whether such conferences — and all the promises, intergovernmental commissions, and regulatory pledges they spawn — are necessary. The more I question, the more I come to believe that all that is needed to halt any man-made ecological crises are free markets and free speech.
The history of human civilisation has been one of triumph over the limits of nature. While we have had our ups and downs, recent projections of imminent ecological ruin — such as those in the 1970s produced by Ehrlich and Holdren and the Club of Rome, or earlier by Keynes, Malthus and Galton (etc) — have all failed to materialise. But the trend goes back much further, into the distant past. Throughout our history our species has done what has been necessary to survive. Humanity has lived on this planet for upwards of 500,000 years, and through that time, we have survived a myriad of climate changes — solar variation, atmospheric variation, cycles of glaciation, supervolcanoes, gamma ray bursts, and a host of other phenomena.
It will be no different this time. We are dependent on our environment for our life and for our future. That is widespread knowledge, and so as the capable and creative species that we are, we have already developed a wide array of technological solutions to potential future environmental problems. This is a natural impulse; humanity as individuals and as a species hungers for survival, for opportunities to pass on our genes.
As I wrote last month:
If we are emitting excessive quantities of CO2 we don’t have to resort to authoritarian centralist solutions. It’s far easier to develop and market technologies (that already exist today) like carbon scrubbing trees that can literally strip CO2 out of the air than it is to try and develop and enforce top-down controlling rules and regulations on individual carbon output. Or (even more simply), plant lots of trees and other such foliage (e.g. algae).
If the dangers of non-biodegradable plastic threaten our oceans, then develop and market processes (that already exist today) to clean up these plastics.
Worried about resource depletion? Asteroid mining can give us access to thousands of tonnes of metals, water, and even hydrocarbons (methane, etc). For more bountiful energy, synthetic oil technology exists today. And of course, more capturable solar energy hits the Earth in sunlight in a single day than we use in a year.
The only reason why these technologies are not widespread is that at present the older technologies are more economically viable. Is that market failure? Are markets failing to reflect our real needs and wants?
No; those who so quickly cry “market failure!” fail to grasp markets. Certainly, I think GDP is a bad measure of economic growth. But throwing out the concept of money altogether as a measure of society’s needs and wants is completely foolish. Markets are merely an aggregation of society’s preferences. Capital and labour is allocated as the market — in other words, as society — sees fit. As Hayek showed in the 1930s, the market gives society the ability to decide how a good or service should be distributed based on individuals willingness to give money for it. The market gives feedback to producers and consumers through the price mechanism about the allocation of resources and capital, which in turn allows on the basis of individual consensual decisions corrections that prevent shortages and surpluses. Under a planned system there is no such mechanism.
The fact that greener technologies have not yet been widely adopted by the market is merely a symptom of the fact that society itself is not yet ready to make a widespread transition. But the fact that research and development and investment continues to pour into green technologies shows that the market is developing toward such an end.
Solar consumption has gone parabolic:
And so it will continue; as society evolves and progresses, the free market — so long as there is a free market — will naturally reallocate resources and labour based on society’s preferences. Without a free market — and since 2008 when the banks were bailed out and markets became junkiefied intervention-loving zombies, it is highly dubious that there is such a thing as a free market in the West — planners will just end up guessing at how to allocate resources, labour and capital, and producing monstrous misallocations of capital.
The political nature of such reallocation is irrelevant; whether the centralists call themselves communists or socialists or environmentalists, their modus operandi is always the same: ignore society’s true economic preferences, and reallocate resources based on their own ideological imperatives (often for their own enrichment).
My view is that the greatest threat to the planet’s ecology is from the centralists who wish to remove or pervert the market mechanism in order to achieve ideological goals. It is not just true that removing the market mechanism retard society’s ability to evolve into new forms of production, resource-allocation, and capital-allocation based on society’s true preferences. The command economies of the 20th Century — particularly Maoist China and Soviet Russia — produced much greater pollution than the free markets. Under a free market, polluters who damage citizens or their property can be held to account in the market place, and through the court system.There is no such mechanism through the kind of command of economy that the centralists seem to wish to implement.
The answer is not central planning and government control. The answer is the free market.
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***The answer is not central planning and government control. The answer is the free market.***
Sure like the last thing we need is some Government agency like the EPA or the Food & Drug Administration telling our Corporations what to do.
If corporations endangers us, let the free market sort it out.
For example you open a can of beans and serve it to your kids and they die screaming in agony from botulism because the government no long deal in food safety; you just say "WELL!! I'll never buy a product from that company again!" Sooner or later that company will go out of business. The free market will solve the problem. Right?
You make a fair point. However...
If you believe the Government can guarantee your safety, I pity you.
I do not believe that businesses are out to kill you in order to serve you, at least if they have any ethics and morals at all. To do so would be a pretty poor business model in my opinion.
I can't recall anything right now, but I know that I have seen businesses that have had to give restitution for wrongful deaths, even though they were not done intentionally. In other words, Government is not God and was not able to stop accidental deaths from occurring. I believe that any ethical, moral, voluntary business would feel very badly and sincerely remorseful about any incidents that cause harm and would do it's best to make restitution.
There are no guarantees in life. Government cannot guarantee your safety.
Indeed. In fact it's simpler than that - killing your customers on a regular basis is not a sustainable business model in anything remotely resembling a free market. You can only get away with it in a system where the rich and powerful, which most big business owners are, are protected via a two-tier legal system and the availability of a cash bailout every time you do something stoopid and lose all the company's money.
Like, say, the system we have now throughout most of the world.
Only small and medium sized businesses have an incentive to provide safe, quality goods - in some ways they do have to operate in a free market; big Ag, Oil, etc having captured all the really lucrative bits of the market, the little guys have to compete with each other for the parts that are still (though ever-decreasingly, thanks to the apparent desire of those at the top to own / control the whole enchilada) up for grabs.
The free market shares power and delegates authority to the lowest common denominator .... the consumer .... like no other system .... and there is nothing wrong about that ! When housewives gossip .... Proctor and Gamble listen ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Up With People Down With Government
Think of a socialist state as a big "Company Town" .... the kind liberals always rag about in the coal mining districts of West Verginny ! They see the tree .... they miss the forest ! Monedas 1929 Comedy Jihad Coal Fired Conservative At Heart
Yes, of course, when people have cost pressure to be more efficient. That doesn't cope with externalities, but it's definitely superior to any form of central planning.
At this stage of the game, both China and Russia have markets which are closer to the free market ideal - not completely, by any means; but more than we have here in 'Free market" USA.
The Federal Reserve System is the ultimate example of a Government created monopoly. Without it, the other monopolies would cease to exist. When you spend real actual free market money, that is the ultimate vote. Don't believe in what a company or your Government is doing? Don't give it any money and it either will die off, or have to changes it ways. It would become, accountable. But with the Government backed Federal Reserve System and thier ability print and borrow to infinity, the oligarchs can outvote you. The have bought a lot of monopolistic power up over time over time resulting in a $16 Trillion Dollar debt, and continue it with a current $1.4 Trillion deficit every year.
You are now ruled by Government created oligarchs and monopolies. But what happens if their funding is cut off? The power would be returned to where it rightfully belongs, to the people. And the people would have the final vote with every transaction.
You can't have a free market, and no one would know what one is even like, without free market money.
The answer isn't fascism either. We tried that and it was a god damn failure. The marriage of business to gov't proved out to be just another tyranny.
for some reason i am reminded of the story of the gentleman scientist explaining to theRoyalSociety why morphine made people go to sleep:
"...it contains, you see, the dormitive principle..."
You can think of it as a modern feudal system with Banks as King as they literally own the currency. The serfs pay tribute (interest) to the King for use of the King's currency in our debt-based money system. It's trickle down economics on the grandest scale.
In our debt-based system - money is ONLY created as loans from the King (banks). Therefore, the banks solely determine where new money gets allocated (think largest corporate borrowers). Is it no wonder we have such poisonous concentrations of wealth in our society.
Now, say the gov't wants to stimulate a lagging economy. In our system, the money gets allocated to the banks. In a non-debt based system, you could send a stimulus check to every household and then the stimulus would actually work and get to Main Street.
Folks, the problem is with the very core of our financial system - the Banker as King - Federal Reserve system.
Jamie Dimon is using the newly created money to refresh his banks 'excess reserves' so as to maintain bank "solvency" and perpetuate the Banks as King system status quo.
The people get the bill in the form of a devalued dollar (devalued savings, commodity inflation) -- you see, the newly printed money is free for the King Bank but is a costly tax on the population.
It's all a rather simple exercise -- the parasitic banks steal from We the People. But our country is so complacent and dumbed down -- that MBAs and Economics majors are, ironically, the last people to recognize what's going down because they have been indoctrinized and go on television blathering on about the failures of We the People rather than helping the public understand that they are being stolen from. PATHETIC!
Interestingly, Ron Paul has consistently won the 30 and under vote in the primaries.
The young instinctively know that they have been born into debt servitude. They may not be able to explain all the details - but they know, instinctively, that Ron Paul is fighting for We the People, rather than the status quo system of Fed Bankers as King.
It used to be that only the man of the household had to work to comfortable support a household. Federal Reserve theft has gradually devalued the dollar so that now, generally, both spouses have to work.
There is nothing 'American' about the FED. The Constitution says 'all men created equal' Folks, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created a superior class of citizen - the banker class. the Act gave ownership of the currency and financial system to a cartel of private bankers. It is, literally, unconstitutional.
The Federal Reserve system is a poison to Americans’ standard of living to the benefit of the banker class.
the world's running out of stuff. Best to let me take charge and handle it for you sheeple.
yes, for some people the answer to every question, and the answer to all problems is 'the free market'. This is mostly because the person answering the question has never been taught anything else than the free market ideology.
please don't forget that a completely free market turns 99 percent of us into slaves, and 1 percent into masters. if this is what you want, go vot for the free market.
The reason why these technologies are not widespread is because of EROEI.
US citizenism at work.
The scam of pollution being repeated. Once more.
US citizen corporations do apply private property principles when dealing with pollution. Unsurprisingly, flocks of US citizens to claim they do not (good cop, bad cop)
Those US citizens claim untainted causal link between polluter and pollution. Forgetting to include their own principles of private property. Which the corporations do not forget.
It is simple.
A fence. Two areas. Two owners. An apple tree. Apple is located in one area but branches reach over the other area.
An apple falls on the other area. Who the apple belongs to?
Pollution has to be dealt the same once mediated by private property.
Who the pollution belongs to?
Corporations have been applied this principle for long. They do respect private property principle and the zero sume game associated with it.
But for some other US citizens, they do not because the results are not what they expect to be, something must go wrong.
For US citizens, all is situational:
a gold watch is thrown over the fence into a US citizen garden, who the gold watch belongs to?
a test tube containing ebola is thrown over the fence into a US citizen garden, who the test tube belongs to?
Corporations own both gold watches factories and ebola test tubes factories.
In this typical example of rambling gibberish coming from you, would you say that you were wording your mind, monolizing the speeching means, throating an idea, engaging in make-me-laughism, indulging in self-denialistic algebraic coconutism, acting as a parangon of offuscation, or just generally blobbing-up? Because it can be so hard to figure out just which ploy is in play in any given post of yours.
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'Human civilisation'. There have been countless instances of human civilisation which have come and gone. Try peddling your story of triumph over nature to the Sumerians or Mayans. Oh, hold one, you can't, because they succumbed to it.
What? In his 5000 something years of world history man an has already ruined countless ecosystems, extinguished thosuand sof species, and created irreperable ecological damage. How can you look at the untouched Europe of the paelolithic with the Europe of today, with its endless stretches of farmland and cities, and state this complete and utter nonsense? Ecological ruin is certainly not imminent, it's immanent.
CAPITALISM TEST FOR ZH READERS
How many of you think that, if you had a million bucks, that you too could find a way to set up some oil rigs and become a minor oil baron?
Then, why does the US government monolopy control which massive companies have the right to drill?
How much do you think the US government (i.e. what should be 'the people') gets for each barrel of oil? From what I heard on Max Keiser, less than a dollar.
Doesn't that oil, in the US belong to all Americans? Or , are you traditional capitalists who think that the man who has the crony contract gets all the lucre? That's a slave mentality. The oil is yours. All of you. It is not Exxon's oil.
You wouldn't all be like Saudi sheiks but all Saudi men have a job for life doing nothing, for a pretty good wage. Middle class life with no effort. Wouldn't you like that?
The oil belongs to whomever is ascribed legal ownership of it by the dominant authority. There is nothing else to it. Nobody objectively owns anything on this planet anymore than they could own the moon or the stars in the belt of Orion.
Hey, you! Get off of my cloud!
The example is disingenuous. Communist Russia and China had absolutely no ideological leanings toward ecology. Quite the opposite in fact. The Marxists running these states believed in the absolute ethical primacy of man over everything else and had imbibed just about the most ridiculous version of the concept of his dominance over nature ever concocted by the intellect, which was exemplified in their 'sciences' by the absurdities of Lysenkoism. For Stalin and Mao, everything was a blank slate, everything was malleable, and everything could be changed at whim to whatever one liked, from a plant to a human, from a lake to a landscape, from a household to an economy, and from a culture to nature herself.
You 'Austrians' are really beginning to annoy me with this sort of nonsense.
How things really work:
The Empire of the City by E. C. Knuth (1944)
The Empire has only gotten stronger in the 68 years since that book was written...look around you. btw whoever transcribed this was not very good at editing their work, and I'm pretty sure there might be some missing pages. But you'll get the gist.
a quote from page 81 of the .pdf file:
That technique is still very much in play today...
Oh, right. As we all know, say, the mind-boggling damage done to the rainforests of South America by farmers, on their own property, has been averted through the choices of consumers of beef and soy in the rest of the world, because humans are so danged caring, especially about other forms of life before sating their own appetites. But there you go; 'pollution' for you is a problem for 'citizens' and their 'property', and is not about ecology at all!
The 'free market' nations, or more free in any case, of the West that you contrast with Communist China and Russia, that have lower levels of pollution, had already utterly destroyed most of their original ecosystems by the 20th century, and consume commodities from regions that habve been decimated by their production, in other words having merely sent the pollution elsehwere to continue in the lifestyle of the 'free market'.
That is complete and utter tripe. An authoritarian state has the power to force any kind of ecological regulations upon any entitiy whatsoever and to enforce them, if those who rule it have the imperative to do so.