NIJamesHughes Posted October 26, 2004 Report Share Posted October 26, 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,...n_story_related another case of government interventionalism being promoted as capitalism Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godless Capitalist Posted October 26, 2004 Report Share Posted October 26, 2004 Actually I think it makes sense (at least in principle if not in all the details.) Pollution beyond a certain level is harmful and thus a rights violation. It is thus acceptable for government to set that level by law. What the trading system does is let the market allocate the right to produce the pollutant. Seems pretty capitalist to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspector Posted October 26, 2004 Report Share Posted October 26, 2004 If a level is harmful and thus an initiation of force, then how can someone trade for the "right" to pollute at that level? That's like saying that everyone has an acceptable violence level and that we can trade with each other if one of us gets too violent. Like I can pay Jimmy, who was not very violent this month, to give me some of his violence credits because I bashed some skulls in this month. All of this completely ignoring the question of whether I was acting in self-defense or not. (that being an analogy of whether any given level of pollution is a rights violation or not) So if they set the pollution credits too low then everyone has to pay bribes to do something that isn't a violation of rights, and at the same time, people can pay the bribe and legally violate rights. It gets you coming and going... It's a bunch of nonsense, if you ask me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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