I'm not gonna directly reply to each and every point made, simply because I don't have the time. Please don't dismiss things as "radical" that have been proven to be true by economists simply because you haven't studied them. The idea of private property is not radical, and the tragedy of the commons has been well documented. Anytime a resource is in the public domain, it is abused. Water and the habitat it provides is the most obvious example. Take this example on for size -- The AUDUBON SOCIETY (try dismissing THEM!
) owns 26,800 acres in Louisiana known as the Rainy Refuge, and is a refuge (duh!) for threatened species. It also contains oil, natural gas, and minerals. Instead of zero sum political solutions, they came up with a private solution. The problem was, of course, of dual-use. Ecology vs. profit. They set up boundaries that the energy companies could not enter. In order to overcome this problem, Mobil Oil developed slant-drill technology. There was no politics over animals vs oil. Both got their way. The Audubon Society earns millions in royalties, and is able to buy more land, and maximized the total use value of the Rainy Refuge. How about NATURE'S CONSERVANCY? It has 680,000 members, and has annual revenue of $274 Million. It owns 25 Million acres of wilderness reserves, and extracts value from those reserves without harm, by selling hiking, camping, etc, rights. The Audubon Society & Nature's Conservancy's (sorry for the grammar if that's wrong
) have used the free market correctly, and have maximized the use of the land they own.
In the 3rd century A.D., the Romans believed that resources were depleted. On Dec. 31, 1900, the New York Times declared that resources were depleted. In 1798, a man named Thomas Malthus wrote "Essay on Population" in which he stated that there would be famine due to overpopulation. The population would increase at a geometric rate (2, 4, 8, 16, etc.) while subsistence would grow at an arithmetic rate (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). He never took technology & innovation into account. His followers (known as Malthusians) declared that the earth's population in 1970 of 4.5 Billion would increase to 12 Billion by 2000. In reality, the population has only increased to 6 Billion. The most densely populated countries are the richest, with no famine or starvation. Famine actually occurs in the least populated countries. Hong Kong is the most densely populated place on the planet, with some areas having a density of 400,000 per square mile. The capacity of the human mind for innovation is INFINITE. It is impossible to have limits on energy usage. Energy has been powered first by humans, then animals, then wood, then coal, then whales, then petroleum, then atomic. Recent and future innovations in energy include windmills, solar, biomass, hydro, fusion, and tidal.
The tragedy of the commons is well documented. The most common solution that environmentalists give to solving environmental problems is socialism, in which control by the government over the environment would protect it. The myth is that the free market is hostile to the environment. Well, the environment has not been in the free market domain for some time now. In the Soviet Union, the average life expectancy declined almost 10 years from 1969-1989 due to environmental pollution. The Aral Sea was targeted for elimination by the communist government. It diverted tributaries away from the sea, causing water levels to decline. Only 40% of the original water is left in the sea, greatly increasing its salinity. It has experienced the greatest extinction of species ever. It is now the fastest growing salt desert in the world. The wind blows salt & contaminants to surrounding fields, destroying the habitat there.
When the U.S. was first formed it adopted British Common Law. Under British Common Law, you own everything above and below your property, including the air. In the mid-1800's, industries were being sued for air pollution. They successfully lobbied the federal government that air was communally owned. As the U.S. expanded and territories became states, federal judges started vetoing British Common Law, and it became a race to the bottom. The ruling was that industry could access, but not destroy private property. Politicians shirked their responsibility because they can't see farther than 2 or 4 years into the future. The Hudson River - commons. GE dumped like crazy. The high seas - commons. It's a dumping ground. Paper companies make 30 year investments on private lands, but don't take care of the property they lease from the federal government. In the Amazon, governments subsidize the destruction of the environment. People don't take care of what they don't own. Do you take care of your car? Would you take care of a communally owned car? Of course not, and nobody else would either. If British Common Law was still in place, pollution would be a lot lower because of the threat of lawsuits.
Mr. PD, I'll go to the buffalo anology for you. By the 1900's buffalo were nearly extinct. After privatization, the population of buffalo went from 800 to 200,000. I'll say it again. Eight hundred to TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND. Buffalo extinction is no longer an issue.
Lastly, sorry mbriant to be blunt here, but you're not quite getting my points. The point about falling prices was not that the supplies of these resources is increasing, it's that humans have found new technologies to lower the use of these resources. Thus, if the supply of a given resource is finite, then the only reason that the price decreased was because of lower demand. No natural resource has ever been depleted for exactly that reason. Humans have INFINITE technological and innovative skills, and keep coming up with new techniques and materials. The point about private elephant populations rising while the overall population of elephants is falling is that private property applied to the environment works, and that the tragedy of the commons doesn't.
I love clean air, clean water, and being out in nature in general. But the solution is NOT government control over the environment. Government has proven time and again that they cannot protect the environment. The solution to the environment is private property. Whether it's the Audubon Society or Georgia Pacific, private property is taken care of. Economists have figured this out. The rest of the world is only starting to.
Now, after all that typing, I'm really busy for the next few weeks, so I'm checking out of this discussion.
