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Calling all Libertarians
So, I have this question for my libertarian friends. As I understand it, the basis of your political philosophy is essentially the elimination of "coercion," which is to say people being forced to do things that they might not, otherwise, choose to do.
Now, most libertarians are against environmental regulations. Why? It seems to me that the only way to enforce the "no-coercion" policy in this arena is to have a massive, top-down, strictly enforced environmental policy.
Let me put it this way. Suppose that you are running a factory. It necessarily will produce pollutants. This is damaging the air and lungs of everyone within a hundred miles, maybe more, depending on wind currents. Have you contracted, indvidually, with each of these people to damage their lungs? What have you given them in exchange? Doesn't that mean that pollution is, in fact, highly coercive?
Now, most libertarians are against environmental regulations. Why? It seems to me that the only way to enforce the "no-coercion" policy in this arena is to have a massive, top-down, strictly enforced environmental policy.
Let me put it this way. Suppose that you are running a factory. It necessarily will produce pollutants. This is damaging the air and lungs of everyone within a hundred miles, maybe more, depending on wind currents. Have you contracted, indvidually, with each of these people to damage their lungs? What have you given them in exchange? Doesn't that mean that pollution is, in fact, highly coercive?
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It in fact does, or at least it's damaging (libertarians call it an "initiation of force"). Anyone who was damaged by the factory would have a case against it. Libertarians also believe that if you're doing it only to your own land and no one else is affected by it, then no one else should have anything to say about it.
Some links, if you're interested:
http://www.ti.org/liberty.html (http://www.ti.org/liberty.html)
http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Libertarian_Party_Environment.htm (http://www.issues2000.org/Celeb/Libertarian_Party_Environment.htm)
http://www.lp.org/issues/environment.shtml (http://www.lp.org/issues/environment.shtml)
http://www.perc.org/ (http://www.perc.org/)
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I mean, as I understand it, the act of driving your car is an initiation of force against your entire metropolitan area.
yrs--
--Ben
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BTW, who are the people Libertarians point to as their intellectual founders? It all seems like JS Mill to me, but that just doesn't seem to be correct.
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Generally, wait for someone to sue; if you can prove a real effect, you have grounds to sue; if you can't, then what you're doing is meddling in someone else's business.
BTW, who are the people Libertarians point to as their intellectual founders? It all seems like JS Mill to me, but that just doesn't seem to be correct.
Mill occasionally shows up in the woodpile, though he's not frequently cited. Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, Lysander Spooner, Patrick Henry, Henry David Thoreau, Ayn Rand (to varying degrees; not all of us like her), Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, Hayek, Von Mises, Frederic Bastiat, Peter Kropotkin, Robert LeFevre, Peter McWilliams, L. Neil Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Samuel Edward Konkin III, H.L. Mencken, occasionally Noam Chomsky.
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