As an anarchocapitalist what is your solution? I think it would be the same as Rothbard's: tort (in private arbitration). He just thinks the court would rule that zero pollution is permissable whereas in reality it would be significantly more nuanced.
I'm forever frustrated by the alleged "free market environmentalists" (FMEs), whether Rothbard, Friedman, or others. They assume that pollution's harms are certain and the amount is fixed. Generally, neither is true. Even Coase took too simplistic of an approach by assuming that the externality has to be dealt with all at once. While the parties in Coase's paper may not be able to resolve the problem at once, they may each be able to make small, incremental changes which mitigates the problem over time. Also, the FMEs seem to think of businesses as cartoon like entities that care about nothing other than the bottom line and so don't care about their reputation and the communities around them. And while I'm certain that businesses are strongly focused on the bottom line, such a focus requires having a concern for their reputation and the communities around them. A business can't be successful over time if it's deeply hated. Moreover, pollution is a direct reflection of a less than complete use of inputs and so a business has the profit motive driving it to achieve greater and greater efficiency.
The "right to not be breathed on" you use as reductio is remniscent of the covid mask debate. I argued against mandates at the time similarly that yes if person A infects person B regardless of whether either was masked, then A might reasonably owe B compensation, but it would be difficult to prove direct fault in the vast majority of cases, so default the same as non-enforcement, and realistically the onus of avoiding the disease is on each individual.
Bryan states: "Unfortunately, if a million people simultaneously pollute, it will be impossible to prove that any one person caused any one injury, so despite Rothbard’s “ban all pollution” position, people will be able to pollute with impunity."
I don't think that's a valid statement. The most obvious example is automobiles and in this case it's easy to prove that the manufacturer has delivered a car that pollutes excessively.
As an anarchocapitalist what is your solution? I think it would be the same as Rothbard's: tort (in private arbitration). He just thinks the court would rule that zero pollution is permissable whereas in reality it would be significantly more nuanced.
I'm forever frustrated by the alleged "free market environmentalists" (FMEs), whether Rothbard, Friedman, or others. They assume that pollution's harms are certain and the amount is fixed. Generally, neither is true. Even Coase took too simplistic of an approach by assuming that the externality has to be dealt with all at once. While the parties in Coase's paper may not be able to resolve the problem at once, they may each be able to make small, incremental changes which mitigates the problem over time. Also, the FMEs seem to think of businesses as cartoon like entities that care about nothing other than the bottom line and so don't care about their reputation and the communities around them. And while I'm certain that businesses are strongly focused on the bottom line, such a focus requires having a concern for their reputation and the communities around them. A business can't be successful over time if it's deeply hated. Moreover, pollution is a direct reflection of a less than complete use of inputs and so a business has the profit motive driving it to achieve greater and greater efficiency.
The "right to not be breathed on" you use as reductio is remniscent of the covid mask debate. I argued against mandates at the time similarly that yes if person A infects person B regardless of whether either was masked, then A might reasonably owe B compensation, but it would be difficult to prove direct fault in the vast majority of cases, so default the same as non-enforcement, and realistically the onus of avoiding the disease is on each individual.
Bryan states: "Unfortunately, if a million people simultaneously pollute, it will be impossible to prove that any one person caused any one injury, so despite Rothbard’s “ban all pollution” position, people will be able to pollute with impunity."
I don't think that's a valid statement. The most obvious example is automobiles and in this case it's easy to prove that the manufacturer has delivered a car that pollutes excessively.