= Critique =

homelandstupidity.us has a June 2 article up about capitalism and the environment.  (No link provided because I have a policy of not linking to blogs collecting ad revenue.)  I left this comment there as a critique:

It takes a certain level of ignorance to presume that if we put environmental protection in the hands of an unrestricted monetary system that somebody who wants the land for externalizing destruction and internalizing profits wouldn't pay the highest price for it given the short-term economic gain that can be had in a single lifetime versus the long-term economic gain that would be required for unbridled dollarism to actually value conservation.

Land we would like to preserve will always have some resources that can be privatized, used, and destroyed -- that is until said resource extraction has completed its continuing course of self-destruction.

Not that the limited success highlighted in the article only describes an accidental niche whose time will expire the moment development takes an interest in the other resources on the land.

However, if we actually decided to internalize the cost of lost resources by charging for the extraction of resources at the same rate used to replace the resource, we might actually have a monetary system that would work, but no libertarian would ever support such a system of full-cost accounting.  If they did, they'd be a member of the Green Party who already supports such taxes.  These taxes could eliminate sales and income taxes in most places.  Enforcement could be localized and trade could be allowed based on calculating in the costs of exploiting comparative advantage, as well, with those countries that have no such legal framework.  Natural efficiencies would develop, natural trade routes would open, and people would be paying <em>actual</em> costs, with the help of a market system.

Instead what I hear is that economic progress would come to a halt and even retrograde if we actually internalized ecological costs.  I only see that as a tacit admission that the capitalistic system couldn't cope with sustainability, and it only drives those who care about the environment into socialism.

Can capitalism be reformed to internalize losses to the public welfare?  Perhaps it can, but it won't through the current libertarian ideology of socializing risk and destruction and privatizing profits.  This article completely misses that mark.