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View Full Version : Free market environmentalism - interview with Walter Block (very interesting)




Delivered4000
06-21-2011, 03:47 PM
This is a very interesting interview for the voluntaryist crew, showing an alternative and convincing approach to environmentalism

Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrTsaSUFfpo

Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4p-BQInK-g&feature=related

Part III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB1O2K411gM&feature=related

Part IV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WhqTtil7Ls&feature=related

Part V
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm0A5eoY8Tk&feature=related


Wanted to embed just the first part, but don't know the code on this board.

josh b
06-21-2011, 04:56 PM
I really liked this interview the first time I watched it. It makes a great point that market mechanisms are actually designed to deal with stuff like this.

Basically much of the pollution problem is a 'tragedy of the commons' scenario caused by weak property rights enforcement.

Rothbardian Girl
06-21-2011, 05:16 PM
This was exactly the point I was trying to make in a few earlier threads regarding environmental debates. Some people here are so obstinately against environmentalism and think that if you're an environmentalist, you're automatically not libertarian, which is ridiculous.

A focus on small, eco-friendly businesses will do wonders for the environment. A satisfying amount of people here are anti-corporatist and I'm not sure why some of them can't make the connection there. Thank you very much for the links.

JasonC
06-21-2011, 05:23 PM
Block is great on the subjects of privitization (roads and highways most recently) and "free-market" environmentalism. I have yet to see someone do a better job of explaining these topics. I'm going to click the links in the OP now--crossing my fingers hoping it is a new one and not one of his lectures on this topic from the 80s or early 90s I've already seen.

Lothario
06-21-2011, 05:47 PM
This is good stuff - all recycled from Rothbard, but all good.

Delivered4000
06-22-2011, 08:27 PM
Block gives concise market solutions to environmental problems, and explains clearly how the public sector and law contribute to environmental pollution and how they can more effectively solve them.



He gives examples of logging companies, and how the mode of forest land ownership affects deforestation. He also explains about oil companies and spills. And how some environmental organizations used their own money to buy nature conservancy lands, one of which turned out to contain lots of oil, which they mined and sold, and bought more nature conservancy lands with it.

He also talks plastic bags, air pollution, fishing, Japan leasing North American lands for logging. He argues that currently companies pay the cost of labor, land, and capital, but not the cost of pollution, which they should, and provides an alternative and common sensical system in which they could, to the benefit of both the environment and commerce.


Some of the things he says are really shocking and mind-blowing in how much sense they make.


In short, as Rothbardian Girl mentioned, you don't have to be pro-pollution to be pro-market. In fact, and here's the shocking part, it's better for the environment to be pro-market.

RonPaulGetsIt
06-22-2011, 08:35 PM
Walter Block is great. More good stuff from him on www.Mises.org (http://www.Mises.org) All kinds of lectures and articles...free of course.