1
102
103

How Libertarians Deal With Endangered Species (youtube.com)

submitted by nobody25864There's no government like no government!

sorted by:
best
best
トップ
新着
注目
論争中
古い順
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]divestrong [score hidden]

The implication that hunting ranches are a successful libertarian approach to preventing the extinction of species is a pretty dumb premise.

It's not a libertarian approach or philosophy (only vague overlap here is that both the libertarian party and hunting ranches are of interest to gun enthusiasts) and it's not applicable to 99% of endangered species because there's only a handful of species that people are even interested in hunting.

[–]nobody25864There's no government like no government![S] [score hidden]

The libertarian approach here is private property rights bringing in an incentive to preserve and protect your own property rather than see it destroyed. I think you'll find the major species people are interested in protecting are the ones that can be hunted though like tigers, pandas, elephants, rhinos, etc. Besides, the hunting motive isn't essential to the point here, but rather that when people want to preserve something, markets are the best way to do it.

If you want to look at a few more explicit discussions of libertarianism an endangered species rather than an example of it in action like in the above video, please take a look at these:

Endangered Species, Private Property, and the American Bison by Ben Wiegold

For a New Liberty: Conservation, Ecology, and Growth by Murray Rothbard

[–]divestrong [score hidden]

Yea, I understand the point you're trying to make, I'm just saying it's demonstrably wrong and illogical.

Markets have directly lead to the extinction of thousands of species and these ridiculous examples of bison and other large game mammals are less than 1% of the species listed as endangered today.

If you want to take the flip, statist view, our national emblem was saved by the government stepping in and banning hunting and banning the use of a commercially successful and lucrative pesticide.

This is an ignorant and indefensible argument that should absolutely not be part of the Libertarian platform. It's a loser for the party and an easy example to point to of how some libertarian ideas are just too idealistic to be successfully implemented in the United States.

Hunting ranches can't address 99% of endangered species. Property rights can't conserve the environment (see the example of the Florida Everglades). IMO it's better to leave these issues behind and focus on the strengths of the libertarian platform.

[–]nobody25864There's no government like no government![S] [score hidden]

You could also argue that it's the government regulations that keep these things from being owned that lead them to being at the point of extinction from poaching in the first place. When was the last time you saw a Bald Eagle hunting farm?

Don't confuse "markets" with just anytime someone sells something. Markets also have a very clear understanding of property rights, and where those property rights are banned, something is subject to the tragedy of the commons.

[–]divestrong [score hidden]

You can't argue that with a shred of intellectual honesty.

Again, the big game animals are less than 1% of the animals listed as endangered.

And time and time and time again history has shown that markets lead to the complete annihilation of species, to say that they're not 'markets' because they don't address property rights to your satisfaction is just idealistic philosophy. It's not applicable to the real world, where people have hunted animals for thousands of years without the idealistically perfect institution and regulation of property rights.

[–]nobody25864There's no government like no government![S] [score hidden]

But is the goal to preserve every single animal, or the ones that people care about most? Because those tend to be the big game animals. Them not having property rights isn't just part of my "idealistic philosophy", but a real categorical distinction. The problem here is arising from not enough markets, not "too much" markets.

[–]divestrong [score hidden]

The goal of conservation is to preserve functioning ecosystems and diversity, not just a select handful of large game animals.

The reason the 'property rights' argument is too idealistic to be applied to reality is that it's dependent on a complex court system that inherently favors people with the money for multi million dollar litigation cases.

So look at the example of the Florida Everglades, south Florida is dependent on the flow of fresh water from Lake Okeechobee south through the Everglades. Without that water and the Everglades buffer, the Biscayne aquifer would succumb to saltwater intrusion and the east coast of south Florida would not have enough fresh water to support our population.

But just south of Lake Okeechobee, is the sugar farming industry. The sugar farming industry is owned by two Cuban brothers, the Fanjuls, who donate millions at the state and federal level to influence the laws regulating their farming.

And so, while they're dumping tons of phosphorus and sulfur into the freshwater flowing south, it's the taxpayer who's footing the bill and paying BILLIONS to clean this water enough that it can be used and the Everglades, which buffers the saltwater intrusion, can be maintained.

And of course, this has all been bouncing around the court systems with lawsuits against the EPA for not enforcing water quality standards or forcing the 'polluter pays' laws that are already on the books.

The point being, that this 'property rights can solve environmental problems' stance - and it is an official stance of the libertarian party - is a loser. The implication is that a citizen living in Miami who runs out of water because the sugar industry has destroyed the Everglades and Biscayne aquifer can just walk up to the court house and get it all sorted out.

It's too idealistic, maybe it could work if you're going and starting a new civilization from scratch, but in this world and this country, it's not a winning stance and shouldn't be part of the platform.

[–]nobody25864There's no government like no government![S] [score hidden]

In that case, a goal of "keep everything in nature from ever changing" is doomed to fail.

This whole process is based upon legal approaches, and I can assure you property rights approaches to law are one of the least complex legal approaches. Same's true for your problem about pollution, to which I encourage you to read Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution.

I think it's also rather silly to condemn something as "idealistic" as well, since what we are discussing here of conservation is no less of an ideal. Property rights are a real thing though, and not simply an ideal (although they obviously can be that too).

[–]divestrong [score hidden]

Conservation is real, there are millions of acres of parks and MPAs set aside all around the world, with billions being spent on maintenance and protection and billions being made from tourism and other ecosystem services (such as maintaining the entire freshwater supply in south Florida).

The idea of property rights maintaining these ecosystem services, is idealistic, in that it doesn't exist, it's a hypothetical solution that isn't being used to maintain ecosystem services anywhere in the world.

[–]nobody25864There's no government like no government![S] [score hidden]

And are those billions really worth it? How can you tell? All that does is confirm to me how ridiculous the efforts of people trying to keep everything from changing gets. Certainly more "idealistic" than property rights.

Also, I'm not sure that it's good to use idealistic as a synonym for false. Seems like a rather cheap tactic open to a lot of false equivocations, trying to make someone's insight seem deeper when it's really just asserting "I think you're wrong".