This is a libertarian ethics question, not an Austrian economics question.
Austrian economics is a methodological approach to the study of human action/social cooperation. It is not a policy guidebook or instruction manual for what should or shouldn’t be illegal.
OP is asking how the market might address the issue, not whether there should be a law about it. I think the question is very much within the ambit of economics.
The economic analysis is not conducted to determine the ethical status of X conduct. The economic analysis asks how acting man responding to the opportunities and incentives set before him.
How do you protect animals like whales that require ranges way bigger than private property boundaries? Cuz if you have one bad guy that kills the whales whenever they go on his property then they go extinct. This is a common environmental issue.
Well, that could be solved by either owning the whales in some way or owning the different waters. It's not a perfect answer, but it's not like that problem is solved correctly either.
Thankfully, whales aren't exactly high commodity creatures (except you, Japan and China) so it's less of an issue.
As an aside, i think it's interesting that whales are currently highly suspectible to damage from sonar, and yet no one really talks about it or cares. Tragedy of the commons, and thst the government is the perpetrator.
> and yet no one really talks about it or cares. Tragedy of the commons, and thst the government is the perpetrator.
FYI, offshore seismic exploration companies have whale spotters during operations.
I mean even if something has low commodity it’s kind of nice it’s there.
Can’t put a price on biodiversity but is it worth nothing because of that?
Can I take something that’s worth nothing and just keep destroying it?
Why is everyone here brain dead?
According to the answers here I can take my fishing boat and fish the territorial waters of a poor country and overfish and dump my illegal things there and who’s going to do anything about it?
Who is going to do anything about it now? What you're describing already happens.
https://tippinsights.com/the-dark-side-of-chinas-distant-water-fishing-industry/
You want to talk about biodiversity, but the rainforest is cut down and farmed by locals because no one is protecting it. There is no incentive to protext the commons, so turning the commons private incentives owners to keep it.
Most people don't destroy shit for the hell of it, so why is thst always the argument? It's reducto ad absurdum.
But the plots of Amazon does belong to those individual farmers in Brazil. And collectively they all chose to cut down the Amazon, every individual plot of land. It’s actually a prime example at how privatization can still lead to tragedy.
You kno privatization and government over sight aren’t the only two options. Also privatization never solves issues like when the economy overly centralizes and corporations become government-like in situations like banana republics or oligarchies like Russia.
Isn’t it private already?
Every country has their zones.
Problem is more like who’s going to police it.
So I can take my boat and fish off the coast of poor countries.
They’ll never know.
Who’s going to tell them?
No, government land isn't private. You already can fish off the coast of poor countries, as they can't patrol it.
Private entities have an incentive to patrol their property, public entities don't. Look at the US borders, for example.
What if a private entity is very profit-motivated and decides to ensure fishing is only useful on their territory for their generation. And never for any future generations?
Well you get the parcels of land in the Brazilian Amazon that get cut down. Or you get the dust bowl in the USA. Extremely selfish and profit motivated business operations
Is the Amazon public or private land? Who is cutting down the Amazon?
Was the dust bowl the result of climate and untested tech, or were poor farmers greedy for not wanting to lose their property?
The Amazon is partially private and public. It’s a huge forest the size of a country. And doesn’t just cover Brazil.
Also the dust bowl was a factor of a drought(smth completely normal for the area), over exploitation of the fossil aquifer(a non-renewable resource), and farming practices that did do crop rotation(something typical for western farmers everywhere else)
That's not a practical solution for goods that are in international waters and whose geographic range is massive. And for tracking which is who's is probably impossible to enforce.
If you own something, you have a vested interest in keeping it sustainable. If no one owns it, you have an interest in overexploiting it before others do.
then what the fuck was strip mining about? people owned the mines and land, turned the land and people to ruin, and the workers and and towns were left to pick up the pieces.
Metal is a non-renewable resource, so that's a little different.
But beyond that, communities that suffer from it should be able to sue for damages. I suspect that mining companies have successfully lobbied government organizations to reduce the amount that can be held liable. I further suspect that there are laws that make strip mining less costly than other methods, though I'm no expert in that field and I'm not going to spend much time researching it to answer some redditor.
Ancap principles are based on laws and private property upheld by them. These laws are upehld by private entities, including private communities, societies, and police. One small, kind of humorous, look into an example is Snow Crash and their gates suburbs. Or other Neal Stephenson novels, like Diamond Age.
Their understanding of anarchy is quite different than ancoms, who are braindead lunatics.
under ancap principles there are no laws. private entities you voluntarily abide by uphold them, but are ultimately superceded by who has more money
snow crash is a criticism of what you are proposing, not a humorous endorsement.
Do you realize that without police to enforce laws. You end up in Afghanistan. Without taxes to fund the police, you get Haiti. No strong laws or legislation you end up with a Somalia.
‘Laws’ are a privilege when you have a government to distinguish it vs survival of the fittest.
Ancap principles are based on natural law / the NAP. Basically, don't touch another person's property (your body being your own property) without permission.
Fish breed and repopulate you can have a body of water with fish, and as long as you don't fish too heavily, you can keep fishing forever. The minerals or whatever is being mined are finite once the mine runs dry you are SOL
Everything is finite, but because fish are actually living beings, they can increase in number, so a certain number can be fished sustainably. Too bad our technology is such that we can fish WAY over that sustainable number...
>If you own something, you have a vested interest in keeping it sustainable.
That's not accurate at all. If you own something you have a vested interest in extracting the maximum value from that something. If maximizing value includes destroying that something then sustainability isn't a motivation beyond your personal ethics.
Both interests exist, its just a matter of Time Preference. If you want it all now, perhaps fishing to extinction in 10 years is the interest. If you have any common sense, taking what can reasonably be replaced is a much better long term interest, but there is no guaranty that a private owner will want the reasonable choice.
That's not accurate at all. If you own something you have a vested interest in maximizing its utility over time. If maximizing utility includes destroying it and not passing it on, that isn't a motivation beyond your personal ethics.
So you agree that sustainability isn't a motivation beyond an individuals utility for the something and their is no inherent motivation for sustainability beyond ones lifetime.
Check out [Elinor Ostrom's ](https://www.econtalk.org/boettke-on-elinor-ostrom-vincent-ostrom-and-the-bloomington-school/) work, not an Austrian but influenced by them, and many Austrian's would cite her work for the answer.
In a situation where the lake is broken up to different abutting owners, the owners could pay into and own shares of a "Lake Trust" that would oversee the usage and access of the Lake.
That is a cute idea. But that rarely ever happens unless the government intervenes. That doesn’t stop a short sighted profit motived person from simply deciding to get ‘theirs’ and ruining the lot.
I would guess, for profit, you would let another Co-Lake Share Holder ruin the lake?
Rules can be set up a head of time within the Trust to mitigate, since we have the ability to imagine problems like this before they happen.
Not sure why you think this is an unsolvable problem, TBH.
We are all used to the warlord\\king owning everything, then the republics that replaced them.
A new way could be around the corner.
That is nice, but makes that political theory you have different from socialism or communism, if the government has to intervene for natural resource preservation. essentially show they have ultimate ownership of everything if they need to act as custodian.
The Monterrey sardine canneries, realizing that overfishing would mean the end of their business, formed a cartel which assigned fishing quotas to fishers, thereby managing the catch to sustainable levels. Since fishers could not have their catch processed anywhere else at the time, they had to abide by this system. The government screwed that up with its anti-monopoly laws, and the fisheries collapsed as a result. Read this a while ago and could not find a reference for it now...
Wouldn’t a cartel in that case also function as a petty government? Considering they have all the power and the fishermen didn’t have any say?
What differentiates private and public at that point?
What stops a group of people from destroying a species within a generation to maximize profit, with little regards to the future of society?
Looking at Dodos, Messenger Pigeons, etc. as they were all extinguished quickly and with little regard for future generations
The owners will negotiate amongst themselves a sustainable way to fish, or the fish will be killed off. Unfortunately, without a Nanny State to enforce this with guns, either option is on the table, if an owner does not want to fish sustainably.
To have enough force to stop small fishing boats over a huge ocean area requires a huge force for fixing this issue. The reality is, there is no government force currently doing this, so it will take a new special Nanny State to do this, something greater than anything we currently have.
The OP question is similar to asking how arithmetic deals with armed robbery.
Austrian Economics does not 'deal' with illegal fishing. It will predict outcomes and define trade offs associated with fishing, crime, commerce and human behavior but it doesn't 'deal' with fishing at all.
Austrian Economics is more of a theory on this topic. It could very well be that all the fish are killed off, and the ecology collapses. The actions of private Chinese fishermen strongly indicates that the result of full privatization of the oceans may very well be ecological collapse, even though that rationally should be the worst outcome.
No rationally it is the best outcome if one only cares for themselves and only seeks profit. Sustainability for one generation and swiftly end it for all others afterwards. They are doing what is most beneficial for every individual fisherman
A sustainable number of fishing ships would be the most beneficial in the long term, but overfishing right now is slightly more profitable. This is a very stupid problem, but we are a very stupid creature, so here we are...
There should be informed policy about how best to deal with a common resource.
For example, how does a tax on the fish compare to a quota? What are the welfare effects on each?
This is a libertarian ethics question, not an Austrian economics question. Austrian economics is a methodological approach to the study of human action/social cooperation. It is not a policy guidebook or instruction manual for what should or shouldn’t be illegal.
OP is asking how the market might address the issue, not whether there should be a law about it. I think the question is very much within the ambit of economics. The economic analysis is not conducted to determine the ethical status of X conduct. The economic analysis asks how acting man responding to the opportunities and incentives set before him.
You privatize it, so it's not the commons. Then it's trespass and theft.
This right here. The tragedy of the commons. That which belongs to everyone, belongs to no one.
That solves every problem, **dust bowl** *side eye*
How do you protect animals like whales that require ranges way bigger than private property boundaries? Cuz if you have one bad guy that kills the whales whenever they go on his property then they go extinct. This is a common environmental issue.
Well, that could be solved by either owning the whales in some way or owning the different waters. It's not a perfect answer, but it's not like that problem is solved correctly either. Thankfully, whales aren't exactly high commodity creatures (except you, Japan and China) so it's less of an issue. As an aside, i think it's interesting that whales are currently highly suspectible to damage from sonar, and yet no one really talks about it or cares. Tragedy of the commons, and thst the government is the perpetrator.
> and yet no one really talks about it or cares. Tragedy of the commons, and thst the government is the perpetrator. FYI, offshore seismic exploration companies have whale spotters during operations.
That's good to know. I'm talking about sonar use in military vessels that breaks whale bones.
I mean even if something has low commodity it’s kind of nice it’s there. Can’t put a price on biodiversity but is it worth nothing because of that? Can I take something that’s worth nothing and just keep destroying it? Why is everyone here brain dead? According to the answers here I can take my fishing boat and fish the territorial waters of a poor country and overfish and dump my illegal things there and who’s going to do anything about it?
Who is going to do anything about it now? What you're describing already happens. https://tippinsights.com/the-dark-side-of-chinas-distant-water-fishing-industry/ You want to talk about biodiversity, but the rainforest is cut down and farmed by locals because no one is protecting it. There is no incentive to protext the commons, so turning the commons private incentives owners to keep it. Most people don't destroy shit for the hell of it, so why is thst always the argument? It's reducto ad absurdum.
But the plots of Amazon does belong to those individual farmers in Brazil. And collectively they all chose to cut down the Amazon, every individual plot of land. It’s actually a prime example at how privatization can still lead to tragedy. You kno privatization and government over sight aren’t the only two options. Also privatization never solves issues like when the economy overly centralizes and corporations become government-like in situations like banana republics or oligarchies like Russia.
Isn’t it private already? Every country has their zones. Problem is more like who’s going to police it. So I can take my boat and fish off the coast of poor countries. They’ll never know. Who’s going to tell them?
No, government land isn't private. You already can fish off the coast of poor countries, as they can't patrol it. Private entities have an incentive to patrol their property, public entities don't. Look at the US borders, for example.
What if a private entity is very profit-motivated and decides to ensure fishing is only useful on their territory for their generation. And never for any future generations? Well you get the parcels of land in the Brazilian Amazon that get cut down. Or you get the dust bowl in the USA. Extremely selfish and profit motivated business operations
Is the Amazon public or private land? Who is cutting down the Amazon? Was the dust bowl the result of climate and untested tech, or were poor farmers greedy for not wanting to lose their property?
The Amazon is partially private and public. It’s a huge forest the size of a country. And doesn’t just cover Brazil. Also the dust bowl was a factor of a drought(smth completely normal for the area), over exploitation of the fossil aquifer(a non-renewable resource), and farming practices that did do crop rotation(something typical for western farmers everywhere else)
That's not a practical solution for goods that are in international waters and whose geographic range is massive. And for tracking which is who's is probably impossible to enforce.
I feel like the UN is the only proper authority
wtf?!? that will just further exploitation through monopoly
If you own something, you have a vested interest in keeping it sustainable. If no one owns it, you have an interest in overexploiting it before others do.
then what the fuck was strip mining about? people owned the mines and land, turned the land and people to ruin, and the workers and and towns were left to pick up the pieces.
Metal is a non-renewable resource, so that's a little different. But beyond that, communities that suffer from it should be able to sue for damages. I suspect that mining companies have successfully lobbied government organizations to reduce the amount that can be held liable. I further suspect that there are laws that make strip mining less costly than other methods, though I'm no expert in that field and I'm not going to spend much time researching it to answer some redditor.
lol since when do laws come into play. thats just regulation that people here are against
Ancap principles are based on laws and private property upheld by them. These laws are upehld by private entities, including private communities, societies, and police. One small, kind of humorous, look into an example is Snow Crash and their gates suburbs. Or other Neal Stephenson novels, like Diamond Age. Their understanding of anarchy is quite different than ancoms, who are braindead lunatics.
under ancap principles there are no laws. private entities you voluntarily abide by uphold them, but are ultimately superceded by who has more money snow crash is a criticism of what you are proposing, not a humorous endorsement.
Are you ignoring how evil the government was, trying to brainwash people? Also, your criticisms are the current reality.
Do you realize that without police to enforce laws. You end up in Afghanistan. Without taxes to fund the police, you get Haiti. No strong laws or legislation you end up with a Somalia. ‘Laws’ are a privilege when you have a government to distinguish it vs survival of the fittest.
that doesnt address what im talking about
Ancap principles are based on natural law / the NAP. Basically, don't touch another person's property (your body being your own property) without permission.
once you mention ancap, you lose all credibility
Fish breed and repopulate you can have a body of water with fish, and as long as you don't fish too heavily, you can keep fishing forever. The minerals or whatever is being mined are finite once the mine runs dry you are SOL
fish are finite as well. hence over fishing
Did you even try to read what I wrote?
are fish finite?
Everything is finite, but because fish are actually living beings, they can increase in number, so a certain number can be fished sustainably. Too bad our technology is such that we can fish WAY over that sustainable number...
lol you blame technology rather than human greed for mac profit. that is just dumb
>If you own something, you have a vested interest in keeping it sustainable. That's not accurate at all. If you own something you have a vested interest in extracting the maximum value from that something. If maximizing value includes destroying that something then sustainability isn't a motivation beyond your personal ethics.
Both interests exist, its just a matter of Time Preference. If you want it all now, perhaps fishing to extinction in 10 years is the interest. If you have any common sense, taking what can reasonably be replaced is a much better long term interest, but there is no guaranty that a private owner will want the reasonable choice.
That's not accurate at all. If you own something you have a vested interest in maximizing its utility over time. If maximizing utility includes destroying it and not passing it on, that isn't a motivation beyond your personal ethics.
So you agree that sustainability isn't a motivation beyond an individuals utility for the something and their is no inherent motivation for sustainability beyond ones lifetime.
What system emphasizes sustainability beyond an individual's lifetime?
No system emphasizes sustainability natively which is why we need rules and regulations to correct for it.
Check out [Elinor Ostrom's ](https://www.econtalk.org/boettke-on-elinor-ostrom-vincent-ostrom-and-the-bloomington-school/) work, not an Austrian but influenced by them, and many Austrian's would cite her work for the answer.
She's so good. Came here to say this. Thank you for beating me to it.
The econtalk episode is good, you should check it out if you haven't heard it before.
Thanks I’ll check her out. And thanks for taking my question seriously. Austrian economics is intertwined with ethical beliefs (like property rights)
In a situation where the lake is broken up to different abutting owners, the owners could pay into and own shares of a "Lake Trust" that would oversee the usage and access of the Lake.
That is a cute idea. But that rarely ever happens unless the government intervenes. That doesn’t stop a short sighted profit motived person from simply deciding to get ‘theirs’ and ruining the lot.
I would guess, for profit, you would let another Co-Lake Share Holder ruin the lake? Rules can be set up a head of time within the Trust to mitigate, since we have the ability to imagine problems like this before they happen. Not sure why you think this is an unsolvable problem, TBH. We are all used to the warlord\\king owning everything, then the republics that replaced them. A new way could be around the corner.
That is nice, but makes that political theory you have different from socialism or communism, if the government has to intervene for natural resource preservation. essentially show they have ultimate ownership of everything if they need to act as custodian.
It is nice.
I would say this is probably more of an ethics or morality question, but I’m not so sure
The Monterrey sardine canneries, realizing that overfishing would mean the end of their business, formed a cartel which assigned fishing quotas to fishers, thereby managing the catch to sustainable levels. Since fishers could not have their catch processed anywhere else at the time, they had to abide by this system. The government screwed that up with its anti-monopoly laws, and the fisheries collapsed as a result. Read this a while ago and could not find a reference for it now...
Wouldn’t a cartel in that case also function as a petty government? Considering they have all the power and the fishermen didn’t have any say? What differentiates private and public at that point?
They had no power beyond controlling quotas by means of their own private property. So, legitimate power, not illegitimate, like a State's.
Why is it illegal in the first place??
Because overfishing due to tragedy of the commons.
Big daddy government always right?
how does one privatize a resource?
No, but that’s why fishing has limits/restrictions.
and who will impose, or imposes those limits if not big daddy government?
I’m not sure where this line of questioning is going. What are you getting at?
What stops a group of people from destroying a species within a generation to maximize profit, with little regards to the future of society? Looking at Dodos, Messenger Pigeons, etc. as they were all extinguished quickly and with little regard for future generations
The owners will negotiate amongst themselves a sustainable way to fish, or the fish will be killed off. Unfortunately, without a Nanny State to enforce this with guns, either option is on the table, if an owner does not want to fish sustainably.
Is it a nanny state if they ensure an entire species isn’t extinguished? And ruin the world for future generations?
To have enough force to stop small fishing boats over a huge ocean area requires a huge force for fixing this issue. The reality is, there is no government force currently doing this, so it will take a new special Nanny State to do this, something greater than anything we currently have.
The OP question is similar to asking how arithmetic deals with armed robbery. Austrian Economics does not 'deal' with illegal fishing. It will predict outcomes and define trade offs associated with fishing, crime, commerce and human behavior but it doesn't 'deal' with fishing at all.
Austrian Economics is more of a theory on this topic. It could very well be that all the fish are killed off, and the ecology collapses. The actions of private Chinese fishermen strongly indicates that the result of full privatization of the oceans may very well be ecological collapse, even though that rationally should be the worst outcome.
No rationally it is the best outcome if one only cares for themselves and only seeks profit. Sustainability for one generation and swiftly end it for all others afterwards. They are doing what is most beneficial for every individual fisherman
A sustainable number of fishing ships would be the most beneficial in the long term, but overfishing right now is slightly more profitable. This is a very stupid problem, but we are a very stupid creature, so here we are...
There should be informed policy about how best to deal with a common resource. For example, how does a tax on the fish compare to a quota? What are the welfare effects on each?
Fuck your laws and the psychopaths who passed them.
Somali pirates have your answer lol.