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Title: Ecology or “Anarcho”-capitalism? Author: Iain MacSaorsa Date: 1995 Language: en Topics: ecology, environment, right libertarian Source: Retrieved on November 29, 2009 from http://www.spunk.org/library/otherpol/critique/sp001279.txt
According to Libertarians, only private property can protect the
environment. Rothbard claims that “if private firms were able to own the
rivers and lakes... anyone dumping garbage... would promptly be sued in
the courts for their aggression against private property... Thus, only
private property rights will insure an end to pollution-invasion of
resources” (Rothbard, For a New Liberty, page 256).
This ignores one major point, why would the private owner be interested
in keeping it clean? Why not just assume that the company makes more
money turing the lakes and rivers into a dumping site, or trees into
junk mail. Its no less plausible, in fact more likely to happen in many
cases. Its just another example of Libertarianism’s attempt to give the
reader what he or she whats to hear.
But, of course, the Libertarian will jump in and say that if dumping was
allowed, this would cause pollution which would affect others, who would
sue the owner in question. Maybe, is the answer to that. What if the
locals are slum dwellers and cannot afford to sue, or if they are afraid
that their land-lords will evict them if they do so (particularly if
they also own the polluting property in question)?
But, beyond these points lies the most important one. Namely, is the
option to sue about pollution really available in the free market?
Rothbard thinks it is. Taking the case of factory smoke in the 19^(th)
Century, he notes that it and “many of its bad effects have been known
since the Industrial Revolution, known to the extent that the American
courts, during the... nineteenth century made the deliberate decision to
allow property rights to be violated by industrial smoke. To do so, the
courts had to — and did — systematically change and weaken the defences
of property rights embedded in Anglo-Saxon common law... the courts
systematically altered the law of negligence and the law of nuisance to
permit any air pollution which was not unusually greater than any
similar manufacturing firm” (Rothbard, op cit, page 257).
In this remarkably self-contradictory passage, we are invited to draw
the conclusion that private property must provide the solution to the
pollution problem from an account of how it clearly did not do so! If
the nineteenth century USA — which for many Libertarian’s is a kind of
“golden era” of free market capitalism — saw a move from an initial
situation of well defended property rights to a later situation were
greater pollution was tolerated, as Rothbard claims, then property
rights cannot provide a solution to the pollution problem.
It is, of course, likely that Rothbard and other “Libertarians” will
claim that the system was not pure enough, that the courts were
motivated to act under pressure from the state (which in turn was
pressured by powerful industrialists). But can it be purified by just
removing the government and placingcourts into a free market? The
pressure from the industrialists remains, if not increases, on the
privately-owned courts trying to make a living on the market.
The characteristically Libertarian argument that if X was privately
owned, Y would almost certainly occur, is just wishful thinking.
The last section notes that wealth can affect how environmental and
other externalities are delt with in a capitalist system. This critique,
however, ignores other important factors in society, such as the
mobility of capital and economic power. These are important weapons in
ensuring that the agenda of business is untroubled by social concerns,
such as pollution.
Let us assume that a company is polluting a local area. It is usually
the case that capitalist owners rarely live near to the workplaces they
own, unlike workers and their families. This means that the decision
makers do not have to live with the consequences of their decisions. The
right libertarian argument would be that those affected by the pollution
would sue the company. We will assume that concentrations of wealth have
little or no effect on the social system (which is a highly unlikely
assumption, but nevermind). Surely, if local people did sue, the company
would be harmed economically — directly, in terms of costs, indirectly
in terms of new, eco-friendly processes. Hence the company would be
handicapped in competition and this would have obvious knock-on effects
for the local (and wider) economy.
Also, if the company was sued, it could just up and move to an area
which would tolerate the pollution. Not only would existing capital
move, but fresh capital would not invest in an area where people stand
up for their rights. This, the natural result of economic power, would
be a “big stick” over the heads of the local community and when combined
with the costs and difficulties in taking a large company to court would
make sueing an unlikely option for most people. That this would happen
can be seen from history, where multi-national have moved production to
countries with little or no polluation laws and court cases take years,
if not decades, to process.
Of course, in a “libertarian” society companies which gather lists of
known “trouble-makers” would be given free reign. These “black-lists” of
people who could cause companies “trouble” (ie by union organising or
sueing employers over “property rights” issues) would often ensure
employee “loyality”, particularly if new jobs need references. Under
wage labour, if you cause your employer “problems”, your position can
become difficult — being black-listed will mean no job, no wages, and
little chance of being re-employed. Continually sueing in defense of
your “absolute” property rights would soon fall into this category
(assuming, of course, you could afford the time and money). Hence a
working class person would be a weak position to defend their “absolute”
rights in “libertarian” capitalism due to the power of employers within
and without the workplace.
All these are strong incentives not to rock the boat, particularly if
employees have signed a contract which ensured that they would be fired
if they discussed company business with others (e.g. lawyers, unions).