Best way to fight water pollution? Privatize all rivers

Assuming all human actions are rational and economic, which they are not.

 

Not always, but usually.

 

It was/is owned down river. By the public. But profit and job was more important than clean water and health.

 

Good luck getting access to water then.

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Everything in life doesn't have to be about money/profit. Enjoy and let everyone enjoy our natural resources. And lets keep them clean.

 

If you aren't going to respond to my post in any meaningful way, why blockquote it?

Peh.

 

What is rational about laziness?

 

Inaction is certainly more beneficial to the environment than harmful action.

 

Except when that inaction is to prevent pollution from spilling into the environment.

 

So let me get this straight...You reject the concept of rational and profit oriented human decision making, because people are too lazy to act, then you say that people won't act on fighting pollution, which implies that pollution will happen for some reason. If you are logically consistent, you will admit that pollution happens not because of profit (since people aren't motivated by profit)... and that people pollute for the sake of pollution.

Makes perfect sense.

 

Contrary to what many capitalists claim, there was a day when we tried "true capitalism" and polluted rivers and lakes were just one example of what it produced. Libertarians are fond of their imaginary world where people left to their own devices act responsibly out of mutual self interest, but in fact, that's not what happened when regulations were few and businesses operated like the Wild West.

1. Polluted rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans
2. Cities covered on soot and air filled with smog
3. Child labor and horrific abuses of children who worked 10 hours a day instead of going to school
4. Highly unsafe meat market practices as depicted in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
5. Monopolies and other anti-competitive practices
6. Medicines that were either dangerous or inert, sold with fraudulent practices
7. People trapped in burning buildings dying by the hundreds because of a lack of building codes.
8. Abusive labor practices, sweat shops, and unsafe working conditions


Although there are a few wingnuts who, besotted with romantic historical revisionism, want to go back to those days, but most people are glad that "true capitalism" will never rear its ugly head again.

 

Calling the gilded age "true capitalism" is about as vacuous a statement as calling the USSR "true socialism". What you fail to see is the fact that most of those problems were due to government incompetence, corruption, and failure to address violation of human rights in the workplace. If citizens had more power in taking many of the businesses at the time to court for rights violations, something germane to Libertarian philosophy, we would've seen a much more progressive and futuristic society. Same thing can be said for private ownership of rivers.

Despite all of these hardships, wasn't it still surprising that immigrants still flocked to the US? It shouldn't be, because while not perfect, the US had more capitalistic opportunity than much of the rest of the world at the time. Compared to other places, the US was the better option.

 

"Vacuous". Thanks for the new word. I'll think of you when I use it.

 

Thanks. I'm sure it's a fitting description for me since I didn't respond to a post with a counter argument and diverted the conversation. Oh wait...

 

Navigable rivers (meaning rivers that a boat can go down) have not been owned in the history of America. So the Cuyahoga River (a navigable river) was not a private river that was polluted, it was a public river. The point is that a private river would never have gotten as polluted (unless someone owns the entire river).

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If it messes up their water quality and ruins their "property" value, of course they have recourse to a lawsuit.

 

Not in the U.S. In the U.S., navigable waters have always been considered public property.

 

If the James river was private property, the prioperty owners coudl sue the creek owners. It's not, so the politicians are responsible. Thank you for making the point that privatization would be the better choice.

 

If the downstream were owned by private interests, they never would have stood for it. It's the tragedy of the commons in action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full

 

Might want to google "prior appropriation doctrine"

 

You're bypassing the entire discussion of natural rights. People have a natural right to water that's known so instinctively that there's never taken seriously any proposal to allow private parties to buy up all the beaches and riverside property and deny access to the public. Furthermore, there's no reason to believe that privately owned rivers wouldn't have become so polluted as the tort system you think would solve all disputes was a poor substitute for environmental regulation. In fact, the tort system did absolutely nothing to curb pollution because EVERYBODY was doing it. How privatizing rivers would change this is beyond me.

 

Use the example that the guy is bringing up in this thread about pollution in the James River due to farmers doing nothing to stop animal manure from washing into creeks that feed the James.

That is an example of how laziness and inaction damage the environment and where there is not a profit motivation for the farmer to do anything.

 

Their property value does not change. Water is fluid and moving. Unless they can prove that every drop on their property had a certain value, how would they be able to sue for anything?

 

Wrong. Businesses polluted for profit, not out of some evil maniacal bent to pollute. Stop reading comic books. Pollution is a way to cheaply get rid of waste products, cutting operational costs and increasing profit. Polluting for the sake of polluting? I can't believe I'm even responding to such stupidity.

 

Maybe we should privatize the air and then everyone in America can sue car operators, airlines, and every form of factory out of existence too.

 

There were many interests downstream. Everyone who lived on the river, worked the river, recreated the river.
If some pvt company owned a section of the river, they would have had no better luck with the rules/laws/regulations of the time than the 1000s of public people with access to it.

 

That is for water rights, not for the actual right to access.