Socialism

[Speaker to Animals]

Negative externalities should be managed by the corporation creating them directly paying the people affected. If the government levees externality taxes on, say, a power company's coalfire plant, you can be for damned sure that the people living within the cancer-causing radius of that plant will never see a dime. The money will go to gibs for the vote plantation.

I would just have a third party work out a fair financial figure for the total negative externalities, identify exactly who is absorbing them, and have the corporation cut a check to each person affected.

[Fife]

*have a third party work it out*

Can't miss

[Speaker to Animals]

*have a third party work it out*

Can't miss

I didn't say it was perfect. Better than corporations profiting by dumping their costs on innocent people, though.

[Fife]

*have a third party work it out*

Can't miss

I didn't say it was perfect. Better than corporations profiting by dumping their costs on innocent people, though.

Maybe. Is that what is happening though (if not in the USA, then in a system where corporations are disentangled from the state)? Or better yet, the state is rendered so toothless as to be irrelevant.

[Speaker to Animals]

*have a third party work it out*

Can't miss

I didn't say it was perfect. Better than corporations profiting by dumping their costs on innocent people, though.

Maybe. Is that what is happening though (if not in the USA, then in a system where corporations are disentangled from the state)? Or better yet, the state is rendered so toothless as to be irrelevant.

I think the problem has more to do with the consent of the people affected. For a company to build some kind of facility that will cause negative externalities upon a local area, they should get the consent of those people to do so, and in order to get consent they should have to bargain. Currently, corporations just bribe their way into these things, even plundering tax coffers in the process, and the people rarely have a voice. Then when the people really do kick them out, as New Yorkers did to Bezos and his corruption and graft at the tax payer's expense, the shekel cucks get butthurt that people dared to fight for their own interests.

Obviously, in the case of something like a power plant, this all breaks down because pretty much nobody wants a power plant in their neighborhood, but everybody wants power.

This is hardly an easy thing to solve, especially without government.

[DBTrek]

Maybe not, if the order is reversed. Build the power plant first, and then list the externalities as a pre-condition of building within the pollution zone. People can decide if they like WiFi with a little coal dust fallout (or possible radioactive leak), or if the prefer to Walden Pond it.

Even if no one chooses to live near the plant, energy-hungry industry will be happy to move in.

[Speaker to Animals]

Maybe not, if the order is reversed. Build the power plant first, and then list the externalities as a pre-condition of building within the pollution zone. People can decide if they like WiFi with a little coal dust fallout (or possible radioactive leak), or if the prefer to Walden Pond it.

Even if no one chooses to live near the plant, energy-hungry industry will be happy to move in.

That would work if there were places where nobody yet lives. But in most of the urban population of America, where can you possibly do that?


In a way, I think you have a point for people who move into a location with a pre-existing coalfire plant. I specifically avoided living near one of those things. But if the power company wants to build one within ten miles of me, I sure as shit want compensation for the negative externalities of that since one of the specific reasons I bought this property was its remoteness from polluters.

[Fife]

There's a legitimate debate about whether private trespass/nuisance actions or inverse condemnation provide more appropriate remedies to landowners.

In any event, the key is protecting private property rights, and not allowing the crooked state to tip the scales in favor of one property owner (with the bigger bribe or better connections) over another.

This is why real, honest-to-gosh trial by jury and true local rule is something a lot of English speakers have felt strongly about. Strongly enough to fight over.

[brewster]

Your coal plant example does not scale to climate change, which affects most people on earth. That's too huge an externality to calculate and reimburse. The point of the carbon tax isn't the money (hence the redistribution), it's to create friction for externalities like emitting carbon so suddenly alternate forms of generation become cost effective. Every form of power generation has them, windmills kill birds and bother people who like views, dams kill fish, but that doesn't compare to destroying the earth's climate.

There's long lists of potential energy sources other than fossil fuels, but they simply cannot compete with oil under $100 a barrel or it's gas equivalent. No one is willing to scale cellulosic ethanol or advanced solar
when there's no hope of competing with gas without huge subsidy or carbon taxes. Tax carbon and nukes suddenly seem worth the risks. Tax carbon and every roof in the country will have solar panels. Tax carbon and suddenly smaller and electric cars are more appealing than huge gas guzzling trucks.

[Fife]

Carbon Schmarbon.

We can use all the CO2 we can pour on.