Dealing with Pollution in a Free Market

I define "pollution" and talk about how it can be dealt with via strong property rights norms. Catch behind-the-scenes posts and help choose my next video topic at: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/thepholosopher

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Transcript:

Dealing with Pollution in a Free Market

Dealing with pollution is a tricky subject because there are so many misconceptions in the media about what pollution is and who is polluting.
For us to wrap our minds around how pollution could be dealt with in a free market, we must first define pollution and then talk about the real-world comparatives.

“Pollution” is the wrongful damaging of physical bodies or properties through the release of some chemical agent, physical object, vibration, or radiation.
“Pollution” in Voluntaryist terms must be tied to a discreet actor proximately causing a discreet harm. For example, if the owner of a chemical plant ordered that a toxic chemical be dumped onto land owned by the company, and that toxic chemical leaks out onto someone else’s land and causes bodily harm to others, then “pollution” in this sense is a proper label.

The toxic chemical is causing discreet damage to others’ bodies and properties and the causation is connected directly to the actions of the company not securing toxic agents.

The same idea would apply to any other form of littering or dumping where the product is trespassing upon the property of another.

The act of putting trash onto another’s property without consent is the act of a physical intrusion and a violation of the non-aggression principle.

This would include aggregate particulate, for example, a build-up of smog on others’ homes.

If an industrial plant releases ash, and that ash is building up on nearby homes, then the ash is itself the physical object that is violating the property rights of others and is causing property damage to homes.

The colloquial of “noise pollution” may only be considered a harm to the extent the sound is physically damaging a body or property.

As sound is the vibration of air molecules, sound that causes actual physical damage would be comparable to someone throwing a baseball and that baseball hitting something or someone and causing physical damage.

If the sound is simply a nuisance, but is not actually causing physical harm, then the sound issues must be otherwise dealt with via property rights choices, such as though insulation, community rules in apartment housing, or through intentionally choosing to live on land that has a greater separation from others.

The same analysis would apply to radiation, as radiation could only be a harm to the extent it is directly causing damage to bodies or properties.

This would depend on differences in wave strength, as radio waves are typically not damaging whereas gamma radiation is.

THE LABEL OF “POLLUTION” CANNOT BE COMMON EXPERIENCE

Nothing can be “pollution” in Voluntaryist terms that is itself a product of common use. For a good example, CO2 as a “greenhouse gas.”

CO2 cannot be considered a discreet harm because all people participate in its creation, at a bare minimum, just by breathing out, and participate in its productive use in mass industrialization.

If people wish to no longer produce a particular byproduct that virtually all participate in, then that must come about through voluntary human action via convincing others to not produce or use the product.

Anything labelled as “pollution” that is not itself a property rights violation cannot be accurately labelled as such.

For example, environmental extremists may claim that the act of making cars is itself “pollution” because it “hurts the earth,” but that is not the case to the extent that the construction of a car is not violating the specific property rights of individuals’ body or property.

POLLUTION REFINED

By tying the concept of pollution to discreet, physical intrusions with discreet, physical harms, it helps to delineate who is specifically causing what harm and what must be done to alleviate the harm.

Individuals can choose their tolerances and hold those who do cause physical harm accountable via courts and dispute resolution services.

REALWORLD COMPARISON

Now that we have that backdrop, it’s important to look at the “compared-to-what” of the current landscape.

In the world now, governments tend to act hypocritically when it comes to pollution and do not, even as among each other, hold the same standards.

The U.S. military is one of the largest polluters by the descriptions given prior and by those who think carbon emissions are unfavorable for climate.

The U.S. government caps liability for polluters, such as capping BP’s liability in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010.

The U.S. government has also been responsible for mass pollution events, such as with the EPA releasing 3 million gallons of contaminated water into the Animas River of southwest Colorado.