ODT: Pollution--Rothbardian Property Rights vs. Mainstream Decreasing Negative Externalities

My Opponent's Case"Pro wrongly assumes that my proposal needs taxation and government bureaucracy to work. This is not the case—I argue that 'pollution should simply be disincentivized with some sort of tax or fee.' A tax is anexample of a disincentive, but not the only way it could be done."Tax: A compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers' income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions. [1]The ambiguous language of my opponent's proposal is a strong reason it would not be effective. "Some sort of tax or fee," this is not the language of a proposal that would have positive effects. Futhermore, his proposal doesn't attack the root of the problem of pollution, which I stated in round 2: "In one way or another, all environmental and natural resource problems associated with overexploitation or under provision of public goods, arise from incompletely deﬁned and enforced property rights." Not addressing the root of the problem leads to a sort of war on drugs approach: create the environment where polluting or overexploitation is incentivized through state-ownership of land (particularly out west), ocean, air, or rivers, anti-technological innovations, and season restrictions, while simultaneously placing "some sort of tax or fee" on the behavior. This is a non-sollution; it does not reduce pollution to the optimal amount. Furthermore, my opponent does not mention a mechansim for finding the polluters, taxing them, or verifying the pollution.Examined Under AnarchismOur methods essentially agree under anarchy, so there's not much to discuss here. Con asserts, "Under Pro’s plan, such a deal would be impossible—if a single environmentalist disagreed, they’d have the right to stop the pollution, because it was violating their property rights." Con has stated that his plan incorporates private property rights, making his plan as receptive to this unwarranted assertion as mine. Under Rothbardian Property Rights, damages to the individual environmentalist would have to be proven in a court to be payed reparations. Notice the flaw in my opponent's central attack against my case: he thinks that Rothbardian Property Rights advocate eliminating pollution altogether; however, the reality is that courts would adjudicate disputes between the polluter and the person harmed by the pollution and payment would follow naturally. There is no need for the state here. This adjudication mechanism, combined with the reputation of the company, keeps pollution at the optimal level: low, not nonexistant, as Con and I both agreed is an impossibility of human civilization at this point. The only difference is that my "plan" would eradicate the primary source of pollution: public ownership of land, air, and sea, while maintaining optimal pollution in those remaining privately owned firms on private land.Upholding My CaseRothbardian Property RightsRothbardian Property Rights are exactly that: property rights. The flaws of government ownership were discussed in round 2, which progressed into a discussion about a historical example of the check on pollution: "Before the mid and late 19th century, any injurious air pollution was considered a tort, a nuisance against which the victim could sue for damages and against which he could take out an injunction to cease and desist from any further invasion of his property rights." A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity (cease) and not to take it up again later (desist) or else face legal action. The legal action in this case would be the payment of damages through the adjudicator to the party, which received the damage. [2]Con states, "Surely, if your solution to pollution is enforcing property rights, and pollution is a violation of someone’s property rights, then the solution is to stop that violation." This is another exhibition of Con's flawed perception of absolute property rights. The mechanism I described in the previous paragraph deal with this assertion. The solution is not completely stopping the pollution altogether, it is to find the optimal pollution level through private property rights. The more people who take out torts against polluting companies, the more reparations that company will have to pay out. As a result, the company is incentivized to innovate in a more eco-friendly manner because of these injunctions and because he owns his property and is concerned about future earnings. Rothbardian Property Rights just make sense in this regard.I urge you to Vote Pro! :)[1] http://tinyurl.com...;[2] http://mises.org...;