Environmental Regulations

First, let me say your responses were thoughtful and well-reasoned. This will be a debate unlike most here at Debate.org! Let me respond to some of your points: 1. Just because an idea is simple does not mean it is wrong. Complexity of ideology leads to the belief that common people cannot make decisions for themselves -- a recipe for fascism and dictatorship. You are essentially making an argument for an elite of central planners to overrule popular sovereignty -- a "benevolent" dictatorship, but a dictatorship nonetheless. This is what takes hold when central governments override popular opinion as expressed through the most democratic means available -- the market. If the market is "wrong" -- if people value oil more than preservation -- then how does an elite cabal know it is "right"? What has been the success rate of central planning over history? 2. Under a regime of absolute property rights, the "right" to pollute the air would not exist. Period. Polluting the air -- unless it could be somehow magically confined to your own air space -- would be a crime. Lawsuits would be one remedy, but criminal prosecution would be another. When a criminal trespasses -- and the act of polluting is a trespass -- you don't necessarily sue him; you seek criminal penalties. You claim to be making an "environmentalist" argument, but in reality, you are making the status-quo argument for pollution and against a clean environment. 3. Oil companies are corporations with publicly traded stock. The purpose of such corporations is NOT to make "profits" -- this is a common liberal misconception reinforced by the socialist school system. For instance, private oil companies sacrifice profits in favor of research & development, etc., whereas socialist (state-owned) oil companies spend less on R&D, and squander oil revenues on what are the equivalent of dividends -- welfare transfer payments to their citizens. No CEO really cares about "profits" -- profits are just a contributing factor to market capitalization. The purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder value, and that is done through sustainable, long-term growth. This is why the private oil companies invest more in the future growth of their companies. POINT BEING: You can trust a private oil company to extract oil in the most sustainable manner possible. Not because they are moral or good, but because it is beneficial for them to do so. A company with high profits but no sustainable future has its stock discounted deeply, and that works to the detriment (and quick termination) of the officers of the corporation. THE EXCEPTION OF THE ABOVE is when the government regulates or controls. If the government "allows" a private company to drill on socialist (public) land, then yes, the company will take advantage of that "right" and get in and get out as quickly as possible -- before the political winds change. They will ravage the land the same way the 19th and early 20th century coal companies did on lands they were given "permission" by the government to mine. But if they own the land, it only makes sense for them to maximize long-term value, and to have the land continue being an asset into perpetuity. IF, however, the public valued the unspoiled land more than the oil, then the land would NOT be "exploited" (in the literal, non-pejorative sense of the word). After all, the public is the group that would be PAYING for the oil that was extracted -- otherwise, it would be unprofitable for the oil company to do so. Activists could rally together and outbid the oil companies, who would only bid so high as the market told them to bid. When you say government needs to step in and overrule the market, you are making the argument for an elitist dictatorship -- a reverse Marxism, which I think is even worse than the original. 4. The time prior to environmental regulations cannot be used as an example of what a world with perfect property rights would be for several reasons. (1) The spoilers of the land did not fully comprehend the damage they were causing to other people's property, or even to their own. Now we know. (2) The government was far from laissez-faire -- it was in cohoots with big business at the expense of "the common man." I am not arguing for corporatism, but for pure laissez-faire capitalism and absolute property rights. REGULATIONS ARE PERMISSIONS TO POLLUTE -- permissions to trespass on your neighbor's land and potentially cause his death. That's wrong.