From: spears@bobcat.lmc.edu (Gene Spears)
Newsgroups: talk.environment,sci.environment,alt.politics.marrou
Subject: Re: Libertarians & the environment
Date: 23 Jul 92 14:49:00 GMT
Organization: Lees-McRae College, Banner Elk, NC

In article <1992Jul21.213229.4946@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:

>All species that have ever been exterminated have been communal property.
>Alledgedly they are under government protection, but in fact nobody has
>an incentive to save them.  A libertarian solution would put
>ownership of endangered species in the hands of biotech companies, for
>whom unique genetic information is working captial, and conservationist 
>groups like Nature Conservancy and Audobon.  Genetic patents would ensure 
>that people have an incentive to find and preserve our planet's vast 
>storehouse of bio-information.  Keeping the problem in the hands
>of bureaucrats is will continue to doom countless species (the
>socialist for all their eco-hype haven't even bothered to get around to 
>counting them).

While private ownership of some forest lands have indeed resulted in 
healthier forests than our publicly-owner forests, the idea of private 
ownership of species is simplistic and unworkable.  How, for example could 
one purchase and enforce property rights to bison, girzzly bears, migratory 
waterfowl, whales or any marine mammal, any fish species, .......?  

If interested, how would I go about purchasing the rights to Weller's 
Salamander?  How would I enforce my right to be the sole exploiter and 
utilizer of that species?  Most animal species do not recognize property 
boundries.  Do I have to buy up the entire habitat of that species?  

How about the Yellowfin Tuna.  Hey, all those tuna are mine, you Korean 
poachers!!  Thank God there's a totalitarian, world-wide police state to 
help me enforce my property rights, eh?  Privitize everything, and you've 
surely got to have a powerful judicial and police presence to enforce all 
those property rights.

What about someone who buys the right to the Red Spruce?  Does he/she have 
the right to the Red Spruce on my property?  What if the owner of the Red 
Spruce decides to exercise his property rights and eliminate a population.  
By doing so, he eliminates a population of MY salamander.  Am I forced to 
accept some monetary restitution for a population that I purchased in order 
to protect?  What happens to my rights????

Let's say you limit the libertarian argument to the purchase of all public 
property, to hell with the complicated and unworkable idea of buying up 
species.  The US government decides to sell all its property.  Now, since 
the government should act to maximize its return, it should sell the land to 
the highest bidder.  What a great scam for the ultra-wealthy!  Yellowstone 
Park becomes a resort for stressed-out Japanese business men.  

Well, let's try homesteading, instead.  A series of great land rushes.  
Thousands of citizens line across our national forest boundries, the roar of 
hearty pioneers revving their ATV's is deafening.  Bang, they're off.  
Within a year, our national forests are crisscrossed with roads; satellite 
dishes and power lines follow.  Our hearty pioneers have their summer 
cabins.  But all those people who once hiked and fished and hunted the 
national forests, but weren't among the lucky few to get their few acres, 
have no place to go.

Sounds like a great future to me!!!

Gene Spears
spears@bobcat.lmc.edu

>True, not everyone has a right to it.  The owners alone have a right to it,
>and alone an incentive to take care of it.


>-- 
>szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
>Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81) 
Newsgroups: talk.environment