From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,misc.taxes,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: What keeps me from being Lib. (was Re: FW: news release: 
    abolish IRS)
Date: 9 Apr 92 20:14:16 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,misc.taxes,
    alt.society.civil-liberty
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
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This is a repost.  Something munged the subject line of my last attempt

In article <1992Apr9.030711.8953@athena.mit.edu>, solman@athena.mit.edu (Jason W Solinsky) writes:
|In article <1992Apr8.233514.28115@cs.ucla.edu>, frazier@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier) writes:
|
||> WRONG!  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  At lease, IMHO - I have as little data
||> as you on this point, but people don't have the attention span to
||> adequately punish a polluting company.  I mean, let's say the
||> NYT does a piece on a clothing manufacturer that is polluting.  It
|
|NO! NO! NO! It's not just a matter of boycotting. You sue. If a clothing
|manufacturer has dumped chemicals into a body of water, the people who have
|propert bordering that water can sue for the devaluation of that property, the
|people who work around that river can sue for being made uncomfortable by the
|pollution, and hundreds of others sue. When a company pollutes, they effect so
|many people, that a single suit could bankrupt them. Without limitation of
|corporate liability, this means that all of the owners are going to lose all of
|their belongings, their homes, and be put out on the street if they can't cover
|the damages. THIS DETERS PEOPLE.
|
||> You show that they're damaging your property by going to court.
||> That's suing.  You go, *prove* that they're damaging your
||> property and *prove* that you are owed such-and-such damages.
||> That's how it is now - and it's tough to do, when you (an
||> individual) are facing a high-powered corporate law team.
||> Good luck.
|
|Individual? With millions or more often billions of dollars at stake, and lawyers
|who get 20-30% of damages, lawyers in polluted areas will be BEGGING the
|residents to let them file a suit for them. How many lawyers do YOU know that
|would pass up that kind of money.

Now suppose that the pollution is question is automobile exhaust, say in
Los Angeles.  Who sues who?

Should the injured parties be able to successfully sue the automobile
manufacturers for building cars with dirty exhaust?  The manufacturers
have the defense that it is not their fault if several million people
choose to drive their cars in a relatively confined area with specific
untoward atmospheric conditions.  Current automobile designs are
perfectly acceptable in areas of low population density, with lots of
trees, and so on.

Should the injured parties sue every driver in L.A. for driving their
cars under those conditions?  Carried to the logical extreme, this
means that all L.A. drivers will pay some small damages to all L.A.
residents, many of whom are themselves.  In effect, there will be a
pollution tax and publicly-funded health and cleanup efforts.  Do the
Libertarians out there like the sound of this?

Should L.A. residents lobby for laws outlawing polluting automobiles
in L.A.?  This is actually MY preferred outcome in principle, although
I fear in fact it would lead to many cities like Mexico DF, where even
the most primitive pollution controls are considered needless frills
until people start dropping like flies.  In short, a majority may
decide that their desire for cheap transportation overrides the
minority's concern for clean air.  Should the minority have to put up
with this?  What do the Libertarians have to say?

Should some Federal agency offer tax and other economic incentives to
manufacturers and importers to improve their automobiles' exhaust?
What happens if it turns out that it really is cheaper to make a
dirty car than to make a clean one and collect a reward?  Raise the
rewards however high may be necessary to offset the profit motive?
Where will the money come from?

Should some Federal agency establish guidelines for exhaust quality
and refuse to allow importation, fine domestic manufacturers and
consumers for failing to comply with these guidelines?  This doesn't
have one major problem that incentives have--there's ALWAYS some amount
of money you can take AWAY that will stop a manufacturer in his tracks.
This is also pretty much the current EPA scheme that Libertarians hate
so.

                          * * *

Notice the difference between my questions and Dean's: Dean is
concerned with establishing cause and effect, so as to prove that a
single large polluter with a smoking chimney has injured some number
of people.  I'm postulating the proof of cause and effect, and asking
instead what happens when the polluters are obvious, and everywhere,
but each individual's contribution to the pollution is relatively small.

                          * * *

-- 
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
        Hellenic poet of the same name.  |
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc