[ExI] External costs (was Re: are all cultures equivalent?)

[BillK]

On 4/19/09, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### In these difficult discussion I always try to carve reality at the
>  joints, so as to avoid all kinds of emotional and other interference
>  while analyzing issues point by point. The assumption of lack of
>  radioactive spread which would damage the property of third parties is
>  necessary while we discuss whether lake owners have the right to do
>  whatever they please with it. If we tried discuss the question of
>  accidental damage to others (i.e. torts) while at the same time
>  grappling with the very notion of property rights, it would totally
>  overwhelm our cognitive capacities, wouldn't you think?
>


It is rather a rash assumption that the lake owners stay on the
property after they have consumed every easily obtainable resource
from it.

Once they have obtained a quick profit, it makes good business sense
for them to leave the wasteland behind and move on to strip mine the
next piece of land that they can obtain at a reasonable price.

All perfectly logical. They buy, they make a profit, they dump, they
move on, leaving a trail of destruction behind. Of course they still
own the trail of destruction, so it is nobody else's business what
condition it is in. You think?

Everyone else just has to live in an environment of slag heaps.
Sounds like a nice libertarian world.

BillK