[extropy-chat] Extinctions

[KAZ]

----- Original Message ----
From: Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 9:38:26 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Extinctions


> If taxes don't work, regulation will.  I've seen it.  Breathed it.
> Perfect?  No, but neither is the alternative.

You've seen regulation work? In what universe?
 
In this particular one, authoritarian government never does anything better, on the whole, than freedom of choice.
 
Note that, per erg of production, marxist countries like India and Russia pollute far more than the US. 
 
One thing that the eco-fearmongers miss, because of their complete ignorance of economics, is that pollution is inefficient. Which means that, in a real free market, pollution is penalized, because inefficiency is penalized.
 
The way Standard Oil ended up dominating the industry was that while most companies dumped their waste products, Rockefeller's company used the gasoline (at the time considered waste) for fuel, sold the waxy by-products as a competitor to beeswax, sold the sludge as "vaseline", et cetera. This made them more profitable, because they were more efficient. 
 
As usual, much of the inefficiency of their competitors was THANKS TO government regulation, not a sign of need for it. In the 1860s, the US government set up price controls on oil, artificially raising the price in order to increase production. Because of this, companies sprang out of the woodwork, making a profit without effective busienss practices, depending on the inflated prices. But since Standard did not do this, it grew faster than they, and established a habit of buying them up.
 
What we need today is LESS Big Brotherment regulation, not more.
 
--
Words of the Sentient:
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one
another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own interests
of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the
bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is
necessary to close the circle of our felicity.   -- Thomas Jefferson

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