Man's success in conquering the wild places, the seas, the skies, the mountains, the forests, the jungles, and every sphere of earth has had it's negative effects upon the conquered, and eventually, the conquerer. The environment in whatever health, is man's mother, friend, benefactor, rival, and antagonist. How does man maintain a good relationship with nature? that is the question. While many theories on what is the best way to do this exist, one stands apart from the rest as the authentic solution: the free market. The last post addressed this problem in more detail, and it went over several of the objections to this claim, but now the time has come to entrench round the theory and create a defense for the claim.
The first argument is an appeal to freedom. This argument states that freedom is a higher moral argument than nature. The argument demands that mankind be free and not forced by one another and government. Thus any attempt to heal the environment in contradiction to this argument becomes repugnant. Perhaps this argument comes down to a mere arbitrary judgement of value, but that said, it is better for men to peruse what they value than to be forced to aid the things they don't. The free market therefore can heal the environment through volunteers rather than conscripts.
The second argument answers why a person would volunteer to heal the environment, the argument being an economical one. In order to avoid ethereal abstractions by going about the argument the way an economist would, a sensible story would be more understandable. Take any rational person you please and imagine that they are building a house. They have a reasonable about of hard earned money and are ready to select a place to build. Would they decide to build their house on a hundred acer plot in a hard to reach endangered forest? No, because this would be cost inhibitive and they'd be far away from everyone and everything including everything from employment to sewage. What the person would do is to find the biggest bang for their buck, that being somewhere that opportunity abounds for employment and trade, and has as many desirable features (such as electricity and plumbing) as the person can find. This would automatically place them in a cluster with other humans and away from the depths of nature.
That said however, wouldn't they want bananas for their malts, and exotic timber for their banister, and ivory keys for their piano? Perhaps they would, if they valued those things, but only if they could obtain those things for a reasonable about of labor. Back when the globe took months to travel, the price for all these things to be shipped would have been higher than ninety nine percent of people would have been willing to pay for, but now that it only takes a matter of days they are more accessible. The immediate conclusion for the unreflective is that bananas will go extinct, jungles will be clearcut, and elephants will be shot down in swarms. That is not the case at all. If Robinson Caruso ate all the goats on his island, natural selection would have killed him; the same fate befalls any man who robs from nature without making provision for those things to be replaced.
In reality bananas are not an endangered fruit, and people don't with any frequency use exotic wood or have ivory pianos. This is not so because the free market operates on a principle called supply and demand. If the demand for bananas ever grew past the supply, the supply would not vanish, rather the price for bananas would go up, thus curbing the demand for them at the sometime as making the growing of new bananas more desirable. Forests have also been protected by this principle. When timber was just lying around for the taking, expenses were low and demand was high. As timber became more scarce and harder to get, expenses rose thus also curbing demand. Ivory hunting was taxing on elephant populations because ivory was a luxury item in high demand. Ivory was hard, dangerous, and expensive to get thus making it high profit, but high profits inspire competition and synthetic version of ivory cut profits and ivory hunting then becomes impractical. The free market, through the unregulated principle f supply and demand protects nature.
The third argument is that the free market is a part of nature, and therefore watches out for it's welfare. Here is an excerpt from another article from this blog that explores this argument more deeply: "If a government decides to inject a given sector with extra capital, they remove that capital from the whole economy either through taxation or inflation. Siphoning water from the soil to place on one plant harms the rest of the garden, causing draught. When a government places an embargo upon trade, they withhold needed goods form the economy. excessive clear cutting, causes a dust bowl. When a government communizes the means of production then a displacement of capital occurs. When a gardener ensures that all his diverse plants get the same amount of soil, sun, and shade, then only those plants adapted to those conditions survive. Ultimately, the free market and nature are both phenomena that goes on, and in despite of intervention and control. When manipulated they tend to backfire upon he who dares to organize them into an order they were never supposed to be in."
(http://thelibertascreed.blogspot.com/2015/07/natural-phenomena-and-free-market-part-2)
Therefore, the free market is the friend to the environment and to mankind. Perhaps it would be better for the environment if mankind slid back under it's primordial rock, but that would not be good for man. Whereas government intervention is neither good for man nor the environment; but that, and propaganda, seems to have been the chosen tools of the environmentalists since before the 60's. Those however are not tools, they are bludgeons. For the environment and mankind to really find harmony, the free market is the answer.
The first argument is an appeal to freedom. This argument states that freedom is a higher moral argument than nature. The argument demands that mankind be free and not forced by one another and government. Thus any attempt to heal the environment in contradiction to this argument becomes repugnant. Perhaps this argument comes down to a mere arbitrary judgement of value, but that said, it is better for men to peruse what they value than to be forced to aid the things they don't. The free market therefore can heal the environment through volunteers rather than conscripts.
The second argument answers why a person would volunteer to heal the environment, the argument being an economical one. In order to avoid ethereal abstractions by going about the argument the way an economist would, a sensible story would be more understandable. Take any rational person you please and imagine that they are building a house. They have a reasonable about of hard earned money and are ready to select a place to build. Would they decide to build their house on a hundred acer plot in a hard to reach endangered forest? No, because this would be cost inhibitive and they'd be far away from everyone and everything including everything from employment to sewage. What the person would do is to find the biggest bang for their buck, that being somewhere that opportunity abounds for employment and trade, and has as many desirable features (such as electricity and plumbing) as the person can find. This would automatically place them in a cluster with other humans and away from the depths of nature.
That said however, wouldn't they want bananas for their malts, and exotic timber for their banister, and ivory keys for their piano? Perhaps they would, if they valued those things, but only if they could obtain those things for a reasonable about of labor. Back when the globe took months to travel, the price for all these things to be shipped would have been higher than ninety nine percent of people would have been willing to pay for, but now that it only takes a matter of days they are more accessible. The immediate conclusion for the unreflective is that bananas will go extinct, jungles will be clearcut, and elephants will be shot down in swarms. That is not the case at all. If Robinson Caruso ate all the goats on his island, natural selection would have killed him; the same fate befalls any man who robs from nature without making provision for those things to be replaced.
In reality bananas are not an endangered fruit, and people don't with any frequency use exotic wood or have ivory pianos. This is not so because the free market operates on a principle called supply and demand. If the demand for bananas ever grew past the supply, the supply would not vanish, rather the price for bananas would go up, thus curbing the demand for them at the sometime as making the growing of new bananas more desirable. Forests have also been protected by this principle. When timber was just lying around for the taking, expenses were low and demand was high. As timber became more scarce and harder to get, expenses rose thus also curbing demand. Ivory hunting was taxing on elephant populations because ivory was a luxury item in high demand. Ivory was hard, dangerous, and expensive to get thus making it high profit, but high profits inspire competition and synthetic version of ivory cut profits and ivory hunting then becomes impractical. The free market, through the unregulated principle f supply and demand protects nature.
The third argument is that the free market is a part of nature, and therefore watches out for it's welfare. Here is an excerpt from another article from this blog that explores this argument more deeply: "If a government decides to inject a given sector with extra capital, they remove that capital from the whole economy either through taxation or inflation. Siphoning water from the soil to place on one plant harms the rest of the garden, causing draught. When a government places an embargo upon trade, they withhold needed goods form the economy. excessive clear cutting, causes a dust bowl. When a government communizes the means of production then a displacement of capital occurs. When a gardener ensures that all his diverse plants get the same amount of soil, sun, and shade, then only those plants adapted to those conditions survive. Ultimately, the free market and nature are both phenomena that goes on, and in despite of intervention and control. When manipulated they tend to backfire upon he who dares to organize them into an order they were never supposed to be in."
(http://thelibertascreed.blogspot.com/2015/07/natural-phenomena-and-free-market-part-2)
Therefore, the free market is the friend to the environment and to mankind. Perhaps it would be better for the environment if mankind slid back under it's primordial rock, but that would not be good for man. Whereas government intervention is neither good for man nor the environment; but that, and propaganda, seems to have been the chosen tools of the environmentalists since before the 60's. Those however are not tools, they are bludgeons. For the environment and mankind to really find harmony, the free market is the answer.
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