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[eppie]

Hi,

How are the costs for land, oil, water not built into the price?

I think what he's looking at is the tragedy of the commons. Unrestrained fishing destroys the fish populations. Unrestrained timber harvesting destroys the forests. Unrestrained slash and burn farming destroys the land. Etc.

There are two things being overlooked: First is that those same practices can (and have) occurred under every economic system to date. Second is that those practices have been harshest where the resource is either "unowned" (e.g., fishing areas in international waters) or owned by the government.

The private ownership of fish farms changes the attitude from "how many can I catch today" to "how can I maximize the long term viability". The private ownership of tree farms leads to the consideration of the costs, other than monetary, of clear cutting. The private ownership of farms leads to the consideration of long term sustainability.

Indeed, the history of commonly held resources compared to privately owned resources indicates that, most often, private ownership leads to better stewardship.

If no one owns something, then everyone wants a piece of it for short term gain and nobody can be bothered to preserve it for the long run. However, if someone does own it, then intelligent self interest will lead to consideration of both short and long term gain.

--Pete

Thank you. And I agree with this. This is a problem not only in capitalist societies but in all societies in which overconsumption occurs.

Most humans in the western world, and probably also in several asian and south-american countries have diets with many times the necesarry amounts of animal based protein required for a healthy life. In some, (US; the northern european countries, Canada, Australia) most people even eat so much that it affects their health (obesity, cancer, heart problems, diabetes etc.).

The point I am making is that our free societies just are not able to cope with these dilemas. Even though we know that health care costs are through the roof etc. Telling someone not to eat so much that he dies of disease apparantly is against their personal freedom.
Heavily taxing meat and fish (with breaks for the poor) and using the income for nature conservation, and energy research to me would be an idea.

The same for transport. In many situations people don't need (big) cars to go where they need to go but telling people to drive less is a bigger taboo than gay marriage in Saudi Arabia. You see that the market is doing something (electric cars etc) but that is just a tiny drop on a hot plate. Because negative impact on climate or environment usually is not seen directly people (the market) will never 'do the right thing' on time.

The old (current?) market economy theory says the market will finally find the best way, but I am very afraid that this will not work on the timescale that is necesarry now.

And not to deny china's very big impact on the environment , nature and human rights, imagíne what china and the world would be like right now when there was no 1 child policy and communism.