Recently I wrote to Walter Block, below is my letter to him and below that is his reply.
I also wrote to several others including
Lawrence W. Reed
President
Foundation for Economic Education
I had already written to Walter and while waiting for a reply I researched issue and found some answers. I copy pasted Walters letter to Lawrence with some commentary from me about answers I had found while waiting. directly below is that commentary from me minus the letter to Walter.
---------------Here is my commentary-----------------------------------------------------------
Lawrence - Thank you for the prompt reply. A fan of yours, Im appreciative of your time and efforts. after writing to Walter and yourself Ive searched it some more and believe Ive found some answers. that government/courts failed to uphold private property rights. In that I could not get courts to recognize trespass, and get injunction to make polluter stop, and damages paid. creating a moment of market pollution, where a moral businessman would fail because he could not compete. so lack of property rights enforcement allowed the market to go unchecked until sometime later when gov legislated laws, creating socialist/monopolist departments of Air, of Food etc... up till today where most dont know the story, and think only worshipful omnipotent government can do said job.In a nutshell. ... I would love any details or comments or critique of my assessment. also the meat inspection remains pretty vague, I mean I cant think of how prior to Government approval of meat quality how it would unfold in private sector.any instances of private environmentalist, private groups or individuals acting for the community without thinking to expect it of government.
------------Here is the reply from Lawrence W. Reed--------------------
Hi, Shane:
Thanks for your note. I’m glad you have since found some answers. I think you’re right about the absence of clearly-defined and enforced property rights is often part of the problem and that employing a government bureaucracy to “solve” the problem instead brings along many of its own problems.
Here’s an essay of mine on the famous Meat Inspection Act of 1906 that you may find helpful: http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2006_08/reed-meat.html.
You may find this article helpful too: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/where-are-the-omelets/
Finally, I think if you employ some of the arguments in this essay, you may score some victories: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/an-open-letter-to-statists-everywhere/.
I hope this helps!
Larry
30 S. Broadway
Irvington, NY 10533
Rothbard, Murray N. 1982. "Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution," Cato Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring; reprinted in Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, Walter Block, ed., Vancouver: The Fraser Institute, 1990, pp. 233-279; http://mises.org/story/2120; http://www.mises.org/rothbard/lawproperty.pdf
Block, Walter. 1998. "Environmentalism and Economic Freedom: The Case for Private Property Rights," Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 17, No. 6, December, pp. 1887-1899; http://www.mises.org/etexts/environfreedom.pdf;
http://141.164.133.3/faculty/Block/Blockarticles/environmentalism.htm; Romanian translation: www.antiteze.com
Block, Walter. 2009. “Contra Watermelons.” Ethics, Place & Environment, Vol. 12, Issue 3, October, pp. 305 – 308; http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a916452684&fulltext=713240928
on pure food, drugs:
Kolko, Gabriel. 1963. Triumph of Conservatism, Chicago: Quadrangle Books
Is avail @ google books here free
for more info, go
1. to Mises web
2. Please pardon this sentence in form letter style, but I make remarks of this sort often, and I find it saves me time. In order to get more answers/responses to your important question, and/or better publicize your point, I urge you to go to http://mises.org/Community/, and register it on that venue. If you do, please feel free to copy my answer along with your query.
Walter E. Block, Ph.D.Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair and Prof. of EconomicsCollege of BusinessLoyola University New Orleans
Thank you for posting this and welcome to the forum.
sorry duplicate... can not delete?
sorry duplicat do not know how to delete
im not an expert but Monsanto will sue farmers who have Monsanto seed growing on their property via wind from another property who owns rights to said seed. seems backwards. seems farmer should get an injunction from other farmer and or Monsanto to get them to stop their seed from arriving on their property. and damages/penalties should be paid to trespassed farmer for exterminating or removing said property [Monsanto seed]. Ive read/seen that trespassed farmers spend their time and their money to do this and it breaks into their ability to make profit, which ruins incentive, and creates a Non-free market... giving advantage to a coercive neighbor because if they have to pay for seed rights, they feel everyone should and would notify Monsantos lawyers etc ...
additional point perhaps, seed apparently is not scarce. and intellectual property rights in said seed are not lawful [see stephan Kinsella on IP issues]. Besides who and why do you patent a seed. much like e=mc2 is not scarce and einstein could not sue anyone who uses it. If Monsanto can prove seed is theirs via creation GMO and it is scarce, then they'd end up proving their responsible for it being dumped onto trespassed farmers property. and your example of sand and dirt are no different than air and water being redistributed, they are not scarce.
true