Look at beautiful Angel Falls at my avatar. They are likely to remain so, pristine, because they are part of the National Park System. I do not think anyone would like them to become privatized. National Parks and their conservation seem to be among the few successes of governments, even though many flaws in their administration have been pointed out by environmentalists, economists and the public alike. Actually the private sector always ensures great advertising when sponsoring conservation projects in these protected areas.
Art transcends ideology.
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/ruben
I want to see all "Public" land privatized. Then the rightful owners would have every incentive to maintain the parts that are most appealing to customers, in this case tourists. Furthermore, private owners would charge for the experience of the property in line with other activities instead of having bureaucrats deciding the correct price. There would be no extravagant expenses or restrictions on hunting or other activities as well under private ownership as the owners would grant folks permission to do these activities.
Rubén: Look at beautiful Angel Falls at my avatar. They are likely to remain so, pristine, because they are part of the National Park System. I do not think anyone would like them to become privatized. National Parks and their conservation seem to be among the few successes of governments, even though many flaws in their administration have been pointed out by environmentalists, economists and the public alike. Actually the private sector always ensures great advertising when sponsoring conservation projects in these protected areas.
You seem to care about them, so you would certainly be in favor of owning them. Then the Federal Government could no longer threaten to destroy them.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
I do not think anyone would like them to become privatized.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Ruben, what does the 'MVP' under your avatar mean??
Irish Liberty Forum
I don't know, Matthew, I just uploaded the image of the Churún Merú (Angel) Falls.
MatthewWilliam: Ruben, what does the 'MVP' under your avatar mean??
Can I have something that says "King of the Forums"?
Rich individuals, or communities that pool their resources together, can choose to buy up land and not develop it, and just maintain it. This is already being done by people who care about the environment and realize that the government isnt doing anything productive.
The interesting part is that the land is pretty much a liability not an asset, the owner will have to have all sorts of worries about fire hazard, polllution, etc but the only real value they gain from it is subjective (no revenue) though it will have large externalities. Its still the only efficient way to get this done.
How much do i pay now to maintain all these commonly owned parks ? I'de prefer all that money back and be allowed to chose which park to enter via some toll.
I cringe every time I hear someone mention "buying" land to not develop it.
Why should someone buy it up if its government property? The government has no right to land.
mstob: I cringe every time I hear someone mention "buying" land to not develop it. Why should someone buy it up if its government property? The government has no right to land.
Similarly, even though many parks are worth more whole than sliced up, I'm sure that that's not true in all cases. Is there any theory on what to do when farming interests intefere with asethetic interests for established parks?
If there was a fair way to privatize national parks I might support the idea. However it seems to me that government would bid the land to their supporters, to those who lobby the most, to thee voters of the party in power, etc., so the allocation would not be made in a fair or competitive or reasonable manner.
Rubén: If there was a fair way to privatize national parks I might support the idea. However it seems to me that government would bid the land to their supporters, to those who lobby the most, to thee voters of the party in power, etc., so the allocation would not be made in a fair or competitive or reasonable manner.
That doesn't matter, whoever the new owner would be would now pay market costs to own the park and would act responsibly.
There is absolutely no guarantee that the new owner will pay market costs to the government to own the land. Instead, the government, being as corrupt as we know it is, will most likely under-invoice the land to its favorite bidder. Such favored bidder, as an act of thanks, will provide a nominal commission to the corrupt official under the table. No records for the transaction to be accounted for the benefit of the country's GNP.
In countries where the rule of law is weak, where poverty makes a great percentage of the population and where the political system tends towards socialism and communism, --and still such transfers of land do happen, because socialism nowadays is concerned about state ownership of business, not state ownership of land--- there is no incentive to act responsibly for the environment.
I can supply a list of several examples where the current Venezuelan socialist government has been lax in enforcing the previous standards for maintaining the previous environmental excellency of national parks. Many parks are now being little by little invaded for subsistence logging, mercury poisoning gold mining, by a small minority of revolutionaries with the complacency of the government, and under the disagreement of the rest of the population.
Rubén:There is absolutely no guarantee that the new owner will pay market costs to the government to own the land.
A property owner pays the market cost of owning his property to the market, not the government.
It doesn't have to sell them. All it does is to grant official titles of property, notarized and sealed. If the government doesn't like the owner of a particular plot of land, with the help of the military, it just performs expropriations with the help of the public forces. and reassigns that land to a commune or cooperative.
I have seen many productive dairy farms transformed into wastelands through this process.
Im not saying that the government sells them necessarily.
Rubén: It doesn't have to sell them. All it does is to grant official titles of property, notarized and sealed. If the government doesn't like the owner of a particular plot of land, with the help of the military, it just performs expropriations with the help of the public forces. and reassigns that land to a commune or cooperative. I have seen many productive dairy farms transformed into wastelands through this process.
Juan is just being a puritanical agorist. It's not selling per se that he has a problem with, but rather having the state do anything at all, including dismantlement and abdication.
Diminishing Marginal Utility - IT'S THE LAW!
Solomon:Juan is just being a puritanical agorist. It's not selling per se that he has a problem with, but rather having the state do anything at all, including dismantlement and abdication.
This is why it's important to have an economic theory of liberation, to see why rewarding those who possess the power to transfer property from the state to private hands can only move liberty forward.
Juan:Provided that "those who possess the power to transfer property from the state" don't act as an state themselves. The attempt to reduce libertarianism to a mere economic theory makes no sense unless you provide a coherent justification for property.
The Ethics of Liberty on bribery
Let us consider in this light the question of bribery of government officials. We saw above, that, in a free society or free market, the briber is acting legitimately, whereas it is the bribee who is defrauding someone (e.g., an employer) and therefore deserves prosecution. What of bribery of government officials? Here a distinction must be made between “aggressive” and “defensive” bribery; the first should be considered improper and aggressive, whereas the latter should be considered proper and legitimate. Consider a typical “aggressive bribe”: a Mafia leader bribes police officials to exclude other, competing operators of gambling casinos from a certain territorial area. Here, the Mafioso acts in collaboration with the government to coerce competing gambling proprietors. The Mafioso is, in this case, an initiator, and accessory, to governmental aggression against his competitors. On the other hand, a “defensive bribe” has a radically different moral status. In such a case, for example, Robinson, seeing that gambling casinos are outlawed in a certain area, bribes policemen to allow his casino to operate—a perfectly legitimate response to an unfortunate situation.
Defensive bribery, in fact, performs an important social function throughout the world. For, in many countries, business could not be transacted at all without the lubricant of bribery; in this way crippling and destructive regulations and exactions can be avoided. A “corrupt government,” then, is not necessarily a bad thing; compared to an “incorruptible government” whose officials enforce the laws with great severity, “corruption” can at least allow a partial flowering of voluntary transactions and actions in a society. Of course, in neither case are either the regulations or prohibitions, or the enforcement officials themselves, justified, since neither they nor the exactions should be in existence at all.2
Rothbard: In such a case, for example, Robinson, seeing that gambling casinos are outlawed in a certain area, bribes policemen to allow his casino to operate—a perfectly legitimate response to an unfortunate situation.
Juan:I said that government doesn't own the land, so it can't sell it. You can't sell things you don't own. It has nothing to do with bribery.
Right, it can't sell it, it can only relinquish its claim to possession in exchange for payment.
Juan:I said that government doesn't own the land, so it can't sell it. You can't sell things you don't own. It has nothing to do with bribery. Rothbard: In such a case, for example, Robinson, seeing that gambling casinos are outlawed in a certain area, bribes policemen to allow his casino to operate—a perfectly legitimate response to an unfortunate situation. What Robinson does is paying the mafia, or government, (they are the same thing of course), in order to have the 'privilege' of operating a casino. While it's true that Robinson is in a way being taxed, it's also true that government is restricting competition and granting Robinson a monopoly of sorts -- I fail to see how securing such a a monopoly can be considered a 'legitimate' and moral case of self-defense.
Because nobody elses rights are being violated, simple.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Juan:Great. So monopolies enforced by the mafia are consistent with libertarian principles. I think I've learn something today.
It's as if you didn't even read the Rothbard quote and went directly to petty indignation.
GilesStratton:Because nobody elses rights are being violated, simple.
Juan: GilesStratton:Because nobody elses rights are being violated, simple. Yes they are. The rights of all the people who want to setup a casino and can't do so unless they pay a 'bribe' are being violated.
They are not party to the transaction and are unaffected by the bribe-payer's action.
I would like to see some kind of settlement of the original issue expressed on this post abouth the national parks. Here I expose my conclusions based both on my original statements and on the thoughts impressed upon me by my fellow forum users.
An old adage says "don't fix what ain't broke". If a National Park system functions reasonably well, I would leave it on the hands of the state.
If its administration or conversation policies are substandard, I would consider privatization. However I did not see so far a satisfactory method to ensure that such privatization would be competitive, as in a tender, rather than the most commonly used method of arbitrary allocation.
The success or failure rate on the government administration could be assessed by the park users: hikers, conservationists, and the general public.
Some threads suggested that the government did not own any portion of the National Parks in the first place. So who would become the rightful owner? The very first one who arrives, as if it were a land conquest or battle?
National Parks, in my opinion, were created because of a desire of many individuals who agreed to leave that land alone for the recreational and environmental benefit of their great-grandchildren. Placing those protected areas under private control would facilitate logging and erosion due to the profit motive.
Juan:The bribe payer and the bribe collector, that is, the protected 'entrepreneur' and the government/mafia that protects him (from competition), are both acting in concert in order to restrict...competition. You can use as much newspeak as you want but the facts won't change.
You didn't actually read the quotation did you? Rothbard explicitely states that if the bribe payer is using the government/ mafia to restrict competition he is acting immorally, as then all he is doing is delegating the use of coercion to the state/ mafia. But that's not what we're discussing. We're talking about the case in which the bribe payer pays the bribe collecter in order to allow his buisness to operate and in doing so increases competition, the only party left worse off is anybody else paying a bribe to the bribe collector to allow his buisness (or to restrict others), not the consumer.
Rubén:An old adage says "don't fix what ain't broke". If a National Park system functions reasonably well, I would leave it on the hands of the state.
I think the point is that the state don't run national parks particularly well. Of course, the problem is (to my knowledge anyway) that states have always been in charge of running national parks (if anyone knows otherwise could you provide a source, I'd be interested to know) and we don't really have anything to compare state owned national parks with, in this respect it's similar to roads and armies I suppose.
In any case, as these parks are funded through coercion calculation is impossible. Essentially governments don't have the knowledge of how to run national parks, where to run them etc. whereas a private owner would.
Rubén:However I did not see so far a satisfactory method to ensure that such privatization would be competitive,
Why would it not be competative as opposed to every other industry, in any case if it weren't competative I don't see how giving the state monopoly would sove this.
Rubén:The success or failure rate on the government administration could be assessed by the park users: hikers, conservationists, and the general public.
But how? Ultimately if it doesn't face the threat of going out of buisness none of this matters.
Rubén:National Parks, in my opinion, were created because of a desire of many individuals who agreed to leave that land alone for the recreational and environmental benefit of their great-grandchildren. Placing those protected areas under private control would facilitate logging and erosion due to the profit motive.
Not necessarily no. If the individual that owned these areas thought it could make greater profit through charging money for people to see it or through donations than he could through logging that's what they'd do, or perhaps the owner of this area has a special attachment himself to these trees or national park and no amount of money will force him to do. The point is that the price system is the only way to determine this. The price system determines whether people will value the wood that comes from cutting the trees down, or the view of trees more. The only reason that logging is so widespread as it is, is the result of the poorly defined property rights.
I don't really see how national parks alone would be enough reason to justify the taxation that would be necessary to support them anyway, so the issue is irrelivant.
We think that by the government controlling the parks, they will keep them pristine. I think these flaws emphasize the point. It takes one policy decision to wreck all the hope you place in a national park system. One decision made at the beginning of a new administration can have effects that last 4 or 8 or more years. I'd like to point out that one of those flawed decisions was the one to fight all fires in the parks. We saw what happened to Yellowstone in the 1988. Rather than letting small fires burn over the past 100 years, the parks accumulated a lot of unburned fuel which led to a hugh conflagration that lasted months.
GilesStratton:You didn't actually read the quotation did you?
R:...a Mafia leader bribes police officials to exclude other, competing operators of gambling casinos from a certain territorial area.
R: Robinson, seeing that gambling casinos are outlawed in a certain area, bribes policemen to allow his casino to operate—a perfectly legitimate response to an unfortunate situation.
For, as a criminal organization with all of its income and assets derived from the crime of taxation, the State cannot possess any just property. This means that it cannot be unjust or immoral to fail to pay taxes to the State, to appropriate the property of the State (which is in the hands of aggressors), to refuse to obey State orders, or to break contracts with the State (since it cannot be unjust to break contracts with criminals).
Read TEOL. Rothbard explains homesteading there. See this too.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Juan: Both the 'mafia' and 'robinson' have a right to operate a casino, a right which is being violated -- both pay the state in order to be able to operate a casino. Both benefit from restricted competition. There's no substantive difference between those two scenarios.
Of course there is. The mafia is bribing the state to allow only their casino to operate, and in doing so the mafia restricts competition. Robinson on the other hand is only bribing the state to allow his casino to operate under the already restricted competition, hence creating more competition.
The point is that the mafia's bribe is coercive in the sense that it violates people's property right, Robinson's isn't because it does not delegate the coercion to the state and does not result in a violation of anybody's rights whose rights weren't already being violated.
If we take the state out of the picture and assume that the mafia kill anybody who attempts to open a casino you wouldn't dispute the fact that this is coercion. Now if Robinson spent money employing a PDA to protect his casino, would this be coercion?
GilesStratton:The mafia is bribing the state to allow only their casino to operate, and in doing so the mafia restricts competition.
Robinson on the other hand is only bribing the state to allow his casino to operate under the already restricted competition, hence creating more competition.
The point is that the mafia's bribe is coercive in the sense that it violates people's property right,
Robinson's isn't because it does not delegate the coercion to the state...
...and does not result in a violation of anybody's rights whose rights weren't already being violated.
If we take the state out of the picture and assume that the mafia kill anybody who attempts to open a casino you wouldn't dispute the fact that this is coercion.
Now if Robinson spent money employing a PDA to protect his casino, would this be coercion?