Thursday, November 3, 2011

An online book well worth reading

Markets Not Capitalism: individualist anarchism against bosses, inequality, corporate power, and structural poverty

My one beef with the book is that it doesn't discuss environmental issues well enough. The essay by Mary Ruwart is "ok" but leaves a lot unaddressed. Suppose that a company wants to drill a certain wilderness area, while an environmentalist group wants to preserve it. What happens then, under individualist anarchism?

My own answer is that the environmental advocacy group takes them to court, and makes their best case to a jury that preserving the area is in the community's best ecological or social interest. Since damaging the planet's ecosystems can have a negative impact on individuals and their property (and thus constitute aggression--or at least indirect aggression), there is no reason why this wouldn't be like any other case of "dispute resolution" that ancaps enjoy theorizing about.

After about two years of trying to reconcile my environmentalism with my individualist anarchism, I think that this is both the most practical AND likely solution. The "mainstream" libertarian view--that fossil fuels and chemical companies are not and should never liable for torts--is bullshit.

BTW, I wonder how the anti-environmental libertarians feel about the new horrific tar sands pipeline being built via large-scale eminent domain? Once again, mainstream libertarians put their support of pollution and fossil-fuel use ahead of property rights.

1 comment:

  1. Suppose that a company wants to drill a certain wilderness area, while an environmentalist group wants to preserve it. What happens then, under individualist anarchism?

    I'm confused by "certain wilderness area." I'm assuming you don't mean national park, since... that sort of requires a government to define and protect it. I'm also confused as to how an environmental group would even hear about such a plan in order to stop it (it's my understanding that businesses without regulation just do whatever they want), let alone attempt to establish tort in order to justify a court case for the environmentalists (do these environmentalists live on or near the land?).

    Also, in the current system where we do have oversight and we do have the ability to take a company to court, there is still widespread abuse. The situation I would find most difficult would be this: what do you do about a company that pollutes while it is in existence... then the company falls apart. Who is responsible? Who pays?

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