TokyoTom’s Recent Comments

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  Cyberare:

  "For me, it is a matter of removing the concept of private property, replacing competition with co-operation, and developing a human society where human development and sustainability, as opposed to personal greed and destruction, sits at the centre of our social and economic systems.

  Am I a dreamer? Perhaps. But my dream is far more alluring than your commitment to nightmares."

  "If your dream is so alluring , so practical, and the need so dire, why not put your money where you mouth is and start implementing your own advice it yourself, with some like-minded friends?

  Quit your job, pool your resources and all property with others who agree with you, and form a communal enterprise.  Seriously.

  (But do not by any means trade with other like-minded groups except by barter - that would be the sin of free-market trade - and do not invest in any other enterprises - that, obviously, would be capitalism. And ignore all of the existing evil infrastructure for forming corporations, reporting and minimizing taxes and the like.  Actually, ignore this part of your own advice, and just do whatever works.)

  I`ll be cheering you on - seriously.

  Evil Tom

   

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  On The fallacy of climate activism posted 2 months, 1 week ago 100 Responses

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  Cyberfarer, thank you for your response, which is well-intentioned, but both perceptive and blind.

  First, I see you`ve adopted a page from the climate "skeptics" playbook, by applying the sefl-deceptive ad hominem device of labelling those you disagree with as "true believers" in something.  This is a partisan tactic that lets you treat others as enemies, and spares you from the trouble of listening to them, trying to figure out what they`re saying and responding the them, as oppose to a strawman that you`ve conjured up.  Congratulations on mirroring those whom you dislike most.

  Second, with all of your clear thinking, like Mr. Sacks, you offer us no practical advice, just reasons for despair.  Lezlie, who follows you, at least provides an agenda.

  Third, of course, you`ve got me all wrong; I`m not an idealogue, a "true believer" or even an apologist of any kind the status quo; I`m a concerned human being, a fellow traveller on Plante Earth and a pragmatist.  You`ve been misreading me, and certainly have not troubled yourself to consider the very pragmatic analytical tools that I`ve offered to help you figure how to diagnose and attack the problems that you perceive.

  And what have I offered? Nothing more or less than the rather obvious observations that resources that are not owned and managed - whether privately or by groups (including, obviously, by communities and native peoples) tend to be trashed, and that similar problems are experienced where resources are formally "owned" by governments but essentially used by elites for their own benefit. I have NOT argued that private property is the cure-all, nor have I condoned theft nor the manipulation of governments by elites. In fact, I have rather clearly pointed out that both theft and misuse of governemtn have been and remain very much a part of the problem.

  Fourth, you continue to misunderstand the nature of our problems, and want to lay everything at the foot of "capitalism" and "markets", when the real problem is either the lack of ownership of resources or government fiat/theft.  Western capitalism is not responsible for extinctions and environmental devastation that preceded capitalism and markets, or that has taken place under state-directed economies. This gets old, but look at the prior extinctions, messes of the former USSR (and at the Aral Sea today), Hanford and Rocky Flats, Haiti, and China.

  Sure, the consumer and industrial supply demands of markets (not merely in the West) continue to pull chains of destruction elsewhere in the world, but destruction only occurs with respect to resources that are not owned and protected (or where theft by those more pwerful occurs). Tofu and meat eaters alike are indirectly responsible for rainforest destruction, mainly because governments "own" most the rain forests and don`t prefer to protect native title wher it is recognized, so the conversion of such land into soybeans (or palm oil to feed government-mandated demands for biofuels) continues.

  In any case, is it more effective to wail about the evilness of corporations that compete to provide us ever more cheaply things that we choose to buy, or to demand better property rights protection abroad, pay closer attention to where our food comes from and end domestic mandates that drive destruction? You`re welcome to your rants against true believers like me, but I`m personally more disposed towards trying to be practically effective.

  Fifth, you are very right to criticize corporations; Mr. Sacks has had a history of doing that. Not only do I agree with much of his analysis (which is not here), but I`ve devoted a fair amount of time to examining the enganglement of corporations and government: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=limited

  Our state governments were wrong to get into competition with each other to grant corprate status to investor-owned enterprises, in exchange for fees and later taxes. Corporate status freed investors from down-side risk, by limiting liaibility to the amount of capital contributed. This incentivized: investors to encourage corproations to embark on risky activities that shifted costs to innocent third parties; the concentration of wealth in corporations; the corruption of the court system that once protected third parties from damages caused by others (by replacing strict liaibility with balancing tests); and the ensuing battle - that you noted - over legislatures to regulate corporations (and courts to enforce regulations). Is there a takeaway on this. other than continuing to fight political battles to block legislative sweet deals and theft, including working to revise our corporate order?

  Anyway, I wish you well in your tirades.

  On The fallacy of climate activism posted 2 months, 1 week ago 100 Responses

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  cyberfarer, I`m sorry, but this couldn`t be more wrong in its understanding of WHY messes happen (and they undeniably do); the result is that you (and Sacks) have no clue where to start in trying to solve problems:

  The free market economy generates wealth by converting a living planet to a dead planet; that is, by converting living ecosystems into commodities for trade and profit.
  

  The free market system is really simply people trading what they have to others for what they want, and it works quite well where resources are owned (either privately or by communities).  It can, however, be a powerful engine of destruction for resources that are not owned - such as for resources sourced where property rights are not protected or the government (elites) "own" them.  Thus our continued political struggles over giveaways of public resources, the destruction of the Amazon/Indonesian forests (and Philippine under Marcos), and the collapse of fisheries that fishermen - often just guys trying to make a living - have no rights to actually protect the resource.

  To the free market and its economists, a forest which provides erosion control, flood control, climate and water conditioning, habitat, sustenance, and any number of other services not only to humans but all other species is only valuable in our free market system when it has been converted to lumber or pulverized for paper or some other use. That is the true tragedy of the commons.

  You are only right in part, as all of these things have obvious value, and people protect them privately or band together as groups to manage them wherever they desire and can (and are not prevented by the government). There is an awful lot of private and community conservation going on around the world.  The absolute worst cases are where the resources are owned by governments, with rights to exploit being leased to companies that have no properyt and thus no longer rights or obligations. 

  Not ownership, but the short-sighted stupidity of people and especially of those worship wealth without understanding its source.

  No, absolutely ownership; people and groups compete for resources, and can preserve valuable ones only when they can PROTECT them by excluding others (i.e., owning) them

  You, like Sacks, think that the only way to solve problems is to radically change either capitalism (while ignoring worse destruction takes place outside of free market regimes) or human nature.  Sorry, but this is blind and stupid, and ignores the fact that local traction is available for most problems.

  See the case of the Amazon, for example; like Indonesia, the problem is that the government owns the resources (and may still in the process of taking land away from natives, whose property rights it seldom protects):

  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/05/24/capitalism-the-destructive-exploitation-of-the-amazon-and-the-tragedy-of-the-government-owned-commons.aspx

  I highly recommend you start studying (not simply free thinking), which will make your very legitimate concerns much more effective.  I mean, even the environmental groups are calling for better property rights/protection for fisheries, species, forests and water.  Are they stupid and evil too?

  On The fallacy of climate activism posted 2 months, 1 week ago 100 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  cyberfarer, I`m sorry, but this couldn`t be more wrong in its understanding of WHY messes happen (and they undeniably do); the result is that you (and Sacks) have no clue where to start in trying to solve problems:

  The free market economy generates wealth by converting a living planet to a dead planet; that is, by converting living ecosystems into commodities for trade and profit.
  

  The free market system is really simply people trading what they have to others for what they want, and it works quite well where resources are owned (either privately or by communities).  It can, however, be a powerful engine of destruction for resources that are not owned - such as for resources sourced where property rights are not protected or the government (elites) "own" too much.  Thus our continued political struggles over giveaways of public resources, the destruction of the Amazon/Indonesian forests (and Philippine under Marcos), and the collapse of fisheries that fishermen - often just guys trying to make a living - have no rights to actually protect the resource.

  To the free market and its economists, a forest which provides erosion control, flood control, climate and water conditioning, habitat, sustenance, and any number of other services not only to humans but all other species is only valuable in our free market system when it has been converted to lumber or pulverized for paper or some other use. That is the true tragedy of the commons.

  You are only right in part, as all of these things have obvious value, and people protect them privately or band together as groups to manage them wherever they desire and can (and are not prevented by the government). There is an awful lot of private and community conservation going on around the world.  The absolute worst cases are where the resources are owned by governments, with rights to exploit being leased to companies that have no properyt and thus no longer rights or obligations. 

  Not ownership, but the short-sighted stupidity of people and especially of those worship wealth without understanding its source.

  No, absolutely ownership; people and groups compete for resources, and can preserve valuable ones only when they can PROTECT them by excluding others (i.e., owning) them

  You, like Sacks, think that the only way to solve problems is to radically change either capitalism (while ignoring worse destruction takes place outside of free market regimes) or human nature.  Sorry, but this is blind and stupid, and ignores the fact that local traction is available for most problems.

  See the case of the Amzaon, for example:

  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/05/24/capitalism-the-destructive-exploitation-of-the-amazon-and-the-tragedy-of-the-government-owned-commons.aspx

  I highly recommend you start studying (not simply free thinking), which will make your very legitimate concerns much more effective.  I mean, even the environmental groups are calling for better property rights/protection for fisheries, species, forests and water.  Are they stupid and evil too?

  On The fallacy of climate activism posted 2 months, 1 week ago 100 Responses

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  Let me add some further nuance to Mr. Worstall`s comment by saying that Hardin`s fertile observations have fuelled extensive further research on common property problems, with Elinor Ostrom being recognized as a leading light.

  Here is one general bibliography on commons research: http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/wsl/tragedy.htm

  Ostrom has refined Hardin`s work in the following way (quoting from a review of Ostrom`s 1990 ground-breaking and extensively researched boo, GOVERNING THE COMMONS, The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action):

  Ostrom uses the term "common pool resources" to denote natural resources used by many individuals in common, such as fisheries, groundwater basins, and irrigation systems. Such resources have long been subject to overexploitation and misuse by individuals acting in their own best interests. Conventional solutions typically involve either centralized governmental regulation or privatization of the resource. But, according to Ostrom, there is a third approach to resolving the problem of the commons: the design of durable cooperative institutions that are organized and governed by the resource users themselves.

  "The central question in this study," she writes, "is how a group of principals who are in an interdependent situation can organize and govern themselves to obtain continuing joint benefits when all face temptations to free-ride, shirk, or otherwise act opportunistically."

  The heart of this study is an in-depth analysis of several long-standing and viable common property regimes, including Swiss grazing pastures, Japanese forests, and irrigation systems in Spain and the Philippines. Although Ostrom insists that each of these situations must be evaluated on its own terms, she delineates a set of eight "design principles" common to each of the cases. These include clearly defined boundaries, monitors who are either resource users or accountable to them, graduated sanctions, and mechanisms dominated by the users themselves to resolve conflicts and to alter the rules. The challenge, she observes, is to foster contingent self-commitment among the members ....

  Throughout the book, she stresses the dangers of overly generalized theories of collective action, particularly when used "metaphorically" as the foundation for public policy. The three dominant models — the tragedy of the commons, the prisoners's dilemma, and the logic of collective action — are all inadequate, she says, for they are based on the free-rider problem where individual, rational, resource users act against the best interest of the users collectively. These models are not necessarily wrong, Ostrom states, rather the conditions under which they hold are very particular. They apply only when the many, independently acting individuals involved have high discount rates and little mutual trust, no capacity to communicate or to enter into binding agreements, and when they do not arrange for monitoring and enforcing mechanisms to avoid overinvestment and overuse.

  Ostrom concludes that "if this study does nothing more than shatter the convictions of many policy analysts that the only way to solve common pool resource problems is for external authorities to impose full private property rights or centralized regulation, it will have accomplished one major purpose."

  http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/ostrom.html

  A profile of Ostrom, who is a member of the National Academies of Science and and Editor of its Proceedings, is here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1748208

  Her work can be found here: http://scholar.google.co.jp/scholar?q=Ostrom,+Elinor&hl=en&btnG=Search and

  here: http://de.scientificcommons.org/elinor_ostrom

  One thing worth noting is that the historical and ongoing records are rife with examples - such as our crashing local fisheries - where government intervention has done more harm than good.  In these cases and in others, Ostrom introduces an analytical approach that is acceptable widely acros the political spectrum, even if differences in opinion will remain.  See, for example, this discussion at libertarian-leaning George Mason U:  http://www.theihs.org/bunnygame/

   

  On The fallacy of climate activism posted 2 months, 1 week ago 100 Responses