Re:Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
by CWuestefeld on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @11:10AM
(#14401871)
And so problems like climate change can be seen as a problem where we insist that things be handled collectively, where we then run into a tragedy of the commons. If our property rights model allowed for ownership of the atmosphere in some fashion, then there would be some aggrieved party who could get restitution from polluters, thus eliminating the externality that messes up our current system.
Sadly property right economics will not be helpful for climate change by itself, that's more about local resource management.
Constitutional economics could have some insights into how to set up a group of nations working together on a common solution.
Fisherman (with potentially outsider) creating a set up a property rights institutions maximise their own profits is exactly what free-market capitalism is all about. Voting in a private club that you can only get into if you fulfil several requirements is NOT DEMOCRACY, only voting.
That's what people like Hayek are talking about things like local knowledge. There is a hole field of economics that try work on these issues, property rights economics, constitutional economics, economics of clubs. There is a subfield called "free-market environmentalism" that tries to use property-right economics to achieve better outcomes for the environment.
The same problem applies to your idea that a captain is a king. The owner of the ship has the power to set up whatever he thinks is the most effective way to get people to fish with the limitation that they have to volunteer to join him.
So the reason free-market capitalist are free-market capitalist is because it allows free people associating with each other create the institutions that solve their problem in the most effective way.
Also I want to point out that none of these things are anti-state, a state can need to provide the legal system that allows for such institutions to be created and needs to enforce the contracts.
Some things that might be of interest:
- Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
- Choosing in Groups: Analytical Politics Revisited
- Free Market Environmentalism