[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Last Friday I presented a revised version of my talk “On Making Small Contributions to Evil” to the Auburn Philosophical Society.
This coming weekend I’ll be presenting a paper on “Herbert Spencer, Gustave de Molinari, and the Evanescence of War” at a panel on “The Libertarian Antiwar Tradition from the 1930s to the 1950s” at the Historians Against the War conference in Atlanta. Fellow panelist David Beito will be presenting ”Zora Neale Hurston, Rose Wilder Lane, and Isabel Paterson on Race, War, Individualism, and the State.”
Cavilers may object that Spencer and Molinari weren’t strictly 1930s-50s era guys. Well, Brian Doherty was going to present something topically relevant but had to back out, so I’m replacing him and had to throw something together at the last minute, and this is it.
Does it make me a weirdo that when I read, “On Making Small Contributions to Evil,” I kept mentally referring to the sisters as “Goofus” and “Gallant?” I’ve never read an issue of Highlights for Children in my life, either.
Spencer and the Industrialists have become two of my biggest interests lately. Thanks for posting on that. Sad to say, I can remember one of my elementary school history textbooks (4th or 5th grade, I think) repeating all the usual slanders about Herbert Spencer when they described figures of the19th Century. Get’em while they’re young, I guess.
Hi Roderick,
Someone in a listserv I’m a member of raised some questions and objections regarding your Small Contributions paper. Here they are:
He writes: “Does he actually endorse this plan?”
From your paper: “By the same principle, then, if greenhouse polluters are aggressing against you in a collective capacity, compulsory restrictions on them are legitimate even if none of them is guilty in an individual capacity. (Libertarian anarchist Matthew Claxton, for example, has argued that “people should form a voluntary society and pay a cost for their own emissions, putting the money into mitigation (planting trees)[,] health care (lung problems) and research on alternative fuels. … Then they should sue … anyone who doesn’t pay their share, starting with big polluters and working down to individual drivers.”[1] Such a decentralised approach to enforcement might even be more efficient than government regulation, since with regulation there’s only one legal agent that the emitter needs to bribe to escape accountability, whereas with decentralisation there are prohibitively many.)”
He writes: “It is just bizarre on a number of levels. Roderick (or Claxton, whose plan Roderick appears to endorse) says that polluters should form a “voluntary society,” then sue anyone who doesn’t pay their share. But if this is a voluntary society, then why would polluters who have not joined the society owe any share? And who determines “their” share? And what is the legal theory on which the voluntary society can sue the polluters? I thought the whole point here was that these polluters, by stipulation, have not caused any particular individual(s) any demonstrable harm. If that is so, then how can the society sue the polluters; if that is not so, then why do we need the society – why can’t the individual victims of pollution just sue, without forming any society? ”
He continues: “Long is open to at least two more objections. First, we should remember that efforts to defend oneself against aggression must be reasonable in light of the threat, otherwise “defense” turns into another act of aggression. If you see a kid about to steal a stick of gum, you can’t blow his head off. But if we assume, as Long does, that individual contributions to global warming are vanishingly small, then we are only justified in using vanishingly small amounts of force to impose restrictions. In practice, it seems we would be prohibited from using anything but moral persuasion (or very, very mild force, like the proverbial slap on the wrist) in order to restrict someone else’s emissions.
“Second, Long simply assumes that we can readily identify which acts make a net contribution to global warming and which acts do not. But this is doubtful in the extreme. There is no consensus on this and so confict will be inevitable and widespread. If Justine tries to restrict Juliette from eating meat, for example, Juliette will be able to say, “Why should you, a vegan, have any right to restrict my diet? You eat lettuce, which is grown with the assistance of poisonous pesticides and emissions-producing farm equipment. I should restrict your diet.” I’m not saying that meat is, or is not, more eco-friendly than lettuce. I have no idea. But I use that exchange as an example to demonstrate the impossibility, in practice, of determining who has the right to restrict someone else’s conduct.
“Besides, didn’t Long argue that we can “pick and choose” which public goods we support, as long as we support “enough” of them? If Justine attempts to restrict Juliette’s emissions, why can’t Juliette respond that she has made “enough” sacrifices or contributions to public goods to offset her emissions, and therefore she is not obligated to cooperate with any restrictions?”
Some issues of my own: “I’m skeptical enough people would be concerned enough about global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, to make much of a difference. I’m also skeptical that a strict causal link to harm can be traced back to anyone. And why is it only costs/harms/negative externalities that warrant restitution? Global warming isn’t all negative results. Some people will be benefited, should they pay the polluters for the positive externality?”
And finally, as you know from the Mises yahoo listserv, Max Chiz argues that “scheme liability” is unworkable.
Sorry for the delay in replying; I just noticed this today.
But if this is a voluntary society, then why would polluters who have not joined the society owe any share?
Because the right of self-defense does not depend on the permission of those against whom the right is exercised.
And who determines “their” share?
The court.
I thought the whole point here was that these polluters, by stipulation, have not caused any particular individual(s) any demonstrable harm. If that is so, then how can the society sue the polluters
That question was answered in detail in the paper.
why can’t the individual victims of pollution just sue, without forming any society?
Who said they couldn’t?
But if we assume, as Long does, that individual contributions to global warming are vanishingly small, then we are only justified in using vanishingly small amounts of force to impose restrictions.
In my paper I argued the contrary. This objection asserts the falsity of my conclusion, but doesn’t address my argument for that conclusion.
Second, Long simply assumes that we can readily identify which acts make a net contribution to global warming and which acts do not.
What I said in my paper was: “Let’s stipulate that a harmful result, say global warming, is being caused by a human activity, say the production of greenhouse gases, where any one individual’s contribution to this harmful result is negligible. (Note: whether or not this is actually true is irrelevant to my example. If you don’t think it’s true, treat it as a thought-experiment.)” So what, exactly, have I “simply assumed”?
If Justine tries to restrict Juliette from eating meat, for example, Juliette will be able to say, “Why should you, a vegan, have any right to restrict my diet? You eat lettuce, which is grown with the assistance of poisonous pesticides and emissions-producing farm equipment. I should restrict your diet.”
What on earth does meat-versus-lettuce have to do with the issue? The debate was over restricting the emission of greenhouse gases.
Besides, didn’t Long argue that we can “pick and choose” which public goods we support, as long as we support “enough” of them? If Justine attempts to restrict Juliette’s emissions, why can’t Juliette respond that she has made “enough” sacrifices or contributions to public goods to offset her emissions, and therefore she is not obligated to cooperate with any restrictions?”
I explicitly addressed this question at length in my paper.