At 6:33 PM -0500 4/25/01, Jim Choate wrote: >On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > >> On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 06:43:20PM -0700, Tim May wrote: >> > From our perspective, it will show the foolishness of government >> > overreaction (ordering a million animals to be slaughtered and burned >> > with tires and old pressure-treated lumber railroad ties). > >> Yes, top-down government regulation is clearly the best way to handle >> environmental crises, as the Brits showed so very well. > >What and why would the Anarcho-Capitalist responce be? 1. Each farm and each farmer is primarily responsible for protecting his farm against contact exposure. He can, and should, disinfect the feet and clothes who come from outside his property. He can also incur the additional expense of vaccinating his animals. (Yes, vaccines exist.) As with government flood insurance, the subsidies of unprotected behavior do much harm. Farmers are not incentivized to protect their own flocks if they think government will do it for them...and if they think a "mass kill" of even their protected animals will be ordered by some simpleton. 2. Foot and mouth is survivable. It's expensive to nurse animals through the process, hence the common practice of killing the herds. 3. If burning the animals is picked as the option, at least apply the same standards which would be applied to private actors. A business which proposed to dump 25-40% of the total annual dioxin burden into the air would be told to find other options. (Especially when concentrated in a specific region.) However, governments usually exempt themselves from their own laws, for natural and obvious reasons. (Because they _can_, for starters. And because bureaucrats planning tire pyres don't have anyone they have to go to for permission, unlike a business planning something similar. And because they think they are above the law.) For good ways to think about the tort issues, David Friedman's new book, "Law's Order," is very good. Also, Richard Posner. Faustine can tell us where in Samuelson these kinds of issues are discussed. (Presumably the flawed analysis of "externalities.") --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED] Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
