Harvard professor Michael Sandel argued in a 1997 letter to the NYT that cap and trade was immoral because "turning pollution into a commodity to be bought and sold removes the moral stigma." There is a way around this that has other advantages. With few exceptions, greenhouse gas emissions are highly correlated with hours of employment. The exceptions are countries, such as the U.K. that have policies, such as carbon rationing, that would readily account for the lack of correlation.
Instead of capping and trading emissions rights, a government could achieve the same objective indirectly by capping and trading annual working time rights (the limitation of the working year). The other advantages would be lowering the barrier between paid market work and unpaid household work and establishing somewhat of a basic income scheme. On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 10:28 AM, <[email protected]>wrote: > > Since cap and trade is evil, you seem to assume that nothing > can be done as long as we have markets. This is where I > disagree. Lots can be done even while there are markets, > and if we want to overcome markets we first have to exhaust > the possibilities of markets. > > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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