"harsh experience shows over and over again that the 'invisible hand' follows its own laws."
The 'invisible hand' is a pickpocket! On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 2:23 PM, Joseph Green <[email protected]>wrote: > Gar Lipow wrote: > > > However please note that my article is in opposition to excess focus on a > > carbon price, not to a carbon price. The reasons we need a carbon price: > > > .... > > 2) In most sectors of the economy we have measures of emissions > efficiency > > that allow for fairly simple regulations. ... > > But in manufacturing we don't have such a clear > > non-market metric. ... > > ... ultimately to reduce emissions in industry > > you need something along the lines of a carbon tax or auctioned permit > > system that specifies ends, rather than means. > > > > 3) There is also an issue of justice. If there was a means to eliminate > > emissions over the course of a year or two without horrible consequences, > > then we would not need complicated rules or an emissions price. Our > demand > > would simply be a date certain by which emissions were eliminated. But > > there is no way to eliminate emissions that quickly without the death of > > billions. If emissions must be phased out over a decade or longer, then > it > > is only fair that as the long as pollution continues that polluters pay. > > > > Gar, I think your critique of Hahnel and polemic against emphasis on the > carbon tax is important. But you are wrong when you tlhink you can > separate > "excess forcus" on the carbon price from the idea that the carbon price is > needed to deal with carbon emissions in manufacturing. > > You write that "it is only fair that as long as pollution continues that > polluters pay". But neither the carbon tax nor other means of setting the > carbon price mean that the polluters pay. The manufacturing corporations > will > pass the price along to the consumer. The idea that the carbon price makes > the polluters pay inevitably results in making the slogan of the polluters > pay into the slogan of making the people pay. Thus with the least influence > on industrial policy end up with the most pain - this is not justice. > > In your interesting article "Carbon Pricing: The Price is Wrong", you note > that "Politically, cap-and-trade and carbon taxes have always been policies > designed to bring powerful interest groups on board." Indeed! But if > policies > aimed at higher and higher carbon prices would really make the polluters > pay, > how is that that their advocates have always hoped that they would bring > the > polluters on board? > > Nor are its effects on the environment always benign. Most of the criticism > of cap and trade and carbon offsets goes into how corporations can and do > get > around them. But it's notable that the mechanisms of the Kyoto system also > had ill effects when companies obeyed them. It helped, for instance, > promote > the rush to palm oil, with its notorious results on rain forests. One might > argue that this was a defect in the regulations. But this shows that one > can't get away from the need for overall environmental planning and > regulation. > > In the past, I had written that one of the reasons why "value" (and hence > also pricing) is an irrational means of economic planning (i.e. rational > for > capitalist profit-making but not rational for human goals) is that various > things of environmental importance have zero value. That seemed one of the > most obvous examples of the defect of value. But in watching the cap and > trade systems, it turns out that the marketplace doesn't simply devastate > the > environment when environmental goods are given a value of zero. It > sometimes > devastates the environment even faster when they are given a value. > > It's not so easy to direct the "invisible hand" of price-directed forces in > the direction one wants; harsh experience shows over and over again that > the > "invisible hand" folllows its own laws. For example, astronomical drug > prices > in the US haven't resulted in American medicine minimizing the use of > drugs, > or insisting on the most rational use of drugs, or in making the health > monopolies pay, but just the opposite. High prices have instead helped > corrupt the practice of medecine as a whole and the system of priorities > and > research in drugs. The way in which this happens has its own peculiarities, > different from other manufacturing, but that's how the "invisible hand" > works > - it is infinitely creative in circumventing the good intentions of those > who > think they have mastered it. > > -- Joseph Green > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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