Sorry if I'm stepping over the line in terms of tooting my own horn here, but I'm kinda proud of this. User
CWuestefeld over on Hacker News wrote
this comment on a thread about bee colony collapse:
[T]his isn't a shortcoming of the market as such. It's a failure in conjunction of our incomplete recognition of private property rights. By preventing certain types of property from having private ownership, we don't allow the market to correct itself. More specifically, if we had some private entity or entities that were recognized as the owners of air or water, then they would be able to recover damages from the polluters, thus removing ability to externalize the cost of pollution. [Emphasis added.]
To which I
replied:
I volunteer to be that entity.
Those six words have gotten more upvotes than any other comment I have ever posted on HN :-)
Like this?
ReplyDeleteIt is really because we have lost the concept of the "social commons" as a dominant consideration on our social and economic discourse.
ReplyDeleteIn the US the "Common Good" is slaughtered by the interests of the individual. And the most selfish individuals are companies, which do not have souls.
Companies are not individuals. The mentioned comment clearly uses 'entity' in opposition to 'individual'. Consequently, you have not only destroyed nothing but shown your lack of understanding of the concepts invinvol. Check your premises...
ReplyDelete> Companies are not individuals.
ReplyDeleteThey are in the United States.