Free Market Environmentalism

Rating:
Summary: "Wonderful eco book!" by RexCurry.net
Review: Great book and well organized.

The message: The best environment is a capitalist environment.

If you hear that all libertarians want to "sail the seas," listen again because you probably heard the maxim that all libertarians want to "sell the seas."

Libertarian environmentalists use the following phrases in a sincere positive manner: sell the oceans, sell the seas, sell the gulf, sell the lakes, sell the rivers, sell the parks, sell the Everglades.

As a contender for the honorific title of "Top Libertarian Environmentalist," I spend a lot of time writing about libertarian environmentalism and how to speak to environmentalists.

There is a lot of material available on the internet from that point of view, and this book provides superb help, too.

"We love manatee!" Libertarians quip, "They taste just like chicken." But the reasoning of free market environmentalism shines.

Cuba, eastern Europe, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, The Peoples' Republic of China and other socialist messes have demonstrated that the Malthusian theory is manifested only in socialist economies. The book gives many insights as to why.

As the free market environmentalist Rex Curry said "Socialism is an environmental disaster."

The color of a healthy environment and the color of money are the same. Mother Nature is a capitalist. Capitalists are the true greens.

Rating:
Summary: "Wonderful eco book!" by RexCurry.net
Review: Great book and well organized.

The message: The best environment is a capitalist environment.

If you hear that all libertarians want to "sail the seas," listen again because you probably heard the maxim that all libertarians want to "sell the seas."

Libertarian environmentalists use the following phrases in a sincere positive manner: sell the oceans, sell the seas, sell the gulf, sell the lakes, sell the rivers, sell the parks, sell the Everglades.

As a contender for the honorific title of "Top Libertarian Environmentalist," I spend a lot of time writing about libertarian environmentalism and how to speak to environmentalists.

There is a lot of material available on the internet from that point of view, and this book provides superb help, too.

"We love manatee!" Libertarians quip, "They taste just like chicken." But the reasoning of free market environmentalism shines.

Cuba, eastern Europe, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, The Peoples' Republic of China and other socialist messes have demonstrated that the Malthusian theory is manifested only in socialist economies. The book gives many insights as to why.

As the free market environmentalist Rex Curry said "Socialism is an environmental disaster."

The color of a healthy environment and the color of money are the same. Mother Nature is a capitalist. Capitalists are the true greens.

Rating:
Summary: This version of the book might not be suitable to your needs
Review: This book is a real eye-opener. It shows how sometimes the private sector is much better at protecting the environment than the government is. It builds from early examples in the 19th century up through effective private-sector efforts today. At the same time, it points out how government programs sometimes worsen the very problem they seek to correct.

Some people might not believe its notion that the private sector will always do the right thing. And, of course, it won't. However, this book is a good guide to the growing movement to find a better way to protect the environment.

Rating:
Summary: A new approach to saving the environment
Review: This book is a real eye-opener. It shows how sometimes the private sector is much better at protecting the environment than the government is. It builds from early examples in the 19th century up through effective private-sector efforts today. At the same time, it points out how government programs sometimes worsen the very problem they seek to correct.

Some people might not believe its notion that the private sector will always do the right thing. And, of course, it won't. However, this book is a good guide to the growing movement to find a better way to protect the environment.

Rating:
Summary: Free markets as environmental panacea
Review: This book purports to be serious scholarship but is little more than very readable libertarian/free market boosterism. It does, however, do a good job of reflecting the values of the so-called Gingrich revolution of the mid-nineties and probably those of the current Bush administration.

The book takes one of two approaches: to place absolute faith in markets when it comes to environmental protection, or to deny the reality of particularly intractable problems. It's interesting to note that the sub-chapter on global warming, titled "Global Warming or a Lot of Hot Air?" (deriding those who believe in global warming as "Chicken Littles") which appeared in the first edition has disappeared from the 2001 revised edition. The revised edition doesn't even list global warming or climate change in the index.

Anderson and Leal make their strongest argument where they write about "government failure" in funding the construction, by the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation, of un-economic and ecologically harmful dams throughout the 20th century. This sort of pork-barrel spending wasted taxpayer money and harmed the environment and was largely unopposed, at least until Presidents Carter and Reagan (to both of their credit) began to resist, as is recounted at great length in Marc Reisner's excellent book Cadillac Desert.

In Anderson and Leal's chosen scheme of environmentalism, the most likely determiner of how natural resources would be allocated would be big multinational corporations, not unlike Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, etc.. We have seen how (un)wisely these corporations protect the public interest and how equally (un)wisely they protect the interests of their own shareholders. Yes, by all means, lets put the Great Lakes into a water market and allow some new "Enron" to control the trading. (See Anderson and Leal's Chapter 8, titled "Priming the Invisible Pump.") It's scary to think that the decision over whether we will have any wilderness left at all would be in such (in)capable private hands. Yet that's what the authors recommend. This book's solutions are overly simplistic and thus either wrong or incomplete. I give the book a five for readability and a one for policy, with policy weighted most heavily.

Rating:
Summary: This version of the book might not be suitable to your needs
Review: This version of the book does not allow for you to print the book. Also, copy and paste is disabled. Finally, this version of the book requires Adobe Ebook Reader (note that this software is different from Adobe Acrobat Reader).