"The environment does in fact have value over other peoples interests, at times."

There's fundamental problems with this view. If we take away all the humans, there's no value in the environment to speak of. And if there is, it only begs the question why this, rather than that, human should have the overriding right to say what it is. There would automatically be a conflict between his human interest and that of the environment. If your statement were true, then no human would have a right to say what that super-human value is, obviously.

So the question must always ultimately resolve to conflicts between humans over how to satisfy inconsistent interests and values in the usage of a particular earthly thing.

And nothing you have said has given any reason in favour of the theory of super-human values in the environment. The depletion of natural resources is only relevant because it adversely affects some people's interests. Those who deny this merely assert their own inconsistent interest; and thus prove me right and you wrong.

Besides, did you notice that *both* the examples you cited involve cases of goods in common, not private ownership?

So it is no solution to conjure solutions from the state, as if in the state we had discovered a race of disinterested angels. It's an absurd idea. The fact is, the state is faced with all the same problems of knowledge, capacity and virtue as everyone else, AND has additional insuperable problems as well that necessarily cause more waste and injustice, as I have shown above.

The idea that problems of scarcity, or misplaced values, can be presumptively solved by vesting power in a territorial monopoly of aggressive force, incapable of economic calculation to the extent of its ownership, doesn't make sense. And that's why no-one here has been able to defend it without blatant illogic like squeers and david f.

There are already people going hungry in the world. Obviously restricting the production of food is going to cause people to die. That's what the greens and statists are in favour of.

*If we take away all the humans, there's no value in the environment to speak of*

Given that humans cannot survive unless they have a suitable
environment, the environment is therefore priceless, unless you
want to put a price on humanity.

**both* the examples you cited involve cases of goods in common, not private ownership*

Well no. The nuclear power station in Japan was privately owned.
Only now that the company is basically bankrupt, the State will have
to pick up the tab and the 100'000 homeless, well its just too bad.

Private and State ships have plundered the oceans and depleted fish
stocks. Private and State corporations and have dumped their toxic
sludge into rivers around the globe. Those rivers have a value to
others, even if they don't own them. So the environment has to
be considered, before the interests of others, because the consequences affect others.

*There are already people going hungry in the world.*

They could try family planning. In nature, more of any species will
be created, then will ever survive. Darwin was correct

It just occurred to me, Squeers, that A Modest Proposal could be an ultimate benchmark of the Austrian School of economics. What greater statement about the private ownership, control, calculation of value and disposition of what one produces could there be?

It inherently puts at a further remove any argument for external or statist interventions… eg, "Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown."

Extending your Seldon reference, in supporting such a proposal I am like The Mule… in "that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good…"

I agree with Jardine. Central planning is an unmitigated disaster and proven to be so. The Russians had to consistently set 20 million prices correctly without recourse to supply and demand characteristics which they were of course, unable to do. Being unable to match supply and demand you either get wastage or starvation. Marxism is simply a luxury of Western Leftist intellectual musing which they never need to experience because they would never choose to live under that system. In fact most 'Marxists' have never read Marx.

There is no environmental crisis. It is a manufactured myth of the Left which provides the opportunity to centralise control through organisations such as the UN which they have successfully done. They have successfully turned the human race against itself, which was the original and stated purpose, with the purpose of reducing the worth of human life to that of simply another animal in the ecosystem. Pathetic, really.

WmTrevor,
of course we mustn't forget Swift was a satirist. The disturbing reality is the JKJ's of the world are in earnest!
I loved the Asimov series and while I was fascinated with the concept of psychohistory, I was even more intrigued by the Mule--a symbol of stubbornness, of wilfulness and unpredictability.
In retrospect it's absurd to think only a mutant could elude Seldon's science, that contingency could be tamed. Asimov was clearly a satirist too--whether he knew it or not.

Yabby, you need to compare apples with apples. Only things that are exchanged against money have a price, so the “the environment” (ie the whole environment) is literally priceless (and for that matter so is “bread” if by that we mean “all bread”) because no-one ever buys or sells “the environment” or all bread.

But that doesn’t prove that private or governmental decisions about the environment are superior; it only proves that such huge abstract aggregate concept are not useful, because no-one is ever confronted with a choice about “the environment” but only with particular aspects of it as they affect particular aspects of human existence, e.g. whether pollution of a river affects someone’s enjoyment of it.

But to compare apples with apples, it’s also priceless for any government. So there’s no reason to presume that governmental decision-making about using the environment is in any better position.

But there are lots of reason to think it’ll be worse, of which I have mentioned only three, and which no-one has been able to answer, except by evasion, circularity, sarcasm and misrepresentation – the stock-in-trade of leftist argumentation.

Fukushima might have been privately owned, however no-one considers the problem to be the destruction of the owners’ property, but the negative externalities – personal injury, pollution of air, property damage etc.

But how would governmental ownership or control be necessarily any better? That’s what no-one is answering. All they’re doing is identifying problems rooted in common ownership, such as pollution of rivers (state-owned), depletion of common (not private) fish stocks, and then alleging that the problem is not enough common ownership.

Obviously if they consider they stand for values over and above human life, the solution is simple – just kill large numbers of people, as Squeers and Divergence are openly fantasizing about doing. Then they can hardly blame capitalism because it does feed people! But that’s precisely what they’re doing!

So they have in common:
• Leftists
• Environmental problems they blame on capitalism are problems of common ownership
• Can’t rationally defend their theory or answer mine
• Anti-human