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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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You did, hence why I'm the other upvote here.

That said, I don't know that I agree that all of those would be serious problems. I'll run through what I think of each.

tragedy of the commons

This is only really a problem when there are commons. With expansive enough property rights, there would not be many commons, and so not much tragedy. That said, some things are hard to keep separate (like air). In such cases, while, strictly speaking, it may be regulated as an infringement on property rights, really it should probably just be treated as a commons with no property rights, and subject to regulation accordingly.

extraction without due compensation

Not really a problem with good property rights, except in cases of bad decision making/desparation (and the market should sort out the latter).

collusion

Yup, this is a problem. It shouldn't get worse than monopoly pricing, but this isn't great, and regulation is probably reasonable here.

fraud

Yeah, I'd want this regulated. But I would assume that many libertarian states (should such exist) would care about things like this? Breaking contracts like this should fall afoul? Maybe violate property rights?

monopoly

Yes, bad, though not always worth getting rid of, if the alternative is worse.

That said, I'm not sure that we'd have more of these. Competition should try to keep these away, and the reduced regulation should lower barriers to entry for competitors.

rivers on fire

See tragedy of the commons.

cancer clusters

The market might sort this out to some extent (in that people won't want to be in harmful situations, and so would have to be compensated accordingly should they know), but yeah, this is a problem.

disgusting food

What? There are no laws requiring that our food, as it exists today, tastes good. It tastes good because they want us to buy it. This wouldn't change.

dangerous drugs

Yup. I'm not a fan. I suppose libertarians could try to regulate nonconsensual use of them as a crime; it would be infringing on the rights of others?

pinkertons

Not okay. The state has the monopoly on violence. That doesn't change.

unsafe air travel

Well, airlines have a pretty strong incentive to make air travel safe: they want people to fly. I don't think this would be too large of a problem.

Overall, I don't think it's nearly as hellish as you suggest to go with the minimalist option, though there are several things that I would prefer be regulated.

Regarding the food, I'm thinking more along the lines of gutter oil and listeria outbreaks. The consumer simply cannot judge if a certain restaurant is safe to eat from, they will never have perfect information. That is the problem with a ton of libertarian policy ideas. LTs have to assume an almost omniscient consumer/citizen for most of their ideas to have even a small chance of working. There isn't enough time,energy, information, or intelligence in anyone's life to make choices like that, we need regulatory bodies of experts with enforcement mechanisms and bureaucracies.

Re: Air travel. The 787 Max kinda disproves your point there. Before regulation basically everyone who flew regularly eventually died flying. We probably shouldn't have to let 100 more planes crash before consumers decide that getting to california for cheap isn't worth going on a certain type of plane. Not to mention the ongoing issues due to regulatory capture and just underregulating/poor oversight that have lead to deaths and serious problems, it is getting so bad that it is undercutting national security and economic progress in a vital industry.

Thanks, those are both good examples.