• Tag Archives property rights

  • What’s Missing from the Public Land Conservation Debate? Property Rights

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    President Trump’s decision last month to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by over 80 percent has elicited an impassioned reaction from environmentalists, conservationists, and recreationists.

    Outdoor sportswear purveyor Patagonia, Inc., perhaps most visibly among the dissidents, launched a campaign to challenge the president’s decision on both legal and moral grounds under the banner: The President Stole Your Land. Whether it is an advertising stunt or a good-faith ode to the company’s values, Patagonia’s effort has heightened public awareness of a topic hitherto unfamiliar to most people: federal lands policy.

    Federal Ownership and Management

    Though our culture mythicizes the rugged individualist ethos of the Wild West, about half of all land west of the Great Plains is actually owned by the federal government and controlled by Washington agencies.

    Over 60 percent of the total acreage in the states of Nevada, Alaska, Idaho, and Utah — the focus of the present controversy — is federal land. Even California is 45 percent federally-owned.

    As a percentage of the United States’ total area, the 640 million acres of federal land make up a whopping 28 percent.

    With so much acreage in the hands of federal agencies, federal land policy has real significance in terms of our environmental quality, asset utilization, and economic output.

    So how is it all managed?

    The over 600 million acres in the federal estate are controlled by an alphabet soup of government entities ranging from the Forest Service to the National Parks Service to the Bureau of Land Management.

    The purposes of these agencies vary, but one standard — the multiple use doctrine — serves as the general guiding principle for most of our federal lands.

    This doctrine, established with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, dictates that agencies consider “management of the public lands and their various resource values so that they are utilized in the combination that will best meet the present and future needs of the American people.”

    Land Management and the Knowledge Problem

    Unfortunately, this is often executed poorly. Consider, for example, the longstanding issue of so-called overgrazing on federal lands in the west.

    Environmental protection groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity argue that the Bureau of Land Management is subsidizing the destruction of native vegetation and wildlife habitats by charging ranchers a submarket rate for livestock grazing access.

    While this suits the ranchers, does the practice meet the present and future needs of the Center for Biological Diversity’s thousands of supporters?

    Dilemmas like this in federal lands policy that pit interest groups against one another should come as no surprise. The multiple use guiding principle, which demands the “combination that will best meet” Americans’ needs, holds the Bureau of Land Management and its counterparts to an impossible standard.

    It is not the case that government agencies and their dutiful employees mean ill — we all know how earnest park rangers are — it is that agencies lack the capacity to administer resources in a way that reflects the best combination of uses.

    Economists like Friedrich Hayek teach us that knowledge is diffuse, that valuations differ, and, therefore, that a concentration of economic power in government can lead to inefficient, harmful judgments.

    Applied to federal lands policy, this principle indicates that guidance from Washington cannot tell us how to utilize land to best meet the present and future needs of the American people. What Hayek’s insight suggests, rather, is that the way to best meet present and future needs would be to enable the American people themselves to make determinations based on their own knowledge and valuations in a price-based marketplace.

    Avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons

    There is a popular misconception that markets are “short-sighted” and do not take future needs into account. But if this were true, then farmers would slaughter all of their livestock and would eat all of their seed corn.

    Indeed, the “tragedy of the commons” is a well-known phenomenon in which overgrazing, overfishing, deforestation, and other issues occur because of a lack of property rights. For a recent example, consider the African white rhino, which was in danger of extinction due to black market poaching until private property rights in the rhinos were introduced and the species was saved. For the very same reason, nobody ever worries that cows will go extinct.

     

    With more than a quarter of American land under federal ownership, a market transition would be no small feat, but through a deliberate, judicious process, property rights could gradually be allocated to transfer decision-making from planners in Washington agencies to active market participants. When property rights are allocated, economics teaches us, incentives promote efficient use that reflects the value properties hold.

    Many Americans support federal land ownership as a means of conservation, but this view misses the problems created by public ownership, such as the aforementioned overgrazing and poaching.

    Groups that value land preservation, like the Center for Biological Diversity and Patagonia, Inc., would have just as much of a right to participate in the marketplace as would ranchers or companies that might use the land for commercial development.

    With the implementation of a price-centric system for federal lands policy reform, individuals, advocacy groups, and companies alike would be able to express the value they attach to the land not through lobbying the government, as we see now, but through trading.

    Rather than fuming at President Trump’s Bears Ears downsizing, conservationists and recreationists should consider whether they truly want the lands they love to be controlled from the sterile confines of federal offices in Washington or whether they might benefit from a more open, free system.

    Reprinted from The Hill


    Jordan McGillis

    Jordan McGillis is a policy analyst at the Institute for Energy Research. Follow him on Twitter @jordanmcgilllis.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


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  • Civilization and Private Property Are Inseparable

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    As Americans transitioned to 2018, I saw many articles about New Year’s resolutions. But while I saw a great deal of inconsistency between personal resolutions to do good for others and political resolutions to harm others to finance feathering one’s own nest, I didn’t find much that would improve both Americans’ personal and political behavior. That is why it occurred to me that perhaps what we need are some old years’ resolutions to recommit ourselves us the wisdom we have often forgotten.

    That thought triggered a memory of something that would fit the bill. It comes from Leonard Read, in “To Each His Own,” published fifty years ago in his Accent on the Right (1968). Its focus was that the biggest problems of government come from violations of commandments to not covet and not steal because coveting is the impetus behind harming others to benefit yourself and stealing is the action triggered by that coveting.  

    The prevention of such violations is a central task of government, which can advance the general welfare by more effectively protecting all of our property from invasions by others (better enabling all of the voluntary relationships property rights make possible). This is illustrated by the enumerated functions of American government (e.g., national defense is the protection of you and your property from foreigners; police, courts, and prisons provide similar protection from your neighbors). But unfortunately, government has become a “respectable” way to violate what it supposedly defends.

    Consider what Leonard Read had to say about the importance of those two commandments for the existence of any real civilization, as well as advances in it.   

    THOU shalt not steal! To know that stealing is wrong…implies knowledge of an alternative that is right…to each his own, usually referred to as private ownership. The ancient taboo against stealing presupposes that an individual has a right to the fruits of his own labor.

    Recognizing as evil the taking of that which belongs to another certainly antedated The Decalogue by many centuries.

    There is every reason to believe that the observance of this taboo, this respect for the principle of private ownership, marked the dawn of civilization. Whether this thou-shalt-not is honored or breached primarily determines the rise or fall of civilization.

    True, “thou shalt not covet” is even more basic than “thou shalt not steal”; if no one coveted the possessions of another, there would be no thievery.

    To refrain from stealing is the genesis of civilizations! Only two points need to be understood…for this assertion to ring true. First, civilizations rise and fall with the rise and fall of individual freedom. Second, individual freedom rises and falls to the degree that private ownership — the absence of stealing — is respected and adhered to. Individual freedom is out of the question wherever and whenever private ownership does not prevail!

    Creative outbursts — the mark of civilization — bear a direct correlation with increase in individual freedom…the record speaks for itself.

    This private ownership thesis rests, fundamentally, on the defensible assumption that one person has as much right to his life as any other. If an individual has a right to his life, it logically follows that he has an equal right to sustain his life, the sustenance of life being the fruit of one’s own labor or what can be obtained for it in peaceful exchange. Livelihood is but the extension of life.

    Thus, to steal is to take life. Not to steal is to respect life; it is to endorse and to hold sacrosanct the institution of private ownership.

    It is self-evident that no civilization could be born without the observance of this taboo. The institution of private ownership — to each his own — has spawned all civilizations!…Were [thievery] the general practice, we would quickly descend into another dark age. A resort to law would be useless; the gendarmerie also would be thieves!

    While the institution of private ownership has been given lip service over the centuries, by the people and governments alike, actual observance has been more of form than of substance…Few among us understand that private ownership can be universally endorsed in principle and completely obliterated in practice. Nor is it widely understood that the forcible taking of income, beyond that required for the principled functions of government, has the same eroding effects on private ownership as stealing. Legalizing the compulsory transfer of control still amounts to the destruction of private ownership.

    It takes no mental giant to realize that individual freedom and, thus, the flowering of civilization are possible only where private ownership prevails. Merely imagine owning absolutely nothing required for your own livelihood. Your life would be in the hands of others.

    Leonard Read saw the twin sins of coveting and theft as the greatest threats to civilization. The latter, motivated by the former, undermines the fundamental basis of the voluntary arrangements that create civilization — private property. As a result, he recognized that the essential function of government was to maintain the principle of “to each his own,” and that any time government fails to defend that principle from others’ invasions, or itself commits such infringements, it impedes rather than advances civilization.

    Remembering that understanding, and recommitting to Read’s insight that “To each his own is a fundamental maxim for civilized men!” would make an excellent old year’s resolution for the new year.


    Gary M. Galles

    Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. His recent books include Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies (2014) and Apostle of Peace (2013). He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.




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  • I Don’t Want Anyone Forced to Bake Me a Cake

    Posted on by Azrael 1 Comment

    I Don’t Want Anyone Forced to Bake Me a Cake

    Being a gay libertarian is like being a black conservative: you are a pariah among your peers. It couldn’t be clearer in the Charlie Craig and David Mullins V. Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which the Supreme Court will hear soon.

    Back in 2012, the plaintiffs went to the defendant’s bakery to have a cake for their wedding, which owner Jack Philipps refused, citing religious reasons. Craig and Mullins complained before the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which agreed with the couple in 2014. They even ordered that the bakery completes “extensive sensitivity training”. After Philipps failed to have the Colorado Supreme Court hear his plea, he appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which agreed to take on the case.

    So-called civil rights groups like the American Civil Rights Union stand with the plaintiffs, saying that “when businesses are open to the public, they’re supposed to be open to everyone.” Gay webzines like the Gaylygrind automatically call the defendant and his supporters “anti-LGBT hate groups.” Even Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson wants him to “bake the cake.”

    A Business Is a Private Property

    Well, folks, I am gay myself – I am even married – and I stand by Philipps’ right to discriminate against whoever he wants.

    That, of course, makes me a traitor, a turkey voting for Thanksgiving – and if I were African American, it would also make me an Uncle Tom.

    But why? Because many liberals stand by the ACLU’s faulty reasoning that businesses open to the public must serve everyone – it’s not “personal” property anymore. Faulty because it implies that, once you start selling a product or service, you automatically lose your right to freely and voluntarily interact with other people. It’s opened to the public, so it suddenly becomes public “property” and the business owner loses any say in who he or she does business with.

    Following that logic, a Muslim baker would be forced to make a cake with Mohammed’s face on it – an unspeakable moral crime in Islam – Hooters would have to hire anyone as a server and gay bathhouses would have to welcome female patrons.

    As silly as the preceding examples sound, this is exactly what a SCOTUS decision in favor of the plaintiffs would entail. Once the government decides what one business must do, it can decide what all businesses must do. Don’t forget that parts of the US had been under this regimen for nearly 100 years after the end of the Civil War.

    Indeed, the infamous Jim Crow laws not only maintained an apartheid-like state for African Americans, but they also dictated how private businesses needed to interact with these people. Had private bus companies been able to let all their customers sit wherever they want, Rosa Park would not have become an icon of civil disobedience since she would not have violated any arbitrary laws stating that she must go to the back of the bus. Instead, she would have ridden the bus that let her sit where she pleases.

    Let Bigots Expose Themselves

    So instead of having government force businesses to serve anyone, I want it to let them discriminate in the open. This way, I know exactly where not to do business.

    Because even if I were heterosexual, I would very likely boycott businesses that discriminate on arbitrary traits like sexual orientation or skin color. It’s not a crime – no one’s life or property is endangered by this refusal of doing business – but it goes against my moral standards of treating every human being as an equal.

    It worked wonders in the 1970s when LGBT groups and businesses boycotted Coors for its hostility towards them. Seeing that their anti-LGBT policies caused a slump in their revenues, Coors had no choice but to backtrack. “It’s basic good business practice,” famously said CEO Peter Coors when Republicans decried the company’s gay-friendly policies in 2004.

    Now, imagine how easy it would be to organize such massive boycotts thanks to the Internet and social media. Any business, big and small, that shows hostility towards LGBT or any easily identifiable group would promptly see a decrease in its revenues when more and more people learn that it discriminates based on arbitrary traits. Neighboring business would happily get on board, maybe by putting signs that everyone is welcomed as long as they are peaceful. This would leave two choices to the discriminating business: either it backtracks or it will likely face bankruptcy. Or the “fabulous wrath” of trolls.

    Of course, it could go both ways; learning that their favorite business is boycotted because it discriminates against certain people, patrons who are also hostile towards the same group(s) of people will increase their business. Chick-fil-A is a good example; after left-wing groups called for a boycott of the fast-food chain in 2012 because of its funding of “hate” groups, conservatives struck back and actually helped the business gain popularity.

    Liberals Already Boycott Conservatives

    In short, the government has no business deciding who private citizens, by themselves or when they sell products or services, can and cannot serve as long as they don’t voluntarily endanger people’s lives or property.

    The obligation not to discriminate only applies to governments, who are bounded by the Constitution and laws, not private citizens.

    Besides, the very same people who decry Philipps’ discrimination toward gays are usually prompt to call for a boycott of businesses and states that discriminate. When North Carolina passed its infamous bathroom bill, Michael Moore was celebrated when he asked his distributor to not distribute his movie in the state. Similarly, California has restricted publicly-funded trips to states like Texas since they have policies considered discriminatory towards LGBT people. Hell, even the local LGBT center in San Jose, CA, has a sign stating, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”

    If liberals themselves show that it’s possible to peacefully boycott places that act (in their view) in a reprehensible way, why won’t they let conservatives do the same, as seemingly bigoted as it makes them look like? In the end, a business person refusing to do business is the one worse off.


    Pierre-Guy Veer

    Pierre-Guy Veer is a Canadian-born libertarian now living in the US.

    This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.


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