In particular, some forms of harm are by nature spread out and not connected strongly to any single source. The classic example is pollution. Since pollution is spread out, the transaction cost is prohibitively high for any given individual to try to reduce pollution levels they are subject to. But a government, using regulation and careful taxation, can do this efficiently. In some situations, this can even be done in conjunction with market forces (such as cap and trade systems). In the US, this was very successful in efficiently handling levels of sulfur dioxide.
Even from a libertarian point of view, pollution is something that causes harm, like murder or theft. The governments job is to enforce laws that mitigate sources of harm and, when possible, correct harms against individuals. A person or corporation who puts out some amount of pollution should be forced to pay for any clean up or harm that they make.
If you drive a car, you emmitted some fraction of the pollution that caused temperatures to go up, caused smog induced illness and some other miscellaneous harms that cost some amount of money. If that amount of money was 40 billion dollars, and you contributed 1 billionth towards the harm, you sshould pay 40 dollars.
This should be even less controversial than imprisoning murderers
This should be even less controversial than imprisoning murderers
Sadly it isn't. I consider(ed) myself libertarian, and then found that most self-identified ones reject that reasoning entirely. Pity.
I was also unpleasantly suprised to find that there was a group of people griping about programs that would make it easier to identify cars that weren't liability-insured or pollution-tested, and this was called a "libertarian" position.
ETA: And libertarian-leaning academics don't seem to "get" why paying polluters to go away isn't a so...
To whom it may concern:
This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.
(After the critical success of part II, and the strong box office sales of part III in spite of mixed reviews, will part IV finally see the June Open Thread jump the shark?)