Even a libertarian might eventually recognize that the refrain “internalize your externalities” is being used to exploit him: all anyone who wants to infringe on his liberty needs to do is utter the phrase and then make up an externality to suit.
You may not engage in homosexual activity because of the externality of God smiting the city and/or sending a hurricane.
You must be confined to your house and wear a mask because of the externality of grandma dying.
You may not own a gun because of the externality of children getting shot.
You must wear a headscarf because of the externality of … I dunno, Allah causing armageddon?
You may not eat hamburgers because of the externality of catastrophic climate collapse.
You may not use plastic straws because of the externality of sea turtles suffocating.
Most of these seem legitimate to me, modulo that instead of banning the thing you should pay for the externality you’re imposing. Namely, climate change, harming wildlife, spreading contagious diseases, and risks to children’s lives.
Those are real externalities, either on private individuals or on whole communities (by damaging public goods). It seems completely legitimate to pay for those externalities.
The only ones that I don’t buy are the religious ones, which are importantly different because they entail not merely an external cost, but a disagreement about actual cause and effect.
“I agree that my trash hurts the wildlife, but I don’t want to stop littering or pay to have the litter picked up” is structurally different than “God doesn’t exist, and I deny the claim that my having gay sex increases risk of smiting” or “Anthropogenic climate change is fake, and I deny the claim that my pollution contributes to warming temperatures.”
Which is fine. Libertarianism depends on having some shared view of reality, or at least some shared social accounting about cause and effect and which actions have which externalities, in order to work.
If there are disagreements, you need courts to rule on them, and for the rulings of the courts to be well regarded (even when people disagree with the outcome of any particular case).
You may not engage in homosexual activity because of the externality of God smiting the city and/or sending a hurricane.
Well the problem is god isn’t real.
You may not eat hamburgers because of the externality of catastrophic climate collapse.
Your hamburger becomes slightly more expensive because there is a carbon tax.
I would say your examples are abusing the concept (And I have seen them before because people make trashy arguments all the time). The concept itself makes lots of sense.
My problem is you are mixing up real and not real things. They are different. The whole post above assumes a civilization of way more sanity from people in power and the people watching them than the one we live in.
Even a libertarian might eventually recognize that the refrain “internalize your externalities” is being used to exploit him: all anyone who wants to infringe on his liberty needs to do is utter the phrase and then make up an externality to suit.
You may not engage in homosexual activity because of the externality of God smiting the city and/or sending a hurricane.
You must be confined to your house and wear a mask because of the externality of grandma dying.
You may not own a gun because of the externality of children getting shot.
You must wear a headscarf because of the externality of … I dunno, Allah causing armageddon?
You may not eat hamburgers because of the externality of catastrophic climate collapse.
You may not use plastic straws because of the externality of sea turtles suffocating.
Most of these seem legitimate to me, modulo that instead of banning the thing you should pay for the externality you’re imposing. Namely, climate change, harming wildlife, spreading contagious diseases, and risks to children’s lives.
Those are real externalities, either on private individuals or on whole communities (by damaging public goods). It seems completely legitimate to pay for those externalities.
The only ones that I don’t buy are the religious ones, which are importantly different because they entail not merely an external cost, but a disagreement about actual cause and effect.
“I agree that my trash hurts the wildlife, but I don’t want to stop littering or pay to have the litter picked up” is structurally different than “God doesn’t exist, and I deny the claim that my having gay sex increases risk of smiting” or “Anthropogenic climate change is fake, and I deny the claim that my pollution contributes to warming temperatures.”
Which is fine. Libertarianism depends on having some shared view of reality, or at least some shared social accounting about cause and effect and which actions have which externalities, in order to work.
If there are disagreements, you need courts to rule on them, and for the rulings of the courts to be well regarded (even when people disagree with the outcome of any particular case).
Well the problem is god isn’t real.
Your hamburger becomes slightly more expensive because there is a carbon tax.
I would say your examples are abusing the concept (And I have seen them before because people make trashy arguments all the time). The concept itself makes lots of sense.
My problem is you are mixing up real and not real things. They are different. The whole post above assumes a civilization of way more sanity from people in power and the people watching them than the one we live in.