Quote:
Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
I can understand why people would think that they need some kind of protection from the ravages of brutal corporate exploitation of the environment. I, too, was raised on a public school diet with a healthy serving of environmental awareness. For years I thought that the EPA and the active efforts of young people like myself were necessary to combat the grevious harms inflicted on our planet by soulless corporations that cared only about profit. Ironically, I discovered that it is the fact that corporations care only about profit that makes them good for the environment. Sure, they'll try to cut corners where they can, but they also have to sell a product. If they cause some major disaster or are caught engaging in practices that are actively destructive, they have a PR nightmare on their hands, not to mention the catastrophic results their activities have on sales and investment. In a world where quarterly results can mean the difference between employment and unemployment, you can be damn sure that corporations are keeping a close eye on anything that might negatively affect their image. Yes, from time to time they screw up, but they pay for it when they do, and are forced to adopt new practices. Sometimes, they pay for it so heavily that they cease to exist. Problem solved.
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I believe that this is where theoretical libertarianism fails in the face of the real world. How can your market based solution act in the face of untracable pollution? How do consumers know what percentage of smog is due to which oil refinery or petrochemical plant?
Let's take a look at some scenes from China, where environmental regulations are lax to non-existant:
