Colin James on the Greens

May 31st, 2005 at 3:03 pm by David Farrar

Colin James has a thoughtful column on the Greens and environmentalists.

I quote the last three paragraphs, which I think are pertinent:

The GM food stance sounded extreme in 2002. It was a hardline regulatory approach. Much of the rest of the Greens’ approach is similarly regulatory. They suspect the market and its instruments. Though most Greens are splendid people, you can get the impression from being around them that they also suspect humans.

But if sceptical humans are to be taken along a more environmentally sustainable route, regulation is hardly likely to get them to go willingly. The market and its instruments are proving more effective in other fields because they coax more than goad. Logically the same will increasingly apply in environmental issues.

Labour is slowly learning that lesson, against the grain of its own instinctively regulatory tradition. Maybe it is time for the Greens to do some of the same sort of learning. For all our sakes.

Personally I’m a big fan of using the market rather than regulations. They are at their best (in my view) on animal welfare issues but at their worst when (for example) having a go at the Warehouse for stocking big easter eggs. I mean who really wants MPs telling companies that their easter eggs can only go up to a certain size etc.

The Greens’ Frog has his/her comments blogged.

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24 Responses to “Colin James on the Greens”

carnifex senatoris Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 4:26 pm
The Greens do propose market solutions to a lot of issues. Just that they struggle to get it out there, and, in my opinion, do it the wrong way.
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frog Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 4:28 pm
My take on this column is here: http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2005/05/31/green-renewal/
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Kimble Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 4:35 pm
The very least the greens can do, if they do have market solutions as you say (and not just tax a subsidies as I suspect) is inform their own supporters. I have never bothered to count the number of people who say they support the greens and argue the inherent evilness of the markkket and entreprenuers.
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gazzadelsud Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 5:21 pm
i notice the frog response is denial, and the first comment is a cheap shot at Lomburg – what a surprise.

Talking of surprises, I was very surprised to hear that frog still thinks banning DDT was a good idea – millions of Africans dying of malaria probably wouldnt agree though
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phil u Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 5:25 pm
what is the green policy of movement of emphasis from personal taxation to eco-taxs if not utilsing market forces to bring about needed change..?

this carrot and stick approach is market forces on a low grade steroid..eh?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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gazzadelsud Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 5:40 pm
er no Phil if its called a tax, it generally relies on using the coercive powers of the state to extract.

Market forces rely on choice.
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phil u Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 6:06 pm
so gazz, what are your market driven solutions to the environmental issues we face..

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Lloyd Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 7:29 pm
i would have thought that leaving environmental problems to market forces was a recipe for disaster. Very keen to hear the reasons for your optimism gazzadelsud. There are many examples of societies that have collapsed when left to such forces. Why do you think ours is any different?
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Moleski Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 8:30 pm
I can’t think of any market driven solutions to the environmental issues we face. They don’t belong in the same sentence, nor should they. That doesn’t mean we can’t find solutions to environmental issues while living in a market economy, it’s just that I wouldn’t go searching in Market Economy lore for them.
I would treat them (as Colin James suggests we should) as two different responsibilities for the new government.
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Lloyd Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 10:02 pm
“Market forces rely on choice” indeed they do gazzadelsud and sometimes human beings make really bad choices. Are you suggesting we just roll with the punches on this one and if the choice is bad, well hey it’s the market that has chosen so we just go with it whatever the consequences. I mean when does reality intrude on the ideological trap you set for yourself or are you just condemed like rats in a maze to follow the ‘market’ because you are just too stupid to see beyond it?
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insider Says:
May 31st, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Air quality generally has improved without much in the way of regulation – although unleaded fuel made a big change. I suspect deregulation of imports has helped move it by encouraging more fuel efficient cars even if they were second hand.

Interms of societies collapsing attributed to environmental issues, most were likely authoritarian/tribal/monarchy and almost by definition highly regulated – the Khmers, the various South American ones, Easter Island. It’s really not a fair comparison as deregulation is a fairly modern fashion I would think.

It seems that modern western societies tend to be cleaner than say the former Soviet bloc, or African countries – but with the latter that might not be due to authoritarianism but rather lack of the rule of law and respect for law.

We could get highly political and debate the counter of the above and that the impact of free trade policy is just shifting pollution issues from the back gardens of the west to their less developed neighbours’ allotments
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James Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 12:12 am
Yet again we have evasion of facts and history by the Left.Market economys far out preform socialist ones when it comes to care for the enviroment.Richer people by virtue of being richer have the time and wealth to conserve trees and animals ,poor people tend to want to burn and eat them to try to stay alive!The former SovietUnion was a toxic hellhole when run by the central planners.In the west we have had better results due to private ownship of land which allows people to manage the earth as they see fit without the de4ad hand of central planning stuffing it up. We have more land in forests,more food produced,less air pollution in our cities than three hundred years ago,the list go’s on.The fact is the richer and more Capitalist a country is the more likely it is to have preserved it’s enviroment,the more Socalist,the less so…Green scare stories have been so debunked its astonishing they are still being pedaled in this day and age.
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PaulL Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 12:36 am
Market solutions example:

The difference between:
– regulating a lower tax rate for certain technologies (for example, making diesel cheaper than petrol, presumably due to the generally higher economy of diesel engines).

– a direct carbon or pollution tax, with the market sorting out whether the better solution is a hybrid car like a Toyota Prius or a diesel car.

A direct carbon tax is a “more market” solution, although arguably not a pure market solution.

My personal preference would be to work out a way to approximate the full externality costs of any particular activity, and work them into the cost of the activity. So, for example, include the costs of disposal in the cost of buying a plastic shopping bag, or include the true cost of water in the cost of Australian-grown rice.
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gazzadelsud Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 9:12 am
unbelievable, because I point out that taxes are by definition not a market driven approach, I get vilified by the usual suspects and am stupid, and selfish for not caring about the environment!

great stuff guys. I believe that is known as bait and switch in the trade.

Unfortunately you are dead wrong. James has put the case quite eloquently – allow me to parse it – you need to be reminded that only rich free-market democracies have the luxury to care about the environment. The west is still trying to work out how to clean up the bloody mess that state socialism has wrought to the environment.

If you want to care about the environment, stop pissing around in NZ which is relatively clean and have a look at China – the air in SHanghai is better than SPF30, the haze of industrial pollution spreads right across the Pacific. Then theres the flooded 3 gorges – yup damn those evil capitalists for not recycling!

By way of a comparison in London you can now see clearly, the thames has fish in, the air is cleaner than in Paris -Get a sense of perspective, and at least recognise that rich capitalists have done more for environmental protection than ANYBODY in history.
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phil u Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 9:49 am
um..not sure why you are frothing gazz..

of course capitalism must pay a key role in cleaning up the environment..

and my question was an attempt at dialogue..

i thought you might have some ideas to share…

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Peter Cresswell (Not PC) Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 10:09 am
The most obviously non-coercive means of environmental protection is property rights, as environmentalists like Canada’s Envrionment Probe have realised. Download and read Environment Probe head Elizabeth Brubaker’s book ‘Property Rights in Defence of Nature’ at http://www.environmentprobe.org/enviroprobe/pridon/index.html

I comment on ‘The Death of Environmentalism’ on my own blog at http://www.pc.blogspot.com/2005/05/greens-who-cried-wolf.html
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gazzadelsud Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 10:35 am
er Ok Phil but frothing in blogs is more fun than working!

My comment was simply that environmental taxes are not market driven.

I would never deny that there is a role for the state in setting and enforcing standards – to be pedantic its really a balance between recognising there are genuine externalities and not killing your businesses and thereby your economy to meet someone elses agenda.

In the long run, I do think that as countries get richer their citizens demand higher environmental standards – but this can take some time. In the interim those of us in richer countries (and NZ isnt very rich) need to manage the trade-offs.

environmental taxes are no more free than the externalities they seek to control,but because regulation doesnt SEEM to affect the government accounts, it is a tool that activists readily reach for.

This is why i don’t like what the greens do. They claim to have deep concerns for the environment and people, but their actions objectively hurt people. They were wrong about DDT, and this mistake is still killing millions in Africa today because the west won’t deliver aid if governments use DDT.

They of course you could look at the vilification of Lomburg for pointing out a few – well hundreds – of discrepancies in the global warming scam.

So where does this get me:

I think that environmental harm is a phase that industrialising countries go through, but the faster they come out of it the better;

Denying them the opportunity to improve the lot of their people is wrong.

Information is very important;

there is a role for Government in curbing actual harm;

regulation imposes costs that are not directly borne by those calling for the regulation – attempting to use the coercive power of the state to impose their values on others. I believe that there is a duty to be sceptical whenever this occurs whether its rich cats in villas in remmers or treehuggers in nelson.

Be very very sceptical of hysterical doom-laden warnings from people in birkenstocks. They have been wrong on most every issue so far (DDT, global cooling/global warming, icecaps growing/shrinkng, us all starving by 1990, oil peaking, etc etc) – but i guess such is the way of religious nutters regardless of denomination.

so, yes i agree that there is a role for state intervention, but we need to be clear that this also imposes costs, and some in NZ at the moment are keen to play up the benefits and ignore the cost.
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Lawrence Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 8:17 pm
“at their worst when (for example) having a go at the Warehouse for stocking big easter eggs”

Sorry DPF, I belive you don’t have children and so I am assuming you don’t understand child mentality. That is a very very ignornant remark in my opinion.

We have an obesity problem in our country and this type of promotion is contributing to it. Really, can you tell me that an 11 year old can make a jugement on this?

Better be prepared to pay more taxes to help pick up the pieces from all those fat children who become fat adults
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David Farrar Says:
June 1st, 2005 at 10:15 pm
Are you seriously saying that the Government should step in for parents and ban easter eggs over a certain size?

Why not also have the government publish a compulsory menu for all parents to use at home?
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phil u Says:
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:09 pm
dpf..there isn’t much point in singling out one egg, i agree..but surely you aren’t defending those cowboy industries and retailers that flog poisonous rubbish disguised as food/drink, are you?

um..obesity epidemic..?..longterm health implications..?

for the for your information file.. 500gm jar of basic jam, as flogged by foodtown, contains twelve and a half ounces..330gm of sugar….whoar!

read the labels folks..

btw..dpf..how do you suggest these wild west industries be reined in if not by a carrot and stick/regulation regime…

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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David Farrar Says:
June 2nd, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Phil – that is the difference. You want to ban things because you don’tr trust people to make choices you approve of. So do the Greens.

As long as there is correct labelling and it is not poisonous, I don’t believe there is any role for Government to be telling people what food they should eat.
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Kimble Says:
June 2nd, 2005 at 2:48 pm
Why is it that the Greens only support things which cost OTHER people something? GE food is a good case, the greens want all GE material labelled. Wouldnt it be far fucking easier to label all NON ge food?
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phil u Says:
June 2nd, 2005 at 4:43 pm
dpf..”.As long as there is correct labelling and it is not poisonous, I don’t believe there is any role for Government to be telling people what food they should eat..”

in theory, yes david; but in practice you have to search out and pay premium for good quality food..

while cheap crap is cheap, and everywhere..

don’t you think the example of the jam should have large letters a la cigarette packets saying ‘warning..this contains twelve and a half ounces of sugar..consumption may be injurious to your health’..

of course, this crap sells most in low income areas, for the obvious reasons, and where the obesity problem has a grip..

do you all need skywriters or something.?.:)
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phil u Says:
June 2nd, 2005 at 4:44 pm
dpf..”.As long as there is correct labelling and it is not poisonous, I don’t believe there is any role for Government to be telling people what food they should eat..”

in theory, yes david; but in practice you have to search out and pay premium for good quality food..

while cheap crap is cheap, and everywhere..

don’t you think the example of the jam should have large letters a la cigarette packets saying ‘warning..this contains twelve and a half ounces of sugar..consumption may be injurious to your health’..

of course, this crap sells most in low income areas, for the obvious reasons, and where the obesity problem has a grip..

do you all need skywriters or something.?.:)

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Colin James on the Greens

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