Тег: Externalities

If the NAP prohibits polluting someone else’s private property, then does it lead to anprim through the rejection of cars and industry?

анонимный вопрос

The principle of non-aggression is one of the criteria people use to make choices while living among others. However, its consistent application encounters the fact that different people in different situations have different criteria for what constitutes violence. A rock concert is far louder than a hammer drill behind a wall, but a person will readily go to a concert and tolerate the violence against their ears there, while they are far less willing to tolerate a hammer drill. Half a century ago, people were far more tolerant of engine exhaust or smoking indoors than they are today, but it is by no means certain that this trend will continue.

Since universal, objective, natural criteria for such things are absent, one must use various heuristics, such as, for example, the principle of estoppel, which states that someone who violates a certain norm is not entitled to demand punishment for others for violating that same norm. If you smoke indoors, you are not entitled to demand that others do not smoke. If you litter, you are not entitled to demand that others do not litter. Thus, places are formed where everyone more or less refrains from littering, and places where everyone doesn’t give a damn.

Indeed, strong intolerance toward emissions will manifest in some places; we can easily observe such territories called nature reserves or national parks. There, the owners maintain a very careful “non-aggression” on the territory and demand the same from others.

If there is anything constant in human society, it is diversity. No single principle will ever absolutely prevail over all. Not even the NAP. It is enough for you to implement it around yourself to a level that is convenient for both you and those around you.

Mass attack with acoustic waves

When the marketlet decided

Residents of the “Pravy Bereg” residential complex in Khimki are outraged that the developer deliberately filled the courtyard with old cars to occupy all the parking spaces. As an alternative, people are forced to buy spaces in the underground parking lot, with prices starting from 800K. How can this problem be solved under ancap?

Dmitry

What you described is a variation of the tragedy of the commons, where insufficiently clear property rights lead to a situation where it is profitable for everyone to exploit a shared resource as intensively as possible, leading to its rapid degradation.

As can be easily guessed from the introduction, the simplest remedy lies precisely in a clearer definition of property rights, for which ancap is quite well-suited. Let’s look at the details.

What do we have now? The developer obtains a permit from the municipality to build a house, reaches some agreement with the previous land owners, builds the house, sells apartments and underground parking, but has no right to take ownership of the land; the land under and around the house is the collective property of the residents because that is how the state decreed it.

How can residents who wish to park near the house and do not want to buy expensive underground parking spaces from the developer defend this right in the current situation? They would have to organize a homeowners association (HOA) and grant it the right to establish paid parking near the house, which must be voted for at a general meeting by a certain number of apartment owners holding at least half of the total residential square footage. After that, it would be costly for the developer to occupy the paid courtyard parking with his cars, and he would consider other ways to monetize his unsold property, for example, by renting out the spaces instead of selling them.

The scheme is not bad, but it is organizationally very complex, and as a result of its application, car owners will be forced to shell out for parking rent, which is clearly not what they would want, as it is much more pleasant to use a resource for free.

Under ancap, there is no external regulator requiring that the land under the house belong to the homeowners, and the developer will be interested in keeping it for himself, renting out both the apartments and all types of parking spaces to the residents. Or, as an option, selling the apartments and renting out the parking spaces. Or selling the apartments and the underground parking while renting out the above-ground ones. Or not creating one of the types of parking at all.

Fans of the HOA form would be able to either buy the land and build a house together by pooling funds, or buy apartments from the developer along with the land, should he be so inclined.

One way or another, in the absence of an external regulator acting as a force majeure, people will not have to perform strange and unnatural roundabout maneuvers when their interests can be stated and defended directly.

Maxim Katz’s nightmare…

Если вы пришли сюда по ссылке из других соцсетей, напоминаю, что на мой канал можно подписаться в телеграме, а для обсуждения деятельности канала там же, в телеграме, создан уютный чатик.

Under ancap, it is unlikely that all countries will instantly become single-story, so the question is about collective property.

Specifically regarding apartment buildings: what can be done in a future libertarian Russia with lunatics who keep rabid dogs in their apartments, bring trash from the landfill, drill every day, etc.?

анонимный вопрос

I have already answered a practically identical question, but since we have returned to this topic, I will now approach it from a slightly different angle.

In a recent post on monopolies, I mentioned that in a free market there are both factors contributing to the growth of companies and factors contributing to their fragmentation. The inconveniences that individual apartment owners face when attempting to jointly manage an apartment building clearly tell us that in this area, the tendency toward the growth of companies will be stronger in a free market. And indeed, it is more convenient for one developer to build an apartment building, for one legal entity to manage it, and so on. So, as the initial non-market Russian distribution of property (where every apartment has its own owner) is smoothed out, we will more and more often arrive at a situation where apartments are owned by a landlord and rented out by them.

Thus, the boundaries of acceptable behavior when using the apartments will be determined primarily by the owner, not the tenant, and for a quiet, decent resident, this is certainly convenient: you inform the owner that the neighbor is going crazy and has filled the apartment with some stinking junk, and the owner will set things right.

Now, in the event that the neighbor bothering you is actually the owner of their apartment, we fall within the framework of the usual problem of negative externalities: filing a claim, negotiations, threats, court, compensation. Moreover, again, if you are not the owner but a tenant, the problem is solved more easily, since it is easier to determine the amount of damage. You declare your willingness to move out if your landlord does not resolve the problem with the neighbor, and the landlord then presents claims to the neighbor, based on the amount of rent they risk losing, and this is a much more reliable basis for legal proceedings than other methods of assessing damage.

The moral. Housing maintenance is also a business, and no one promised that doing business is easy. But there are ways to make your life easier; after all, it’s the market.

And what about global warming?

I think it would be foolish to deny this phenomenon. The consequences of warming include the melting of glaciers and the flooding of lands, and consequently, the violation of property rights. Who should bear responsibility for this? And how can the market be used to prevent it?

anonymous question

For the vast majority of Earth’s inhabitants, global warming is, of course, wonderful. History clearly shows that during periods of climatic optima (which is why they are called optima), it was far more comfortable for people to live than during periods of cooling: at the very least, they didn’t starve to death as actively.
However, for the inhabitants of the atolls of some Kiribati, warming provides no benefit, as it is already warm at the equator; instead, the rise in ocean levels is a very real problem.

So yes, indeed, some people benefit from certain climatic changes and others from different ones, and if climate change is anthropogenic, then those for whom this externality is negative have grounds to file a claim for damages against those involved in anthropogenic climate change.
Let’s imagine how this could be implemented under ancap, that is, in a free market system. A native of Kiribati goes on the internet, first looks for theoretical information about the industries contributing most to global warming, then finds specific companies operating in those industries, and then starts flooding them with lawsuits? It seems unrealistic. Too many competencies are required from the victim; it is too difficult to calculate the amount of compensation for damages. When the damage is finally calculated, it may easily turn out that the calculation cost more than the amount of compensation. What is left?

Only private charity remains. Eco-activists create hype by filming videos about unfortunate natives disappearing underwater. Companies and individual media personalities capitalize on the hype by creating a fund to help those affected by flooding. With the fund’s money, individual natives who wish to do so are solemnly helped, in front of cameras, to move somewhere to Hawaii, the Philippines, or the Solomon Islands, or are simply given money, with which they acquire a yacht and then decide for themselves which harbor to dock in. Voilà, everyone is happy, everyone profits, the market has solved it!

Kiribati

Well, you understand that the mention of private charity wasn’t just for nothing, right? How about chipping in for a yacht? 
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