I decided to move some discussion from this post up to the top level here. Specifically, Watoosh wrote: "Well, if violence is defined as initiation of force (which, of course, presupposes certain property rights), then I think Rockwell is correct..." Well, if we define cats as elephants, then many people keep elephants in their house. More seriously, firstly, violence is not usually defined that way. It's defined as, you know, violence, so that, say, someone may respond violently or non-violently to someone who aggresses against them. Otherwise, it would make no sense to say, for instance, "He punched me, but I did not stoop to violence in response." And, secondly, the libertarian usage of "initiation of force" is very offbeat. If I wander onto someone's meadow, most people would not say I had "initiated force" -- I mean, sure, I used "force" against the earth to push off walking, but that's not force directed against...
Woody, your remark has a good point - that markets can help to close externalities - but of course that doesn't really make them go completely away, because much of the land and most of the wildlife are "public" and thus ineffectively owned.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of something I've seen recently about the bushtailed possums that are wreaking havok in NZ (which has no native mammalian predators other than a few bats): http://www.perc.org/articles/article1066.php