Perhaps the main reason I reject classically liberal economic views is externalities. How should economic systems best account for them?
I recently had a Facebook exchange with an old acquaintance of mine who is a disciple of Murray Rothbard, over the issue of pollution in particular. He stated that anybody who was the victim of pollution should be able to sue the source. (I recognize this as an argument Rothbard promoted.) I responded that consistently, this would allow anybody in a neighborhood to sue anybody who drove a car through the neighborhood for polluting the air of the neighborhood, so this would probably result in a sort of primitivism he didn't have in mind. Also, I didn't point it out at the time, but this would probably seem to allow for far more reaching statism than this particular person would be comfortable with, as the mechanism for enforceablility seems to be going for a government.)
He never responded to me, which was a shame because I imagine this would be a common objection.
I recently had a Facebook exchange with an old acquaintance of mine who is a disciple of Murray Rothbard, over the issue of pollution in particular. He stated that anybody who was the victim of pollution should be able to sue the source. (I recognize this as an argument Rothbard promoted.) I responded that consistently, this would allow anybody in a neighborhood to sue anybody who drove a car through the neighborhood for polluting the air of the neighborhood, so this would probably result in a sort of primitivism he didn't have in mind. Also, I didn't point it out at the time, but this would probably seem to allow for far more reaching statism than this particular person would be comfortable with, as the mechanism for enforceablility seems to be going for a government.)
He never responded to me, which was a shame because I imagine this would be a common objection.
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