This post from TokyoTom deplores the fact that (TT excepted) supporters of the Austrian School, and for that matter libertarians in general, are almost universally committed to delusional views on climate science. The obvious question is why. As TT points out, there are plenty of political opportunities to use climate change to attack subsidies and other existing interventions. And the fact that the environmental movement has shifted (mostly) from profound suspicion of markets to enthusiastic support for market-based policies such as carbon taxes and cap and trade seems like a big win. Most obviously, emissions trading relies on property rights and Austrians are supposed to like property rights.
On the other hand, given the near-universal rejection of mainstream climate science, we can draw one of only three conclusions
(a) Austrians/libertarians are characterized by delusional belief in their own intellectual superiority, to the point where they think they can produce an analysis of complex scientific problems superior to that of actual scientists, in their spare time and with limited or no scientific training in the relevant disciplines, reaching a startling degree of unanimity for self-described “sceptics”
(b) Austrians/libertarians don’t understand their own theory and falsely believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own views must be wrong
(c) Austrians/libertarians do understand their own theory and correctly believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own views must be wrong
While (a) clearly has some validity, most of the comments on climate science made here by self-described Austrians and libertarians suggest that either (b) or (c) is true. But which?
The problem is complicated (but also to some extent clarified) by the bewildering variety of Austrian/libertarian sects. Starting as far out on the spectrum as we can go, it seems clear that, if mainstream climate science is correct, neither anarcho-capitalism nor paleolibertarianism can be sustained. The problem with anarcho-capitalism and other views where property rights are supposed to emerge, and be defended, spontaneously, and without a state is obvious. If states do not create systems of rights to carbon emissions, the only alternatives are to do nothing, and let global ecosystems collapse, or to posit that every person on the planet has right to coerce any other person not to emit CO2 into the atmosphere. For paleolibertarians, the fact that property rights must be produced by a new global agreement, rather than being the inherited ‘peculiar institutions’ of particular societies seems equally problematic.
For more moderate libertarians, who accept in principle that property rights are derived from the state, I think the problem is more that the creation of a large new class of property rights brings them face to face with features of their model that are generally buried in a near-mythical past.
To start with, there’s the problem of justice in the original allocation. Until now, people developed countries have been appropriating the assimilative capacity of the atmosphere as if there was always “enough and as good” left over. Now that it’s obvious this isn’t true, we need to go back and start from scratch, and this process may involve offsetting compensation which effectively reassigns some existing property rights.
Then there is the problem that the emissions rights we are talking about are, typically time-limited and conditional. But if rights created now by modern states have this property, it seems reasonable to suppose that this has always been true, and therefore that existing property rights may also be subject to state claims of eminent domain.
Overall, though I, think that acceptance of the reality of climate change would be good for libertarianism as a political movement. It would kill off the most extreme and unappealing kinds of a priori logic-chopping, while promoting an appreciation of Hayekian arguments about the power of market mechanisms. And the very fact of uncertainty about climate change is a reminder of the fatality of conceits of perfect knowledge.
This seems to be the kind of thing Tokyo Tom is talking about. But so far, it seems as if he is in a minority of one. Any others want to join him?
Note While I’d be interested in comments from libertarians on whether they think mainstream climate science is consistent with their views, comments repeating delusionist talking points will be deleted or ruthlessly edited.
John Quiggin 
@James
It depends on what you mean by left. In the old sense, “left” implied an adherence to the principles of classical liberalism, opposition to corporatist/mercantilist interests and distrust of centralised authority, while “right” meant a support for the status quo and tradition. In this sense, left-libertarianism is not an oxymoron. There are, in fact, nothing wrong with the goals of socialism if achieved by voluntary association, and it can be entirely consistent with libertarianism. It’s just that modern left is more than content to adopt authoritarian measures to achieve these goals, which is what makes it so distasteful.
However, if you are talking about left-libertarianism in the Chomskyist/radical egalitarian sense, I simply cannot keep track of the various contradictions (such as support for the Khmer Rouge), or explain how a society is meant to function after the abolition of property rights (which is an essential tenant of this brand of left-libertarianism).
the thread disappears at 50 comments does it?
“market-based policies such as carbon taxes and cap and trade”
Who’s delusional? Dude you don’t even know what a market is. Very appropriate for a Keynesian utopianist to be labeling guys who actually understand basic phenomena in the causal-realist sense like money, banking, interest rates etc.
Guys who understand the economics of human action and interaction know how absolutely mindless, wealth destructive and tyrannical all these interventionist control freak schemes and scams are.
By the way Al Gore invented the internet. Now thats delusionism.
okay just my comment seems to have disappeared
Try seeking the previous page Gerard
There’s a bug at 50. You don’t get to look at the previous page until there are 51.
Suppose you know for a fact that an ETS is introduced in 2010 and that by 2100 it has made no difference to global warming. Moreover, the ETS has had a far more severe impact on the economy than was forecast in 2100. Knowing this, would you still support the ETS?
of course, Libertarians are probably right about the state not being a emergent or natural outcome of human’s activities and interactions. It is well known now that aliens built the Egyptian pyramids so they probably imposed the idea of the state at the same time.
The state is an alien technology.
@A Hypothetical
Of course not. The beginning and the end of the rationale for an ETS is to secure a good environmental outcome. If there were a better way of acheiveing the outcomes needed, I’d support it, but of course, as a matter of political practice, given that we are working with a world capitalist system, there isn’t.
JQ , in answer to your question, the right has for quite a long time now seen anything to do with the environment as left domain.
Environmental concerns, were not, as Sea Bass suggested “taken over by socialists”. I think this is the type of fundamental error in their thinking. It is not about the environment for the libertarians / Austrians. They site themselves in direct opposition to any policies that address environmental concerns whether they are market based initiatives or other because they are fighting an ideological battle with “the left”. It started with the labelling of greens as “tree huggers” or “feral greenies” or whatever. It has now extended to any inititaive to do with the environment. Its a form of myopic ideology extending from what they perceive as old foes, but in reality the real foes to advance and progress and positive environmental initiatives are the silly libertarians.
So in thats sense Ill go with o[ption b)
They know damn well they are wrong but they haave backed themselves into a corner with long ago ideological battles they are bnot yet prepared to concede defeat in.
Its tragic actually, because more and more of them will cave in eventually and the few remaining will be only what they are “the knowingly denialist”. The sort of comments you get in here cannot be indicative of the mainstream right because change must come.
But JQ, I will stick up for some of Austrian beliefs…in the sense that banks, if given enough rope, can strangle us with their malinvestments …Im inclined to believe the fraction reserve requirements should be larger (and of course that would mean share market profits lower – thats fine with me). The financial markets are not the be all and end all…and Id disagree entirely with libertarians on the score that “we dont need government to regulate markets”. Arrant nonsense.
I also agree that governments and politicians can be utterly useless and they get paid way too much because they are now aligned with the interests of the rich in this country (because their salary falls into that bracket).
It doesnt mean I agree we should get rid of them entirely.
Most libertarians that post in here have taken the notion of the price mechanism, minimum government and no intervention in markets to an absolute extreme and extremists are not helpful ever. They are particularly unhelpful when it comes to any climate change initiatives. Particularly an spectacularly unhelpful. In fact, a hindrance…because they attempt to turn any meaningful discussion into an ideological battleground (that means you Sea Bass – “the socialists have taken over the environment” when the case really is “the libertarians / Austrians (yes ABOM, not all Austrians) have turned their back on the environment”).
Libertarians are mythical beasts like unicorns. In truth all so called libertarians are either anarchists who feel that the word anarchist isn’t acceptable in polite company or else a deformed dwarf variety of social democrat that doesn’t want to get too carried away with the government thing. I’m the latter type but I hang around with anarchists because the regular variety of social democrats say mean things to me.
Maybe it hasn’t been said enough but the fact that a price mechanism is the proposed solution to concerns about CO2 emissions is actually a quite fantastic improvement on some of the previous ideas that were advanced. Unfortunately some of those previous ideas are still being implemented in parallel (government subsidy for home solar panels anyone) but the fact that a price mechanism is at the centre of the debate is still progress of the first order. I oppose the ETS more because of political concerns (rent seeking consequences) than simple economic ones.
The reason I ask questions about the climate science is because the government is kind enought to permits me to. Maybe somebody should put a stop to me asking questions about the science but I don’t feel inclined to stop doing so willingly. I question lots of things irrespective of the number of respectable people who don’t like it. Blogs would be boring if nobody questioned orthodox views. And the questions you ask need not define the beliefs you hold.
I’m in favour of a revenue neutral carbon tax that removes payroll tax and cuts income tax, preferably one that also absorbs and replaces fuel tax. I’ll sign a petition if it helps. I’m in favour of removing the prohibition of nuclear power in Australia (we may soon be the only country in the G20 without nuclear power). I can’t speak for all deformed dwarf social democrats however.
I think the main accusation that can be levelled at deformed dwarf social democrats (and other mythical libertarians) is that we lack a sense of urgency and priority regarding AGW. We demonstrate an unwillingness to be agreeable in associated discussions and a lack of eagerness to pay more to the government or to be sympathetic to every CO2 mitigation scheme that comes along. We won’t sign up for three dozen cases of whatever in advance.
I find discussions about the origins of property rights somewhat esoteric and not fundamentally relevant to my worldview. I’m happy to consider the atmosphere to be public property but I think it should mostly be a utility type service with few associated charges. Like free health care the government should permit us to use it however unlike free health care it ought to be free. The case for the government providing it’s atmosphere to us for free is stronger than the case for the government providing it’s health care services to us. However if I must pay for a bit of the atmosphere in which to store my CO2 then I’d prefer it to be cheap.
Austrians are a crazy bunch of moonbats. They can’t even propose a sensible gold standard. I think we should have a few of them in parliament but too many would be dangereous. Ron Paul can run the USA but only because he would be better than the alternatives and they are desparately short of talent.
Al Gore was quite cool in that debate with Ross Perot in 1993 when he articulated the problems caused by the Smoot Hawley tariff act. Al Gore isn’t all bad. A bit too wooden perhaps.
John Quiggin – I’d be happy to publish this blog article of yours at ALS as a guest post if your really keen to understand what aussie libertarians think. Assuming you’re not just trolling.
(I think I’m out of the sin bin – just). Alice, I agree that if legal tender laws are not revoked, careful regulation of the banking system (particularly of demand deposits) needs to be imposed by govt. But please don’t think we couldn’t work perfectly well without govt – if legal tender laws were revoked. We could. It’s just not going to happen short of Revoution (but a man can dream).
And please remember that Keynesians have been screaming for the “wasting” of resources of pointless consumption for months now (stimulus after stimulus with Krugman arguing the spending of govt debt money was too little too late!). Are they really interested in saving the environment when Keynesiana appear to be uniformly “consumptionists”?
Why worry about global warming when we have real disasters to worry about? Like the current oil spill, like the GFC, like poverty, like starvation, like bankster crimes, like general overconsumption?
A “depression” (ie a dramatic reduciton in consumption) would be “pro”-environment, yet you never here a Keynesian arguing that. You do here Austrians saying a depression is a necessary adjustment from years of pointless overconsumption.
Perhaps the Austrians are the environmentalists?
The only consistent thing coming from the Keynesians (screaming environmental disaster/carbon tax on the one hand, and screaming for resource-wasting govt consumption spending on the other) is that govt is the solution in both cases.
Statist want govt to grow any way it can. Regardless of whether it’s good growth or bad growth. And (mostly) it’s bad.
@Alice
“Environmental concerns, were not, as Sea Bass suggested “taken over by socialists”.”
Alice, you wilfully and misleadingly misquoted me in failing to differentiate between environmental concerns and the environmentalist movement. This is an important distinction, and you should be thrown in the klink for wilfully miseading commenting. I am concerned about the environment, but I most certainly am not an environmentalist. And as morally repugnant as putting a price on natural resources may appear to you, we recognise that it is the most effective way of rationing their use. Although I do find the libertarian disdain for vegetarians irrational and insulting at times.
Most libertarians would argue that if someone’s abuse of the environment interferes with somebody else’s enjoyment of their property, they must provide some form of restitution – the nature of AGW makes this difficult, but the principle remains the same. As far as I’m concerned, the Austrian school is anchored around its theory of the business cycle, and so it really shouldn’t have anything to add on the matter. The fact that, to a certain extent, the likes of Mises.org is now a front for the neo-confederate secessionist movement should at least give you second thoughts before making the link that JQ’s post makes between denialism and the Austrian school – correlation does not equal causation. I certainly can’t imagine the likes of Mises and Hayek fitting in well with the Lew Rockwells of today.
@Sea-bass
Ok Sorry Sea Bass – I dint willfully misquote you. I used the word “concerns” versus “movement”.
Hairsplit. Lets take drought and water prices (which happens to feature in the 2007 HSC exam). Of course they want all the little kiddies to suggest that water be subject to demand and supplyn and be priced accordingly so that…in a drought people use less…so there will be less waste and bla bla and the market will be more efficient.
Grabage See Bass. The people like Cubby Station “upstream” who have have their water rights in plentiful supply (even in a drought winner takes all) do well, make more profit and can afford to take a lions share of water.
What is efficient about that if people donwstream are being decimated and whole towns need drinking water.
Utter utter garbage – the market for water. BS. Double BS. Its a con. Its like the financial markets where the rich get richer and live and the poor can go to hell and without water.
You may swallow this nonsense Sea Bas. I dont.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
“Austrians are a crazy bunch of moonbats”
While not completely disagreeing with the intention of your statement, the term “moonbat” applies to unthinking or insane leftists (I think the opposite would be “wingnut” for rightwingers). One could hardly say the Austrian economists in general fit this description.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Terje it doesnt help when you used expressions like this “deformed dwarf social democrats” in here. People might be nicer to you if you left out the “deformed dwarf” insult. Its really an insult to Sleepy, Bashful, Grumpy and the rest as well as to social democrats.
Sea Bass – I was a vegetarian for six years (1998-2004) and none of the libertarians I know have ever given me any grief about it.
@ABOM
ABOM – control yourself…!! (the penalty wasnt that bad – you must have some redeeming features) but ABOM, Im all for shrinking senior and middle management government salaries. They have got to the point of being absurd. Just because they are in control of budgets …what was it Adam Smith said ….”People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public”
Well Im afraid the “managerialist public service” is of the same trade and they meet often and they may as well be seen as a conspiracy against the rest of us (because they are).
How many front line nurses could be paid from the salary of Nathan Rees? How many rail workers could be paid with the salaries of the middle to senior bureaucracy??
They have been ripping us all off, and we (lambs to the slaughter) wonder why frontline public services are collapsing in a heap.
Ill happily see certain classes of the public service have their salaries slashed ABOM. I do not want to get rid of them entirely but there needs to be better public service controls. Its all gotten way way too comfortable hasnt it?
And ABOM
We would do well if we cut half the governments costings and reviews…these go on and on ad nauseum with a whole raft pf bludgers and consultants on the pay treadmill funded by our taxes. What would I like to see? A man on the railway station at night keeping teh peace…like there used to be (and another you paid money for your ticket to – two bodies better than one at night on a railway station…and anotherone walking through the train to make sure drunken louts dont cause trouble).
Its not too much to ask and I dont need a review. We did it before with much less taxes and much smaller population but these efficiency committee bureaucrat nuts went mad with their efficiency costsings, sacked everyone else and paid themselves a fortune to sit on a committee.
Lost it, we have…completely lost it. How to run government.
John,
I am not able to read the comments from 5-50, so do not know if anybody made this point, but I find it a bit disturbing that you provide no links or quotes in your basic argument. Just who are the libertarians or Austrians who have been questioning climate science? I would agree that there is a correlation, and most of the climate scientists who are at the skeptical end of the spectrum (but not all) tend to have libertarian sympathies. However, regarding Austrians, I have been hanging out some lately at the Austrian Economists blog, and I have seen nearly zero discussion of climate science as such, per se, although some self-styled libertarian blogs have raised questions about it, such as econlog run by Bryan Caplan and Arnold Kling.
Regarding the Austrians and libertarians in general, I think what you will find is that indeed as expressed by some here, they do not like the idea of doing anything (or much) about it because it seems to involve some big increase in government intervention in the economy, even if part of that is to set up cap and trade markets. One can say they have not done their benefit-cost analysis right, but this is not the same thing as questioning the climate science. I do not think you have made the basic case your post relies on.
@ABOM
ABOM –
“You do here Austrians saying a depression is a necessary adjustment from years of pointless overconsumption.”
Thats the problem I have Abom – the Austrians seem to want the poor to be first to enter and carry depressions and provide a cure for the overconsumption of the “have mores.” ie a short sharp depression.
Its never an equitable solution even if the depression does trickle back up to the wealthy and constrain their overconsumption (eventually and mildly) for that reason.
@Barkley Rosser
Barkley, you can follow the initial link in the first sentence of the post to a libertarian criticising the Mises Institute on this score. Other libertarian/Austrian inclined groups that promote delusionism include Cato, Centre for Independent Studies, Heartland, and CEI. Perhaps you wouldn’t count Fraser, AEI, IPA and others as libertarian, but they take the same line.
To turn it round, as I asked in early comments, can anyone point to an Austrian or libertarian organisation that actively supports mainstream climate science? I’m happy to toss this question to you also.
John,
You are overstating things here and should be more careful. CEI is definitely a front for those who want to do nothing and supports climate science skepticism, although it is not specifically libertarian, much less Austrian. Cato houses Patrick Michaels, who does hold libertarian views. However, if you have not checked lately, his current position is that we are indeed going to experience warming, although he argues it is mostly in the Arctic and is likely to be at the lower end of the IPCC range, which is not a questioning of “climate science” at all.
The guy you link to complains about a recent post by Stephen Kinsella at MI, who apparently has never previously written on the subject. Also, apparently Walter Block has made such arguments before there. I would agree that MI is the extreme end of the Austrians, and it does not surprise me that some of this has shown up there. However, it seems that it has not been something they talk about much, and I do not see it coming out of the more Hayekian oriented centers of Austrian thought such as George Mason or NYU.
So, I continue to think you have not made your case very well. Your link turned up a whopping two specific examples, and some of the others you mention here do not cut it either. Again, please do not confuse people criticizing climate legislation on grounds of cost or dislike of big government with those who do so on grounds of questioning climate science.
@Barkley Rosser
Per JQs question – to get to the point – regardless of whether JQ did or didnt make his case well in your opinion…
Can you point to an Austrian or libertarian organisation that actively supports mainstream climate science (seeing as you appear to know something about the subtleties of Austrian / Hayekian views)?
Hang on, JQ’s (and Alice’s) question has changed from “accepts mainstream science” to “actively promotes mainstream science”. I certainly accept the scientific consensus as do, when I last looked, many associated with CIS.
I do not actively promote it, if by that you mean, write articles and such arguing in support. For one thing, I am not qualified to do that. But then in that sense nor does JQ actively promote the science.
Seems the argument has been not so subtly changed.
Ken N, Austrians and libertarians don’t seem to have any problem actively opposing mainstream science – in fact, nearly everything I’ve seen published by CIS on this topic has been hostile to mainstream science. You can look at these search results and find only a handful of exceptions
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Sqv&q=+site:cis.org.au+Cis.org.au+%22global+warming%22&ei=9_zvSqf_IpOKswOI9-XuBQ&sa=X&oi=nshc&resnum=1&ct=more-results&ved=0CBMQ2AQ
Perhaps there is a silent majority who accept mainstream science but never say anything about it. But if so, how could we tell?
@Ken N
Good point. It’s also beyond me why a think tank, whose members are certainly not unified on all issues, and which encourages critical thought and legitimate skepticism, should have an “official party line” – libertarians generally discourage that kind of thing.
Of course, the likes of Mises.org, being economists, shouldn’t get involved with the science when they don’t understand it – but that certainly hasn’t stopped a lot of economists becoming self-appointed authorities on the matter.
JQ, your observations range from “actively supporting” to “accepting” to “actively opposing” to “being hostile to”.
I’m not sure precisely of what you are accusing your opponents (whose main identification seems to be that they believe that free markets, rather than government regulation, are the best way of allocating resources in a more or less free society. Nor is it clear what you are demanding they do to clear their names in your book.
I am sure that many of that persuasion accept (as I do) mainstream science on AGW and accept evolution by natural selection and accept that gays are entitled to all the rights and freedoms that the rest of us have and accept lots of other things without feeling the need to say anything about it. It is not as if there is some kind of Nicean Creed that all Australians must recite at every opportunity.
deleted
I think that lumping a lot of groups in with libertarians is not that helpful in clarifying the issues. Genuine libertarians tend to be extremists, somewhat indistinguishable from anarchists in believing that all government is inherently evil and almost any state intrusion on personal freedom a violation of human rights.
Groups like CIS are not even close to being libertarian. Nor do they spend a great deal of time questioning mainstream science on climate change (the IPA, on the other hand, does seem to have more of an agenda in that regard).
In any case, libertarians have never had much influence over public policy or debate (they are perhaps marginal in the US, and pretty well irrelevant elsewhere). So I don’t really understand the need to fret over the views of people who are never going to have much influence on anything.
THis so called ‘mainstream’ or ‘popular culture’ science PQ squaks about, neglects the empirical sciences, which means it neglects that the knowledge must be based on observable phenomena and capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers working under the same conditions. Until PQ’s science is based on the true empirical sciences, instead of ‘popular culture’ it will always be questioned and won’t be accepted by the ‘mainstream’.
Alice – you do realise that the seven dwarfs were all libertarians.
Mainstream is the antithesis of individuality.
Mainstream pressure, through actions such as peer pressure, can force individuals to conform to the mores of the group. ‘Mores’ being customsor values are not empirical sciences.
Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t need to follow me, you don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes! We’re all individuals!
Brian: You’re all different!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes, we are all different!
Man in Crowd: I’m not.
Another Man: Shhh!
With thanks to Wikipedia and apologies to Monty Python, “The Life of Brian”.
This is an ancient smear, still trotted out from time to time, that was concocted based on a couple of paragraphs in works co-authored by Chomsky and Herman from the late 70s. The “support” involves a comparison of the behavior of the US media in covering atrocities committed by the US and its allies verses those committed by the Khmer Rouge, and also some comments to the effect that the Khmer Rouge’s rise to power was a consequence of America’s carpet bombings of Cambodia.
Now that doesn’t amount to “support for the Khmer Rouge”, except in the eyes of the deliberate slime-throwing slanderer. If you want to see real support for the Khmer Rouge, look no further than every government outside the Soviet bloc, all of which opposed the Vietnamese invasion that liberated that country. In particular Reagan and Thatcher, who continued diplomatic, monetary and even military support for the Khmer Rouge remnants long after they have been forced out of power.
@gerard
Chomsky’s support for the Khmer Rouge was more implicit. He deliberately downplayed the massacres and brutality of the regime, citing the alleged bias of the Western media and the “lack of proof” of Khmer Rouge atrocities. He was right to oppose the military campaign in Cambodia and the atrocities committed by US troops, but this does not absolve him from his responsibility to condemn atrocities carried out by the communists. Whether or not the carpet bombing led to the Khmer Rouge takeover and the establishment of “Democratic Kampuchea” is arguable, but even if it were the case, this does not somehow “excuse” them.
Which ties in very nicely with our theme of bending the facts to fit in with one’s ideology, in this case Chomsky’s blind eye with respect to Khmer Rouge atrocities, as they broke 2 million eggs to make the Perfect Socialist Omelette of the Future.
I assume the opposition to the Vietnamese invasion was a war by proxy, cold war-thing given that Vietnam was basically in the palm of the USSR’s hand by that stage. I’m not going to defend Thatcher and Reagan, since I don’t think they should’ve been messing around in other people’s business, but their alleged support for the Khmer Rouge most probably had more to do with getting up the USSR’s nose than with any ideological affiliation.
Anyway, this will no doubt be seen as a thread derailment, so I shall leave it there.
the couple of paragraphs in question come from a time of total media blackout in Cambodia and are in the context of huge US media exaggerations of atrocities committed by the Vietnamese communists to justify America’s intervention in the region (which killed around 3 million and are still killing landmine victims today). Now Chomsky and Herman didn’t actually say that these third-hand Cambodian reports (which were all that were available at the time) were exaggerated, in fact they hedge their bets by saying that “the worst reports may be true” but that doesn’t change the subject at hand which was the different standards of treatment given by the media, which put third-hand accounts of Khmer atrocities on the front page while blacking out first-hand accounts of US+allies atrocities. So I’ll admit that what they wrote was very easy to take out of context once the whole truth was in, however to say that they actually supported the Khmer Rouge and its policies (and considered the KR’s atrocities as simply omelette-making) is really an extreme distortion. You’re right that it is a thread derail but I couldn’t let this one go, there’s enough to criticize about “Chomskyism” without resorting to fabrications.
and yes, the support of Reagan and Thatcher for the Khmer Rouge was purely due to the fact that they had been overthrown by the “wrong” side – the Vietnamese communists, under the old “enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle. okay that’s the end of this derailment, you may now continue with your scheduled thread.
But, but, but…this assessment implies that libertarians base their analysis of and claims about physical facts on whether those facts agree with their political and economic views. That would be dishonest, wouldn’t it?
@jquiggin
I think this gets to the heart of the matter.
I was a capital “L” Libertarian from 1982-2000. During that time I saw a tremendous evolution away from simple Anglo-American classical liberalism towards Austrian economics. Austrian thinking is deductive and in its most extreme form borders on silopsism. They have a profound distrust of credentials and of empirical evidence. All Austrians will tell you that economics itself is not a science, but the truth is much more stark. Most Austrians do not believe in science at all.
John,
Your turnaround question is irrelevant. Most libertarian or Austrian groups have the sense to know that they are not climate scientists, and therefore do not pronounce on the issue. For that matter, MI has not pronounced on the issue as an organization. It has simply been the location where a few individual Austrians have shot off their mouths.
I cannot prove it, but I do hang around with a lot of these folks, and most seem to accept the science, even if more skeptical than others, but complain about the policy prescriptions on economic or political grounds, as I said. I have also been hanging around climatologists of a variety of stripes since the early 1970s (I first learned about chaos theory from climatologists before the term was even coined). I continue to be annoyed at people on both sides who are not climatologists making pronouncements about climate science, including generalizations about what other people say.
Alice,
No, I do not think John proved his point. As I said initially, he has overstated it, although there certainly are some libertarians and Austrians who fit the story he tells. But, I think they are a distinct minority.
I have a question for the economists here. Please be a little tolerant: I am a physicist, not an economist.
What would be wrong with gradually introducing a tax or excise on carbon? (We already pay a tax on petrol.) What if the level were set high enough to replace and therefore eliminate some other large tax so that people gradually shifted their spending towards items and activities that produced less carbon dioxide?
I, and probably many others, would at least be able to understand this. I suspect one reason the government likes its proposed emissions trading scheme is because it hides the fact that Big Coal can carry on with little inconvenience.
I am wondering whether this post is a thinly disguised partisan rant; whilst the body of the text posits that the Austrians/libertarians are an inherently deluded bunch it is then implied that comments must confine themselves to mainstream science, or be deleted or ruthlessly edited
Tokyo Tom certainly knows how to make the most of it, as Stephan Kinsella says in comments
Subsequent posts by TT descend into the absurd.
It is worth noting that whilst TT’s “Lost in Tokyo” is hosted by the Mises site there is no moderation by Mises or Kinsella.
«What would be wrong with gradually introducing a tax or excise on carbon? (We already pay a tax on petrol.) What if the level were set high enough to replace and therefore eliminate some other large tax so that people gradually shifted their spending towards items and activities that produced less carbon dioxide?»
If you ask a pragmatic economist, the idea is that a number of small taxes is better than a few bg ones; and that raising the price of carbon dioxide is based on a logic that is disputed by some. Fuels get taxed *only in countries that don’t produce them*, because from a statist perspective they increase the dependency of one ruling class (that of the consuming nation) on the goodwill of another (that of the producing nation). That is not disputed by many. In effect most fuel taxes are import tariffs, and mercantilism is a tradition.
If you ask a libertarian, freedom from coercion is an *absolute* right, regardless of cost, and even if climate change unrestrained by taxes on carbon were to cause the extinction of most of humanity, tough; what matters is the right of individuals to enjoy their property without that being confiscated for someone else’s pet project (even if it preventing massive climate change damage). If wealthy private individuals decided that using their property to have a good time instead of saving the planet is what they want, tough on everybody else.
@jquiggin
I agree JQ. If Ken accepts CIS proclamations on climate science then he must know that the CIS has a core of active paid repeat witing climate change denialists…who of course pose as “independents” and are anything but. Jennifer Marohasy and Andrew Bolt to name a few for starters. The CIS actively peddles denialism on climate change (calling it “climate fundamentalism” and other names) and if you can locate any article by the CIS on climate change rather than climate change denialism – feel free to post a link here.
They also claim indpedence as an organisation yet refuse to name their big funders. It doesnt matter. Their board members are either big coal representatives or big coal supply chain representatives. Its no better than Heartland, another front for arrogant elites who dont want the imposition of any controls by government on their dirty or unhealthy (to the enironment and us) production and are too stingy to implement their own cleaner technologies. Ipso facto they want no controls, no responsibility towards change and are willing to fund rags like the CIS or IPA with their paid lackey lying writers to do it. The thing that amazes me is that they are organisations with actually very few people involved (an extreme minority funded by some serious unnamed money) who act to produce a real snowstorm of media releases and fake “research journal articles” lies for the media. That is their sole raison d’etre. The dissemination of rank garbage.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
LOL Terje – your proof that the seven dwarfs were all libertarians…?? Does that mean I can call you lot all deformed dwarf libertarians?
This is an executive statement from CIS, how does it prove that they are denialists?
@rog
Yes Rog – a nice banal innocuous little policy statement by the CIS, when they get their real get agenda out like this…
Click to access spring04-7.pdf
[…] science – are "almost universally committed to delusional views on climate science", as he puts it – though these are not words fairly put into my mouth. Like me, though, Quiggin wonders why […]