682. Can Free Markets and Environmentalism Go Hand in Hand? Here’s the Real Answer

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Way the World Works. So in springtime, people celebrate Earth Day, which is, you know, this big push for protecting the environment.

And I think a lot of us who believe in smaller government, who believe in individual liberty, who don't like how bureaucratic the regulatory state is, I think we get a bad reputation for people assuming that we do not like the environment or care about the environment, because we don't think the government should be dictating the, you know, creating regulations to protect the environment when one government regulations usually don't work and that there are better ways. You know, if you can do something without government force, that should be the way that it is. And unfortunately, it's not.

And a lot of times people assume like, oh, you must hate the environment because you don't want to pass the new Green Deal, or you must hate the environment because you don't want to, you know, outlaw gas stoves and all these silly things. And it's just, it becomes such a ruckus. So I want to talk about today, free market environmentalism.

I want to talk about what environmentalism looks like and how we can still love the environment and want to care for the environment, but we don't have to do it in the way that the government does it. You know, in the past, we've talked about something called tragedy of the commons, which is when there is something owned collectively by a lot of people, it ends up getting neglected because there's no one person that feels responsible for it. And honestly, that's kind of what happens when you have government trying to regulate something that is, you know, this collective earth, right? This thing that belongs to all of us, because when it comes down to it, who is going to do a better job of taking care of something, right? A government who's far removed from something or a person or a community that is close to something.

And the answer to that is always going to be the community that's close to it. And so we need to be, we need to be, um, you know, encouraging these kinds of solutions because all the government wants to do is they want to make rules and they want to make regulations and they want to do them blanket. What I mean by that is it's like a one size all thing.

And they forget about the other problems in mind. You know, California loves to do this. They want to outlaw, you know, old cars and make sure everybody's doing electric cars by a certain date.

Or they want to outlaw gas stoves or they want to, you know, all these silly things. And it's coming from these people who think, okay, well this is going to save the environment, but they're also forgetting that maybe not everyone can afford to get a new car. Maybe not everyone can afford this.

So there's other factors at play. People have preferences. Um, you know, maybe it's, it's more important to me that I can afford my car than to buy an electric car.

And it's not because I hate the environment, it's because that's what is my priority. So there's all sorts of factors. And it's just, it's, it's also hurting the economy, especially when they try to make rules on businesses saying you have a big carbon footprint.

We hear this a lot. So we're going to do like climate taxes and make businesses pay more based on, you know, how, what, what carbon emissions they're putting out. And one of the worst things you can do for an economy is start penalizing, um, the, you know, commerce businesses who are, who are creating value for us, who are creating jobs for us, because what happens if they're forced to pay more funds, then they're going to maybe cut back on jobs or they're going to raise prices of their goods and services.

So this never works out quite like people would like it to. So let's talk about, again, uh, the problems with trying to regulate, you know, from Washington to a, you know, national forest in Utah or something like that. You have the problem.

We've talked about the knowledge problem a lot. That's F.A. Hayek's thing where big planners, they can't plan for everything because they don't have all the knowledge. They don't know the needs of the people.

And so you get these, you know, big regulators working for some ABC, you know, like, like department of energy or, or, um, you, you know, you have the, uh, I'm just going to say TSA. That is not what I wanted to call them. EPA, there's the right one who they're just deciding someone in Washington deciding, you know, what river needs to be helped to looked after the most or what forest is thriving, but they're not looking at other needs.

There's one example. Actually, there's a, uh, a, the Congress forest in Alaska, which, uh, there's like some outdated environmental law that was regulating how many trees could be cut down. And it was stopping all these, these lumber companies from getting the, the wood they need, the materials they need to make pianos, to make guitars, to give to all these, these companies.

And there was no actual harm to the forest because there were, it's just people think, Oh, you cut down trees, you're bad. They're not looking at other things like how many trees are growing or, or there's a lot of other factors. But because of this, you know, person in Washington DC making this rule, people are suffering.

This small Alaska town that is dependent on this, this industry is, is it collapsing? And so there's so many things. And of course that happens because they don't know the needs of those people. They're living in, so you're not working at some really ugly concrete building in Washington DC.

It's crazy how many ugly buildings we have in Washington DC. There's like some beautiful ones. And then you have like these ones that just look like a concrete prison, which I suppose they kind of are, aren't they? And then there's this other really problematic view.

And that is that people have come to associate private property with like people wanting to destroy the environment, like, Oh, biz, big business, private property, private ownership. They're going to buy up this land and they're going to abuse it. You hear a lot.

There have been a lot of efforts, um, to, to privatize some national parks and people get all up in arms. This happens in my home state in Utah all the time, where the thought of this happening, people get very angry and, Oh, they're going to turn it into an amusement park. They're going to do this.

Maybe they're going to, you know, charge entry. And this makes me laugh for a few reasons. One, already we're paying for these national parks with our taxes.

And then you also have to pay for parking and then you also have to pay for admission. So like, it's already a racket. It's already ridiculous.

And two, it assumes that just because somebody has money or has big, a big business, that they're not going to want to take care of something beautiful. There's a lot of outdoor enthusiasts, a lot of, you know, hikers who own businesses that love nature. It's not saying that they are going to abuse it and turn it into a garbage dump just because they own it.

In fact, when people own property, they have a vested interest, a personal interest. We talked about this with the tragedy of the commons in keeping it up, in making it in preserving it and making it the best it can be. And so when people fear private ownership, and I'm not saying that any single like every single person who would want to privately own a national park or something is going to do the right thing.

I can't. I don't. That's a knowledge problem, right? I can't make.

I don't know. I don't know what people want to do. But I have faith in humans and enough to believe that that that's not going to be the case.

I think that is fear mongering. I think there are so many people that love the environment that would like to actually see national parks be put to better use, maybe keep them cleaner. Maybe, you know, there's there's so many ways the market could innovate them that we don't really know because they've never been allowed to.

And so the privatization of of these these important lands or even of things like like, you know, areas that need to be preserved, whatever they might be. People are so scared. They think they need to be under government jurisdiction.

The EPA has wreaked havoc with their Clean Water Act and how they determine that and saying like, oh, this is a wetland. We need to preserve it. And it's like a puddle on someone's land.

But it's like there are other ways, even if there was a real wetland, that people might want to protect that we are discounting people and we are giving this power to the government, which more often than not does not actually solve the problem. But they do harm a lot of people. And this is not something hypothetical.

In fact, I want to direct you guys to an organization called PERC. That stands for Property and Environment Research Center. PERC is great because they're they love the environment, right? It's not like it's some, you know, individualist libertarian.

Let's destroy the environment. No, they love the environment. But their approach to it is let's find ways that property rights and the free markets can actually solve the environmental problems, you know, peacefully and without government force.

So if you haven't checked out PERC, highly recommend going to their site and seeing all the great stuff they're doing, because I think that they just have such a great solution and such a such a unique approach to the environment. And the next thing I want to touch on are are leading by example. So the government, again, leads by force.

That's all it knows how to do. But there are so many examples of people of all ages coming together and leading by by again, real world examples. There are students who organize, you know, voluntary park cleanups during the government shutdown.

There was a lot of fear mongering of like, oh, my goodness, who's going to clean the parks? And then as it turns out, like people will volunteer to do it because people do care. And so then there's, you know, youth groups restoring trails. These are things that have happened.

Kids at school may be like creating like recycle, recycling, you know, initiatives and things like that. Although recycling, we're not going to get into that today. But you know, there are these there are these these voluntary efforts being made by people.

There were this was one of my favorite things. There was an app a few years ago I came across that some like high school students made that was like helping turn waste into other things. Like they were finding ways to reuse things for sustainability.

I just thought that was so cool because nobody was telling them to do that. They just did it because they had curiosity and because they were passionate about it. There were no mandates.

There were no laws. It was just voluntary action, which, shocker, actually works and people do it. And this this is my favorite part is like, look to the entrepreneurs.

We forget. Well, we don't because we know it's up, but we forget that entrepreneurs, they they are problem solvers. That is what an entrepreneur is.

And so when you let entrepreneurs, you know, find cheaper, better, cleaner technologies to help and that are actually going to work for sustainability, work for the environment, we should let them. And why do they do that? Why do we think that they're so evil and, you know, greedy capitalists? It's so silly because what do problem solvers like entrepreneurs thrive on? It is by by the the wants and needs of the market. And so if a customer wants something like, you know, more sustainability in their products, there's an incentive, a huge incentive to do it.

I mean, look at all the people. People love the environment. Look at all the people who are willing to spend more money to buy things that they think are going to be better for the environment.

It's a huge market. And so to believe that an entrepreneur wouldn't do this if they were given the option to do it, then, yeah. But why would they? Why would they if a government's like, we're going to charge you this big tax just because you're a business? Then no.

Like, why would you want to spend more money to create more sustainable things when you're already having to pay? So it's almost like the government is de-incentivizing these businesses to want to make solutions on their own. I think there's also a inclination for hardcore, you know, government loving environmentalists to think that incentives are bad because if somebody isn't doing it purely because they want to save the environment, they're they're working at a self-interest and they're evil, which is so silly to me. And I say this a lot, that self-interest isn't a bad thing, especially if it's doing something good.

So what do I mean by that? So ranchers, when you're protecting wildlife because they want the tourism and that creates income. So, yeah, of course, that's a win-win for everybody or fishermen who are managing their fisheries like responsible because they can because people respect that and they'll want to they'll want to use their businesses or landowners conserving water when the efficiency benefits them directly. It's not a bad thing.

It's a great thing. And it makes you know, makes the market go round and it protects the environment. This kind of innovation is what I always like to refer to as permissionless innovation, because it doesn't require going to the government asking for permission.

It doesn't require a government forcing somebody to do something. People see opportunities, they they respond to incentives and they they do they do the thing that they're incentivized to do care for the environment. But what's odd is there's a lot of times actually the government EPA is guilty of this actually works in reverse.

Like if you don't get a license to like restore this body of water, then you also get fined even though restoring the body of water would help conservation. It's such a messed up bureaucratic system that it drives me nuts. But I think that's why people get a bad name, people like us who are individualists, they get a bad name for, oh, you must hate the environment because we don't want the government forcing solutions on us.

The market, people, voluntary actions. This helps the environment and we don't need force to do it. And so this Earth Day, as people are celebrating and maybe condemning some people for not appreciating the environment, I think we need to really push back against that narrative and say, no, we love the environment.

In fact, we love the environment so much that we want to be able to create solutions that are better than government solutions. And we want to be able to do it without having to beg their permission or or, you know, be regulated to death. So there's so many good, good things to consider here.

And, you know, again, let's push back against that narrative that we don't love the environment because I think that's just so silly. Of course we do. And the free market is capable of so many things.

So maybe this Earth Day, think of ways where you can participate and you can voluntarily create some initiatives that might that might help a little bit, you know, if that's something that you're interested in. So we will wrap it up and leave it there. As always, don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast.

And until next time, I will talk to you later.