Does Public Property Exacerbate the Problem of Environmental Damage?

We hear a lot these days about the problem of environmental damage. Whether its the ozone layer, the ocean, or any other hot issue of the moment, the general message is that the environment is in trouble, capitalism and western development are the causes, and government intervention is the solution.

I don't think its so simple.

Most of us have heard the parable of the "Tragedy of the Commons", originally published in 1833 by William Foster Loyd. The story goes that, in England, there were once common areas to which the peasantry could take their herds to graze. However, after a time, the commons had become so completely destroyed by grazing that the government passed the enclosures act, allowing private firms to develop on them and paving the way for the Industrial Revolution.

This illustrates an important principle: Private property is what gives people an incentive to pay the costs of upkeep. Why would one incur that cost, if one does not have ownership over a thing? Since others will profit from your cost, should you choose to incur it, and you have no personal incentive to do so, since it will not prevent you from using this thing, there is no reason to do so.

A more modern example goes like this: Say that I own a factory which produces wingnuts, and this factory belches smoke out, all day, and all night, over a river. But who owns the river? Nobody, it is public property. And public property really means the property of nobody.

So while diplomats and dignitaries wring hands over accords and resolutions, nothing is done.

But what if somebody owned the river? Well likely they would be unhappy that I was belching smoke out over it. Certainly my actions would lower their own enjoyment of the river, but would also likely have an effect on their ability to use the river for other ends.

Any property-owner who cared would certainly sue for damages! And it is unlikely that the cost of reaching some settlement with the river-owner would be greater than the cost of a protracted legal battle with him, for my factory.

There would likely be no hole in the ozone layer if there was somebody who owned the ozone and had something to say about people ripping large holes in his property.

But nobody does. When everybody owns something, nobody owns it. And nobody takes responsibility.

Government interventionist plots being hatched up are almost universally plans to expand, not contract, the reach of public property.

Count on them to be policies to expand, not contract, the level of damage to our environment.