Response #4: More Opportunities to Bash Free Market Economics

Ah, yes. The old "free markets would solve everything if only those stupid governments would stop getting in the way" approach. How I missed thee. Dryzek chapter 6 focuses on the market, and the discourse in which the market can solve all of our problems. While Dryzek does poke holes in this discourse, as he does with all the discourses, I want to add a few that he missed.

On page 124, Dryzek notes that "owners of forests that could not be logged economically would keep them as wilderness areas or invest in wildlife conservation in order to attract hunters or photographers, who would be charged admission to provide income for these conservation investments." While Dryzek later points out that privately owned conservation land often end up being sold to developers, he missed an opportunity to make a broader point: conservation lands need to simply exist. We cannot just save forests that people want to visit, hunt in, or take photographs of. That is not truly a market solution because there are only so many hunters and photographers and only so many people taking vacations at any given time. The entire model relies on the assumption that photographers are a major economic actor. I can think of few wildlife photographers who have the kind of money required to make conservation a good investment. In the end, a forest that is not commercially viable for logging will now (most likely) eventually be commercially viable for logging, or at least for something, and whatever that thing is will probably make the owner a lot more money than conservation. Therefore, by this model, the forest will eventually be cut down. Therefore, we need a system in which forests are allowed to simply exist, regardless of whether we are actively using them for something (because we passively use them for regulating global CO2 levels, among other things).

In my high school economics class, when we were studying Adam Smith's notion of free-market capitalism, my teacher was quick to point out that even the most hardcore, bottom-line, anti-regulation capitalists admit that governments have certain responsibilities. Namely, governments must handle pieces of business that are in the best interest of everyone, but no individual has any reason to take care of. For example, ensuring drinkable water: no individual will clean a whole reservoir, but collectively everyone around needs the water to be clean. Smith lists other examples including education, the prevention of monopolies and maintaining an active military*. So, Dryzek is making a straw man argument in parts of this chapter. I'm not sure there are truly that many free-market capitalists who believe that a healthy environment will happen when every single piece of air, water, and land is owned by an individual or firm. All but the most extreme capitalists tend to back off when it comes to certain issues like drinking water. The government does have its place, and that place is to protect the people when the market does not protect them.

*I find this somewhat questionable, but he was writing in the 1770's, so I'll cut him some slack. Anyway, while I'm staunchly anti-military, I suppose if one has to exist I'd rather it be run publicly, by the government, than by a bunch of rich people each with their own private militias.