Having just finished reading the lead article "The Waste Makers" in Consent #10, I take issue with the simplistic analysis of Dr. Walter Block. In a perfect world with the Golden Rule working 100% of the time, he would be right, but in the world of real people, where greed is a much greater driving force than love, he is dreaming.

The forests don't belong to the person who goes to cut them down. They belong to all of us. Not even just Canadians, as we can reflect in the situation of the rain forests of Brazil. The minerals in the ground do not belong to the person that digs them out, and having dug them out, he is not free to walk away and leave a potential hazard or eyesore for the rest of us. In processing the ore, he is not free to pollute the rivers and land around, which has adverse effects on all of nature, including humans.

So who has the right to cut trees, or dig minerals? Who has the right to grant to individuals the right to do these things? Who is to say how the trees are to be cut, and what is to be done with the land afterwards? Who is to say what can be dumped in a river? Who is to determine who is to pay the health price from the chemicals in the water? What compensation are the people whose health is risked to get from the miners? Is it not the right of those people to be compensated ultimately by the users of the mineral that is mined?

In our imperfect world, there has been no consideration given to the people harmed by the actions of others. Even the courts are agonizingly slow, and only reflect the thinking of the society from which the judges are drawn. Do the politicians protect the victims? Not at all, unless they have a lot of votes.

Dr. Block seems to be advocating unrestricted free enterprise, and damn the consequences. When the trees are gone and the air we breathe is unable to sustain life, then science will come up with something else to substitute. I don't believe that or accept it. I find that even in my short lifetime that the quality of life has deteriorated markedly, even while the material accumulations have expanded enormously. The deterioration has been in the air I breathe, the water I drink, the food I eat (additives), the pace of work that I must do to keep going. I am like Alice in Wonderland, I must run faster and faster just to stay where I am. I do not find that people are any happier for all the material possessions they have acquired, that their parents could not.

I think that we must pay the real price of what we are doing to nature, and pay it up front. The trouble is, that we are not trying to find out what "nature" is charging for what we are taking, and we don't compensate "nature" in any way for what we take. Thus, we consumers (tbat is all of us) are not paying a fraction of the cost of the products we use. We are leaving it to future generations to pay the bill for our borrowing (or stealing) from nature now.

Thus, paper plates might be a whole lot more expensive, if we were paying the true cost of the trees, the true cost of having clean rivers down stream from the paper mills, the true cost of treating the garbage. But we subsidize some people to use paper plates at a ridiculously low cost. Perbaps some of my china dishes that are more than 50 years old have been washed at a ridiculously low (subsidized) cost over that period of time. Have I paid the real cost of the detergent, the water, and the sewage disposal related to those washings?

There is no doubt that, left to run all by itself, the system will produce goods as described, according to the individual choice of the many consumers. Most of those consumers, feeling very self righteous, will run around and demand that somebody clean up the rivers, and the polluter pay. Never will that individual stop to realize that he is the polluter. He is the one that causes the trees to be cut. He is the one that is responsible for the pollution of the river. He is the one that wants the garbage disposed of in somebody else's back yard. He is the one that is not paying his way. Your Herman cartoon on page three (of Consent #10) tells it all.

So please answer the question. How shall we restrict the actions of some of us, so that we do not infringe the rights (to clean air/water/etc.) of others? In our complex world of billions of people, hundreds of billions of other creatures on this planet, how are we going to be fair to all? It is very obvious that we are not doing it now, and have no plans or intention of doing it in the near future. Where economic interests clash, the majority is running roughshod over the minority, and always has. Is this fair? If not, how will Dr. Block's approach correct it?

Much and all as I would like total freedom, total responsibility must go with it. In our imperfect world, total responsibility must be imposed, because none of us will even see, much less take up, the burden. (I bring to your attention the Japanese drift net fishing.) You call that a loss of freedom. So do I, but I think that it is something that we must all give up willingly, to enable us to live together without war.

Dr. Block mentions the cartel of the doctors. Would he advocate that anybody should be able to advertise his ability in medicine, and that it should be up to the consumer to sort out who is good, and who is not? Of course the consumer can investigate, if he is not too sick, and if he has time. But for most of us it is just too complex to be able to carry out on one's own. We delegate the task to those we think are qualified to do it for us. Many situation show that even this is not a perfect solution, but can you imagine what it would be like if every individual tried to do the selection all by himself? That the system we have devised does not work perfectly is to be expected. That it is gradually being improved is apparent. That there will be abuses is inevitable. That humans could never live with complete freedom is undeniable. (It is interesting that all wild animals have it, and would survive very well but for the predations of humans.)

I realize that it is impossible to cover the total complexities of Dr. Block's thesis in a couple of pages of Consent, but I think that he has left such a naive and simplistic picture, that he trivializes the basic tenets of the party for more freedom, not total freedom.

I think that the party must not just talk about freedom, but also must talk about responsibility. I don't think that will make you popular with most of the community, but I perceive that the party is much more interested in doing the right thing, than being popular.

- January, 1990, David E. Bawden, WILLOWDALE, Ontario

EDITOR: Given that Dr. Block's thesis "The Waste Makers" was focused on the issue of planned obsolescence, not on the environment and free markets, your observation that it is impossible to cover all the complexities of his argument in a couple of pages of Consent is particularly relevant; indeed, his thesis only touched upon these considerations. However, those wbo attended Freedom Party's October 29, 1989 Sunday brunch with Dr. Block --- on the environment --- had each and every one of your questions answered in detail, and much more. (Coverage on this event is contained in Freedom Flyer 16, and Dr. Block's entire presentation on the environment has been transcribed in Consent.

Nevertheless, your letter includes a lot of positive recommendations (which we support) and the questions you ask deserve a direct response; briefly, here are a few of our major considerations and concerns:

We fully agree that "we must pay the real price of what we are doing to nature, and pay it up front." In fact, that's what responsility to our environment (and to each other) is all about. Thus, the essential question is how is this to be done?

Your presumption that the forests "belong to all of us" is precisely what makes it impossible to fairly answer any of your questions relating to the environment. The concept of "public ownership" is a collectivist myth which is at the very heart of our environmental dilemma. There are, both in working theory and in practice, only two essential forms of ownership: private ownership and government ownership. "Public" ownership is a misnomer, ownership implies the right of use, disposal, trade, etc., of whatever property is being discussed. Fundamental to the right of ownership are private property rights which, when properly defined, not only extend to all private individuals the right of ownership, but make it possible to protect their property from the irresponsible actions of others. Thus, you are quite right in saying that, for example, miners are "not free to walk away and leave a potential hazard or eyesore for the rest of us." Indeed, should any hazard become a problem for other private property owners and private individuals, they should be well within their rights to seek redress in a proper court of law (i.e., one that upholds private property rights). The bottom line is this: The people who should normally have the right to decide the various questions that you ask are those who own --- and are responsible for --- the particular property in question. It should never be otherwise.

Unfortunately, most people seem to assume that "public ownership" will somehow result in "public responsibility" --- even though both terms defy definition and cannot be carried out in practice. Individual responsibility is the only kind that exists (and is the only kind a government can effectively enforce) and thus the privatization of our natural resources is a necessary element in the preservation of our environment. (See Consent # 11, "Polluted Perspectives", by Greg Jones, for an application of this principle to the forests; also, see last issue of Freedom Flyer, "Freedom Party pushes to clean up Welland River.")

The alternative to private ownership is "public" (i.e., government) ownership, which by your own observations has failed the environment miserably: "Where economic interests clash, the majority is running roughshod over the minority, and always has." But "majorities" running roughshod over "minorities" is a political process, not an economic one. Were private property fights protected, majorities would have no right to run roughshod over minorities. The question you answered for yourself says it all: "Do the politicians protect the victims? Not at all, unless they have a lot of votes."

But even with a lot of votes, politicians can't protect anyone from anything. In fact, it's the politicians we need protection from. They have been encouraging voters to abuse the democratic system to vote for cheaper benefits, not, as you suggest to "pay the real price of what we are doing to nature, and to pay it up front." Voters vote to avoid their responsibilities, not to take on more responsibilities; the myth of collective ownership allows them to falsely believe that they have exercised their responsibility simply by voting, when in fact they have abandoned their responsibilities by continually voting for government programs that offer them "freedom" without responsibility. For years, voters have been voting for politicians to dispose of their garbage and waste at artificially subsidized costs, thus discouraging recycling (at a profit!) and unnecessarily polluting the countryside.

If it's responsibility you want to see exercised with the environment then the privatization process is the first avenue you should investigate.

One final point: yes, doctors should have the right to advertise their ability; they too are not "public property". As individuals, they are entitled to the same rights as the rest of us. In the United States, various hospitals specializing in various fields routinely advertise their services and by all accounts, everyone benefits. There is no reason whatsoever to suggest that the medical referral systems you refer to would disappear as a consequence of doctors advertising.