whit on Nostr: This argument is elegant in theory, but it collapses under empirical weight. Hayek, ...

This argument is elegant in theory, but it collapses under empirical weight.

Hayek, Mises, and Hoppe are right about one thing: #central #planners #cannot #substitute for #local #knowledge

#Environmental #justice fails when it tries to #micromanage #outcomes from afar. But that critique quietly assumes something that #history repeatedly #disproves

that #markets actually #enforce #property #rights against powerful actors.

They often don’t. 🚨

The real environmental failures we point to aren’t the result of #collectivism or #commons by default. They’re the result of #asymmetric #power delayed #harm and #legal #insulation

Mars Hill.
Cancer Alley.
Flint.
Parkersburg.

These were not failures of “too much socialism.” They were failures of #markets without #enforceable #accountability

In Parkersburg, property rights existed. Contracts existed. Markets existed. DuPont still dumped PFAS for decades while knowing the reproductive and carcinogenic risks. Why? Because the costs were externalized across time and bodies, and the #legal #system #lagged far behind #chemistry

Lawsuits arrived after #exposure was #universal. Markets didn’t price that risk. They buried it.

Hayek’s knowledge problem cuts both ways. #Communities #lacked #access to internal corporate data. Residents didn’t know what was in their water. Prices cannot signal harms that are:

#invisible
#delayed
#non-consensual
#biologically #cumulative

Mises’ “tragedy of the commons” is also misapplied here. The most #catastrophic #environmental #harms did not arise from communal ownership, but from #privatized #profit with #socialized #damage.

Privatization without strict #liability simply accelerates extraction. Ownership alone does not guarantee stewardship when exit is easy and harm is slow.

Hoppe’s vision is the most revealing. In theory, pollution is “aggression against property.” In reality, when #corporations #own the #courts by #scale , #victims cannot meaningfully #arbitrate

Private covenant communities don’t protect downstream rivers, unborn children, or plankton. They #protect those who can #afford to #exclude themselves.

Environmental justice is not a call for central planning utopia. At its #core , it is a recognition that some harms are #involuntary #unavoidable and #unequally distributed, and that markets left alone have #repeatedly #failed to prevent them.

The question is not “markets vs the environment.”

It is who bears #risk who #captures #profit , and who waits #decades for #proof while #biology keeps score.

#Free #markets #excel at #innovation #once #costs are #internalized

Environmental justice exists because, historically, they haven’t been.