It’s every man for himself said the elephant as he danced among the grasshoppers.

It’s every man for himself said the elephant as he danced among the grasshoppers.

Some years ago I saw David Suzuki explaining that a particular forest would continue to grow at 2-3%/year forever but, that permitting such growth to continue was inconsistent with an economic model that focused on short-term profits.   From such a viewpoint, he pointed out, it would make more sense to cut the entire forest down and invest the profits at 8%/year.   The economic model he referred to is similar to those used in arguments by many Libertarians in that it tends to simplify the model by ignoring “externalities.”

A Libertarian description of fueling your car for a Sunday afternoon road trip might focus on the act of paying a fair market price for the fuel and ignore the community’s cost of cleaning up the pollution created by burning the fuel.   A more enlightened Libertarian argument might concede that the cost to the community is not such an “externality” after all and would have to be considered as part of the cost of the transaction but there are other considerations that are too abstract to be included in any mass-marketed political philosophy.   Consider the act of burning that hydrocarbon fuel, for example…  For every carbon atom you burn you must extract two oxygen atoms from the atmosphere.  For every two hydrogen atoms you burn you must extract one oxygen atom from the air.   The cost of the oxygen is an externality in a simple economic model.  You don’t pay for it so why should you consider it at all?  Similarly, the owner of a forest cannot consider the value of the oxygen that the forest produces since he can’t charge for it.  The purely economic model is forced to ignore a key aspect of reality.

Libertarianism offers a watered-down vision of anarchy; one that appeals to those of us who feel that we can take care of ourselves and other people should have to do the same but, at the same time, recognizes that this individual independence is not absolute.   It is a form of anarchy that recognizes the need for government to enforce the law and protect us from invasion.   There’s an inherent ambiguity, though, in recognizing the need for government while rejecting government interference with individual rights.   It’s not always clear where the line should be drawn between the rights of the individual and the needs of society.  The use of a flawed economic model to make that decision does not reassure me.