Economics Questions

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Jon Irenicus — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:45:20 GMT

I'm not sure what Caplan has said here that contradicts Rothbard. What Rothbard would argue is that you cannot, for instance, make a garden and then forcefully charge individuals for the "benefit" you're providing them. They did not commission the garden to begin with. It might be nice of them to compensate you for it, but there's definitely no legally enforceable obligation to do so. Nor are you obliged to provide the benefit. Nothing Rothbard said would entail that the doughnut shop, even if it were benefitting me, cannot be made to pay for an easement - I could just argue it's violating my rights by emitting its odour (if it were there first things would be reversed.) So I'm not certain what Caplan is on about.

As for his document, others have taken the time to refute it on this site, and in addition, Walter Block (and I think others) have responded to it. Block in fact got into a prolonged journal debate with the smarmy Caplan.

-Jon

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Conza88 — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:17:18 GMT

Sorry if this is a bad bump or something... I was wondering if this could be addressed.

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/whyaust.htm

"No more successful is Rothbard's effort to accept half of the theory of externalities: "The problem of 'external costs,' usually treated as symmetrical with external benefits, is not really related... xternal costs (e.g. smoke damage) are failures to maintain a fully free market, rather than defects of that market."[37] This purported distinction is mired in confusion. On the one hand, numerous negative externalities (or "external costs") are not physical, but psychic; a strip club in a churchy neighborhood is just as much a negative externality as air pollution, but a fully free market would only recognize the latter to be a property rights violation. Conversely, a positive externality can nevertheless be a trespass, for strict private property rights require not that an owner benefit from how other people use his property, but that the owner consents to how other people use his property. Suppose that my neighbor sets up a doughnut shop next door, and the fragrant doughnut fumes spill over onto my property. Even though this is a positive externality - I love the odor of doughnuts - as the owner of my home I can insist that he cease his trespass. Why would I shoot myself in the foot by doing so? Perhaps I value the smell at $10/year, and the doughnut shop earns $1000/year in profit from staying open. It could then easily be in my interest to charge the doughnut shop owner $100 for an easement to emit doughnut fumes over my land. Though I benefit from the fumes, I benefit more from the fumes plus $100.

In short, it makes no sense for Rothbard to accept negative externalities but not positive ones. Negative externalities often don't violate property rights, and positive externalities can. While Rothbard deserves praise for analyzing the extent to which private property can solve externalities problems, his reformulation of the theory of externalities is decidedly unsuccessful."

Just that, and the rest of the article if you want. lol

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Knight_of_BAAWA — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:41:58 GMT

Paul:
Where by "acknowledge the answer" you presumably mean kowtow to your opinion

Nope. But it's nice to see how people will twist reality.

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Jon Irenicus — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:51:02 GMT

Because it was insufficiently clear. He himself acknowledged that.

-Jon

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Paul — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:43:51 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:

Knight_of_BAAWA:
Ok then. You walk by my house. You smell the roses on your way just because they're in bloom and you can. My roses have impacted your olfactory sense. So clearly, according to you, this is a violation of property rights.

Mr. Karla:
It would be easier if you read all we write here, not just the exchange between me and you, this was mostly dealt with.

Oh I do read it all; you just kept refusing to acknowledge the answer. So it has to be brought up again and again.

Where by "acknowledge the answer" you presumably mean kowtow to your opinion; AFAICT, Mr. Karla is taking the conventional Rothbardian line, which seems to me the Right Answer. (And Jon Irenicus, for some reason, appears to think he's arguing with Mr. Karla when in fact he's saying the exact same thing...)

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Stanislaw — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:21:35 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:

And no one needed your consent to cook. Nor does your mere dislike of a scent mean that your rights have been violated. It's no different from not liking the scent of a rose which someone has planted.

And again with the "mere dislike" straw man. I thought we handled that problem a couple of times already. Since I have no idea how to explain to you that scents are physical entities, and therefore this is a property rights problem, I will just conclude that I got some thoughts cleared up by JAlanKatz and Jon Irenicus, for which I thank them

Mr. Karla signing out:P

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Knight_of_BAAWA — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:52:10 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:
The flowers were planted without your consent. The scent wafts without your consent.

Much like someone cooks without your consent.

See where this is going?

Mr. Karla:
But nobody needed my consent to plant them etc. I do not have rights to the composition of air EVERYWHERE.

And no one needed your consent to cook. Nor does your mere dislike of a scent mean that your rights have been violated. It's no different from not liking the scent of a rose which someone has planted.

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Stanislaw — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:05:31 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:
The flowers were planted without your consent. The scent wafts without your consent.

Much like someone cooks without your consent.

See where this is going?

But nobody needed my consent to plant them etc. I do not have rights to the composition of air EVERYWHERE. I have the right to it only if I have "homeasteded" it (or bought it) before somebody started to change it. If he changed it before, then he has homesteaded it first. You're still not looking at it in time.

My consent is given by walking into a place, in which the scent wafts. I either have a legitimate claim to that place and the composition of air or not. In your example I haven't got one.

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Knight_of_BAAWA — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:22:28 GMT

Mr. Karla:
Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

Knight_of_BAAWA:
From the fact that the particles are emitted by the property of someone else and land on your property, i.e. the inside of your nose.

Mr. Karla:
But with my consent.

The flowers were planted without your consent. The scent wafts without your consent.

Much like someone cooks without your consent.

See where this is going?

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Stanislaw — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:00:37 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:

Mr. Karla:
Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

From the fact that the particles are emitted by the property of someone else and land on your property, i.e. the inside of your nose.

But with my consent. You cannot violate my rights with my consent.

Knight_of_BAAWA:

Mr. Karla:
What I try to show is, that there is an obvious conflict: creator of the smell vs the smeller. And that it can be solved by - let's call it - "homesteading of rights" conected to property.

And yet that conflicts with the rest of what you've written.

I don't believe it does, the key is to see the rights as acquired in time. Just like property rights. Then there is no problem.

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Knight_of_BAAWA — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:01:34 GMT

Mr. Karla:
In your example: NO RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED, BECAUSE IT WAS MY CHOICE TO START WALKING AROUND THAT PLACE. And the sent was there first.

Knight_of_BAAWA:
But it's your nose. Therefore, it MUST be violating your rights, according to YOUR standards.

Mr. Karla:
Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

From the fact that the particles are emitted by the property of someone else and land on your property, i.e. the inside of your nose.

Mr. Karla:
What I try to show is, that there is an obvious conflict: creator of the smell vs the smeller. And that it can be solved by - let's call it - "homesteading of rights" conected to property.

And yet that conflicts with the rest of what you've written.

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Stanislaw — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:09:34 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:

Mr. Karla:
In your example: NO RIGHTS HAVE BEEN VIOLATED, BECAUSE IT WAS MY CHOICE TO START WALKING AROUND THAT PLACE. And the sent was there first.

But it's your nose. Therefore, it MUST be violating your rights, according to YOUR standards.

Exactly from which of my posts do you derive that me going into some smelly place is a violation of rights by somebody?

What I try to show is, that there is an obvious conflict: creator of the smell vs the smeller. And that it can be solved by - let's call it - "homesteading of rights" conected to property.

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Knight_of_BAAWA — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:14:04 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:
Other than language, you mean?

Byzantine:
Yes. Other than language I mean. Written constitutions have already been tried.

And argumentation isn't part of the use of language?

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

Byzantine — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:01:58 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:

Other than language, you mean?

Yes. Other than language I mean. Written constitutions have already been tried.

Re: Private property: Cooking a curry and Smell

britainland — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:22:42 GMT

I haven't read through this thread, so this may have already been mentioned, but there is an oft-cited English common law case dealing with smell and property rights called Aldred's Case (1610). Aldred claimed that Thomas Benton had erected a pig sty too close to his home, so that the stench made his home unlivable.

The classic precedent, quoted in virtually all modern nuisance cases, is Aldred's Case, which holds that a man has "no right to maintain a structure upon his own land, which, by reason of disgusting smells, loud or unusual noises, thick smoke, noxious vapors, the jarring of machinery, or the unwarrantable collection of flies, renders the occupancy of adjoining property dangerous, intolerable, or even uncomfortable to its tenants." The enumerated instances all involve something from person A's property coming onto the property of person B: either a discernible substance [flies, smoke, vapors], or sound waves and smells that are not just imaginary or conceptual, but real physical presences. In other words, we are not on the terrain where B is disgusted because he imagines A doing something on A's own property. Something real and definite has been inflicted upon B by A. Sometimes, too, there is also danger ["noxious vapors"].

See here for some further discussion: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/nussbaum-disgust.html