Environmentalism and Economic Freedom: The Case for Private Property Rights
by Walter Block
Journal of Business Ethics 17: 1887–1899, 1998.
This paper shall attempt to reconcile environmentalism and economic freedom.
Before making this seemingly quixotic endeavor, we must be sure we are clear on both concepts. Environmentalism may be non controversially defined as a philosophy which sees great benefit in clean air and water, and to a lowered rate of species extinction. Environmentalists are particularly concerned with the survival and enhancement of endangered species such as trees, elephants, rhinos and whales, and with noise and dust pollution, oil spills, greenhouse effects and the dissipation of the ozone layer…
Economic freedom also admits of a straightforward definition. It is the idea that people legitimately own themselves and the property they “capture” from nature by homesteading, as well as the additional property they attain, further, by trading either their labor or their legitimately owned possessions. Sometimes called libertarianism, in this view the only improper human activity is the initiation of threat or force against another or his property. This, too, is the only legitimate reason for law. To prevent murder, theft, rape, trespass, fraud, arson, etc., and all other such invasions is the only proper function of legal enactments.
At first glance the relationship between environmentalism and freedom would appear direct and straightforward: an increase in the one leads to a decrease in the other, and vice versa. And, indeed, there is strong evidence for an inverse relationship between the two…
How can environmentalism and economic freedom be reconciled? Simple. By showing that free enterprise is the best means toward the end of environmental protection. This appears a daunting task at the outset, given the emphasis placed by most environmentalists on socialism, and their hatred for capitalism. But a hint of the solution may be garnered by the fact that laissez-faire capitalism, as adumbrated above, strenuously opposes invasions, or border crossings, and that many environmental tragedies, from air pollution to oil spills, may be reasonably be interpreted in just such a manner. The reason for environmental damage, then, is the failure of government to protect property rights (omissions) and other state activity which either regulates private property, or which forbids it outright (commissions). Let us consider a few test cases…