Bob Murphy punts on whether "Cap and Trade" is a "market solution"
In response to my comments last month to Bob Murphy‘s June 4 blog post, Cap and Trade Is Not a “Market Solution”, Bob has kindly noted on the blog thread his intention not to let my comments on his post remain the last word:
Just following up on an old thread here: TokyoTom, I have to pass right now on answering your (good) objections. As with Silas [aka Person], I can’t take the time to give you a really good answer, just to post on a blog.
For what it’s worth, I do plan on doing a formal response to Weitzman’s work on fat tailed uncertainty vis-a-vis climate change. And re: Silas’ objections, I might be able to justify using “work hours” to write up something for the QJAE or JLS on a free market response to AGW.
Published: June 30, 2008 2:23 PM
(link and emphasis added)
I look forward to your response, Bob.
I already made my prediction on David Zetland’s blog about what Bob’s QJAE/JLS article will look like:
-You’ll list all the wasteful uses of oil that government leads to, which is non-responsive, because as I repeatedly emphasized on the other aguanomics thread, those very same wastes are holding back economic growth that would lead to the same oil being used, most likely sooner.
-You’ll talk about how people can use social pressure to encourage boycotts of carbon-intensive companies, not seeing how your’e basically conceding the calculation debate, since the possibility of a public boycott getting producers to accurately account for consumption of resource (as opposed to pure private property + supply/demand) implies the possibility of non-price accounting of the cost of scarce resources.
-(Optimistic scenario output of crystal ball) You’ll (finally!) give a well-informed account of how property rights could arise in the atmosphere and other environmental resources, which completely reconstitutes cap-and-trade or a carbon tax via private courts, thus proving the very same policies you railed against to really be no more objectionable than government bans on murder.