by: Justin Burman
Is it ethical to designate ownership of a public goods such as a fisheries to an individual? The ownership of a resource often promotes its sustainability. Resources are better cared for when ownership is designated because it is in the owners best interest to not exploit it. The longer the resource lasts the more profit the owner can obtain. Despite the common befits to both the resource and it owner it seems some what egotistical. Who owns a fishery? Who has the right to sell it?
31 comments:
It may not be ethical but there is no other way to go about dealing with a public good like this. The only legitimate claim one group has over another is "they were here first". While this seems childish, it is the only fair distribution process. Otherwise there are clearly unethical imperialistic efforts to take over the land/resource (especially if it is profitable). And this imperialistic logic also leads to resource degradation because once depleted they will just move on to the next fishery; and whoever was there first most likely respected the fish population because they have been tending it longer and are dependent on the fish. The example that comes to my mind like this is when white settlers in the American West totally depleted the buffalo population and put Native Americans at a disadvantage because the buffalo was there entire source of food, shelter and clothing.
I fear the impact of allowing our natural resources to become private goods. While this certainly may improve the care of those resources, it could also have the opposite effect. If all natural resources were privately owned, then I would assume that there would be no regulation of how they were used. What's more, imagine a scenario where all of the worlds natural resources were owned by private individuals. This would create some incredibly powerful monopolies and lead to some pretty devastating impacts on those who do not own any resources.
I'm glad the last post brought up the issue of citizen monopolies as a powerful and frightening consequence of privatizing public goods. The only way i can see this system working is if the individuals who are given ownership to the fisheries, as an example, are federally mandated to keep prices or access below a predetermined price ceiling. This would effectively keep resource exploitation to a minimum, and would hopefully still allow public goods to be maintained in a renewable fashion.
If the government steps in and controls the way the private owners distribute their resources, it seems like were more or less back to a public good. Perhaps this partially public partially private status is what we need to make this system work.
Is it ethical that we have ownership of our pets or livestock? Many would say no but this system is widely accepted. Its easier to protect pets or livestock by making them property than it is to actually give them rights.
There is a lot of privatization happening of public goods and I think it is effective in promoting sustainability. Having personal rights, especially one that can pull in a profit, may help things to last longer. This is happening all over Costa Rica right now in order to promote people to keep land in tact and not cutting them down for an immediate profit.
I believe property rights are the way to solving a lot of our world's problems. It would certainly help endangered species if someone owned them, as well as improve the environment if everyone owned a share of the atmosphere around us. Although these rights would be hard to establish, I think that there is a lot of money out there that people are willing to spend, and it should be allocated to making the world better, despite problems of free riding.
This issue has also come up with regard to the sponsorship of federal wildlife areas. Although these private interests may infuse much needed money for management and potentially improve the "product" of a wilderness, do we really want a public good to be a "product" in the first place?
Public goods which are limited (fisheries, timber stands, etc.) present a second challenge of depletion, and abandonment. A wilderness may argualbly become better without human prescence, but the quailty of a fishery definately deteriorates if it is overfished by a poorly managed company.
Sometimes the private ownership of a resource is beneficial for the health of the resource. For example since new technology and techniques in forestry management the amount of trees in the US has increased dramatically since the early 1900s. In some national forests and parks the government has limited or banned cutting trees. This has lead to small weak trees that are susceptible to wind damage and forest fires.
egotistical or not, it makes sense. Who cares if someone gets a big head or makes a profit from a public good as long as it benefits the public as a whole? Like Matthews said, there is no other way to go about dealing with the public good like this. in my opinion, there's really nothing to not like about this. The fishery, the public, and the person who owns the fishery all come out on top, so what's the problem?
Many things have been privatized including water in chile and many other natural resources. We have privatized oil and the assumptions of this system are that when people own something it can be better managed. But the question is who owns the right to water or fisheries?
andrew sieving
I think that natural resources being private goods is a horrible idea, everything being split, people fighting over it and most likely using wastefully. We will have no more regulations on them.
We have learned in my environmental econ class that the main reason for human's destruction of species is a lack of effective propert rights. We also learned that it does not matter who the rights belong to as long as someone posseses ownership of them. I beleive giving the rights to whoever was there first is an acceptable idea because in the end they will just sell them anyways. Not to mention it is not the ownership we are worried about but that the species gets protected which would happen regaurdless of who owned the rights.
A balance between public and private ownership needs to be in place if we are going to stop degrading our environment. I too had Phil Graves' class which seemed to prove the advantage of private ownership. In the case involving endangered species, I think this can dramatically help the decline of these animals. Other resources would not benefit from private ownership and could be monopolized as previously mentioned.
I do think that designating ownership would be the best option. Even though it seems strange to give someone rights to it, I believe that it yields the greatest sustainability. When someone has greater incentives to protect an item they are more likely to do so. Its kind of sad that people don't do this if there isn't a monetary benefit but its the truth.
I think this can go both ways, simply be bad or good. Look at the case of Prior Appropriation water law. Senior users have priority over junior users to use as much as they need to fulfill their right. In times of low flow they can completely dry up a creek or stream to fulfill their right. By having rights to water we could say that they have ownership of an amount of water-a natural resource. Having a set amount that you are allowed-that you can own-based on prior appropriation seems bad in the case that it allows the resource to be completely used up to fulfill the rights of ownership. That is an example where ownership of the public good or natural resource is bad. With owning anything we are subject to some bureaucratic laws and standards. You own a house, you have building codes. You own a car, you have to have insurance. With private ownership there are laws and standards that govern the way we own things to some degree which seem to keep everyone happy. If we can create a market for the public good where it will be allocated efficiently and at a fair price then that would be a good thing. Although I only see it working if there were guidelines that owners of, in the case of our example a fishery, had to abide by. This already happens in certain ares of Colorado with wild game. The Divisions of Wildlife gives right to different hunting outfitters to hunt an area of land and they are watched over to make sure that they are encouraging healthy management of the wildlife populations. Finally when thinking about this issue, think about the National Forest Service and their age old utilitarian motto of the "Greatest Good". That as a model can shed light on how public goods or natural resources have been used to increase the public good. It is the role of government and bureaucracy to make sure that the use of resources is resulting in an increase of benefits to society including environmental quality.
I think that in this case, there should be ownership. As Brady stated earlier it might not be ethical but it is a good way to handle it. This system has worked well for pets and livestock in the past, but that being said isn't boulder different for pets? Dont you not actually own your dog, but you are its guardian?
Ownership is a good idea to conserve the use of a public good. this way there will be no overuse and regulations would be put into place. It also depends on what is being privatized and who is involved. Sometimes locals will be able to control the use and sustain the entity without privatization. Just like the lobster fishermen in Main.
Instead of giving private ownership to fisheries why not promote other sustainable fisheries until those unsustainable can rebound. Last Ocean is a non-profit organization that provides information on what fish are sustainable (among other things) I think they're gonna release a really sweet video about the Ross Sea in antarctica soon too so check it out.
http://lastocean.com/project/overview/read/
This seems like a strange idea, but if this means that there is more incentive for the person tending it to make it last longer, then this is a good thing. Its better not to look at the person as "owning" it, rather that they are the stewards of it. Simply taking care of the fish until they are ready to be released.
Phil Graves a professor at CU argues that species extinction is due to lack of proper property rights. I see his point but how do you enforce property rights on moblie creatures
I don't think it is fair to grant ownership of all public goods. In the case of fisheries though ownership should be granted. I think all fisherman that agree to maintain the fishery and not over-fish should be given equal rights. Fisherman would basically police each other, and hopefully profit equally.
I believe the only way to save a resource is to allow it to be privately owned. When everyone and anyone can exploit something it is only a matter of time before it is gone.
I have no problems with issues like this. It seems that private enterprises or people can often times do a much better job of promoting substainability than the public or government can.
ROBERT SEADER
I don't really see the ethical dilemma behind allowing public goods to be owned by private parties. Though, if a private party becomes the owners of a public good, it seems like there would need to be some sort of policy regulating their actions. Otherwise they could just pull the public good from the public. Though, I think there should only be policy if the public goods nonexistence would greatly affect the livelihood of a local community.
I think that some type of long term lease on the fishery would work. Something along the lines of the long term leases that occur in the Peruvian Amazon for timber harvesting. The time period is long enough that it is in the owners best interest to be sustainable. There are more issues with fisheries because of nutrient enrichment, parasitism, and gene pollution of natural fish populations. These negative impacts to the environment would not be solved by only having well defined property rights.
This question applies to all natural resources. Traditionally, however, a resource is considered "yours" to sell if you have put labor into getting the resource. However, the real exploitation in my opinion is between the owner of the business (fishery) and his employees. Employees in a capitalist society are constantly exploited. They are paid enough money to return to work the next day, and that's it. There is alienation between employers and employees, an employee is seen as a "machine" if you will. Profit in business is proof of the exploitation. If workers were getting paid what they are worth, what their product is worth on the market, there would be no profit in business.
I do not think it is ethical for people to privatize a public good. This leads down a road of privatization and ownership that is hard to reverse. Perhaps we need to see public goods in a new light. As resources become strained to their max we all need to do what is best for sustainability. If this is privatize a certain entity then do it. In other cases public governance will be sufficient.
It's a shame that people wouldn't want to protect our natural surroundings, but it does seem unethical to give ownership to something like the ocean. But that may be what it takes to create sustainable fisheries.
Although this seems like it could get messy with competition over who owns what it could be a good idea for environmental reasons. It is true that when someone has ownership of something they take more responsibility to take care of it. Whereas, if something is public "owned" than less care goes into the maintenance of it.
Very good topic and is important to be aware of.
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