WALL*E the libertarian

Cross-posted from theConverted:

Since it came out, the Pixar film WALL*E has generated great kudos. On the second night it was out, I took my entire family - my wife, my 9 year-old daughter, my 7 year-old son and their 2 1/2 year-old brother - to see the film.

It is a wonderful, heart-warming and cute film, with incredible animation and a fairly good story.

Unfortunately, that has not stopped some knee-jerk, anti-environmentalist Randroids and slack-jawed conservative idiots from labeling it as "environmentalist, anticapitalist, and antitechnological propaganda" (sic).

Really?

**Spoiler Alert - do not read any further if you haven't seen the film**

Lets see, we have an planet ruined by garbage, as the result of what appears to be the monopoly of a single company - Big and Large (BNL) - because they cater to every whim. They seem to be able to dump garbage because they seem to be able to externalize the cost of doing so. Now that could be a metaphor for pure socialism, but it seems more likely to me to be a metaphor for our current state capitalism.

Now, when faced with environmental disaster, what is the answer? why a more technological and nanny state existence on a cruise ship in space. Every aspect of life, from cradle to grave, is taken care of by the State - the cruise ship - and its minions - the service robots. Indeed, the humans become so lazy and distracted by this they do not realize they are always following the carefully controlled and laid out plans of the State to the point that they don't realize the ship has a pool and that other people are more than just picture on a view screen.

It is not until the people of the ship are awakened and remember their past, fight against the agents of the state - the service robots trying to stop them from going to earth - shut off the "Autopilot" and leave the ship are they truly free.

They leave the control and comfort of the ship (state) and enter a fairly barren, despoiled land. It is not a paradise, but harsh - literally a garbage dump. But they courageously step forward, awkwardly, and start their new lives without the ship and its nanny-state society.

And if you stayed to watch the credits, the back story that unfold in the background animation, you'll see they better their world not by taking orders from the "Autopilot" but by cooperating and working together to plant food, recover from garbage and to rebuild without the over arching authority.

That certainly seems like a libertarian storyline to me?

I would also add that WALL*E indulges in a few verboten activities that libertarians would love and the MPAA and the RIAA would despise - he watches his pirated version of "Hello Dolly" on his iPod and plays the ripped version of the music on his internal tape deck. He is self reliant, gathering and using spare parts he finds to fix himself and create his home, without relying on "the mother ship" to do it for him, like the bots on the Axiom do.

All that, but some people still call it a liberal propaganda film.

As others have pointed out, if you are so humourless as to be caterwauling about a kids movie like this, without seeing that obviously there are elements of both liberal and conservative politics, than how can anyone take you seriously.

"The fundamental story of the movie is about a culture beholden to a nanny state - in this case, a literal nanny state that coddles them like babies from the cradle to the grave, a world where individual initiative is destroyed and cultural history is entirely alien to the entire human race. Basically, it’s the exact thing that conservatives have been warning us about for years, wrapped up in a movie with cute robots who rebel against it and lead humanity to a hunting-gathering-growing Earth."

Indeed.

Environmental destruction happens and sometimes, the best laid plans of a statist, technological solution are worse. Only when people are free to face adversity and make free choices, not preprogrammed one, will the world be saved.

That is the message of WALL*E. That is the message to the environmentalists who think that answer to state capitalist created pollutions and environmental destruction is more state regulation and exemption.

And it has cute robots, which will be used to market thousands of toys for the next two year.

But its anti-capitalist.

Right.

These people really need to get a sense of humour and get over themselves.

Note:

No doubt, people will not agree with my opinion that WALL*E is really a classic of libertarianism. That's ok. Like most art and literature, there is enough within the characters, story and animation to evoke the sentiments of nearly any political leaning. My point is not so much to convince people that WALL*E is about libertarianism or libertarian ideals, but rather to point out that I was able to find, rather easily, some very libertarian themes in a film that is being panned by conservatives and vulgar libertarians as "liberal propaganda". I found much more libertarian ideas than liberal ones.

It merely shows that some humourless conservatives and Randian libertarians will immediately put on their dogmatic blinders and try to find anything they can use against 'teh libruls'. they are just angry and jealous that this film is popular.

Its just a movie about cute robots. Get over it.

(h/t to John)

Why I can't support the "Green Shift"

I like the premise, I really do - make polluters and C02 emitters internalize the cost of their actions, rather than externalize that cost for the rest of us.

Prima facie, it seems like a sound idea. Stephane Dion and the Liberals are proposing using the tax system to push those external costs onto polluters while trying to remove the public cost. It is costed, planned and well thought out.

The problem is, of course, it won't work. It runs counter not only to sound economics, but counter to human economic behaviour. The plan, as with most attempts by the government to regulate and engineer the economy and society, holds within it the seeds of "unintended consequences" which will have absolutely paradoxical effects - it may cause more pollution and Co2 emissions than it stops.

The problem is the regulation and taxation may destroy the normal "moral sentiment" and give polluters the ability to merely pay for permission to pollute.

As Ronald Bailey points out at Reason in a review of the work of Samuel Bowles, it comes down to both insentive AND our inate sense of what is right. The example given is the Israeli Daycare fines case. In that case, 6 daycare centres in Haifa implemented fines for parents who picked up their kids late. But rather than encouraging parents to be more prompt, it had the exact opposite effect:

Instead, parents reacted to the fine by coming even later. Why? According to Bowles: "The fine seems to have undermined the parents' sense of ethical obligation to avoid inconveniencing the teachers and led them to think of lateness as just another commodity they could purchase."

That is, parents felt they could just purchase the ability to be late as a comodity. Extrapolate this to the directors of heavy polluters and C02 emmiters - they can merely purchase, through taxes and fines, the ability to pollute with out having to justify or explain it in the more moral sense - to the public anxious to see something done.

The Green Shift can be seen as allowing polluters to buy the ability to pollute with impunity. Given that Bowles research is based on 41 behaviour economics experiments around the world and he comes to this conclusion:

"[I]ndividuals from the more market-oriented societies were also more fair-minded in that they made more generous offers to their experimental partners and more often chose to receive nothing rather than accept an unfair offer. A plausible explanation is that this kind of fair-mindedness is essential to the exchange process and that in market-oriented societies individuals engaging in mutually beneficial exchanges with strangers represent models of successful behavior who are then copied by others."

Or as Bailey puts it "as people gain more experience with markets, morals and material incentives pull together."

Given this research, and the research in behavioural economics previously cited in my post on Michael Shermer's "Mind of the Market", I believe that the entire scheme runs contrary to human behaviour in the market. It will not work.

There is another problem as well. I could not find where the Liberals would end the years of subsidies to the oil and gas industry, the most polluting and C02 emitting industry in Canada. As I stated nearly 18 months ago, the federal government provides about $1.4 billion in subsidies, totalling over 8 billion between 1990 and 2003. Add 5 more years to that and its up over $10 billion. Under Dion and the Liberals when they were in government, that is $2 for subsidies to pollution industries for every $1 in environmental funds.

I don't see in the Green Shift where this is fixed or addressed. Rather, we have one market distorting factor being used to try to offset another market distorting factor. That's like taking Quaaludes to counteract all the Amphetamines you just took - it would be better to lay off the pills altogether.

A better solution would be one that followed not just the climate science, but the science of economics and human behaviour. One where the public as well as the industries are forced, as CD Howe Institute President Bill Robson said, by incentive to change :

"If you seriously want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the consumer has to feel pain,"

A plan that would have worked, in my opinion, would have been one that meant less government, not more:

• Get rid of all Federal subsidies to the oil and gas industry
• Get rid of all subsidies to the auto industry
• Force the industries to negotiate with the local people, rather than distant governments, over land use and dumping (rather than quietly telling them its ok to dump pollution into 16 lakes and streams)
• Allow individuals and groups to sue polluters for damages.
• Get rid of regulations that prevent alternatives from entering the market - if I could buy a Zenn car for zipping around the city, I would. Imagine how many out of work CAW members would get a new job if this car took off and needed an Ontario manufacturing plant.
• End monopolies on power generation and subsidies for the industry. The biggest polluters are provincial government owned electricity utilities. How about lowering the barrier to entry so that power needs can be satisfied by multiple means and sources - wind, solar, nuclear, hydro etc, where reasonable - and decentralized.
  

All of this, and more, working in concert with normal, human economic behaviour, would work to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution without distorting government interference, allowing our "morals and material incentives [to] pull together."

I will give Stephane Dion credit though. He has, at least, presented a policy and a plan of action to do something rather than nothing, or actively undermining environmental efforts, as the Conservative government is doing. The Green Shift should be argued on its merits, and on its merits, I do not think it will work.

Rather than taxes and top down enforcement, bottom up, self-organizing, voluntary behaviour will be what works in the long term.

"[P]aying taxes does produce a neural reward. But we're showing that the neural reward is even higher when you have voluntary giving."

Let's base an effort to reduce C02 and pollution on that assumption, rather than running contrary to human nature.

Edit: fixed link and added power generation to the less government list.

We're from the Government, We're here to help...

...or not.

So, at a time when innovation should be encouraged as we try to reduce dependence on oil and gas and reduce green house gas emissions, we instead see a government going out of the way to punish people who try to do just that.

A 79-year-old man, David Wetzel, of Decatur Illinios tries save some money and help the environment by converting his 1986 VW Golf to run on vegetable oil and partly on diesel - bio-diesel in other words. He makes arrangements with a local business to take their waste oil off of their hands. He had a mutually beneficial arrangement that not only did not harm anyone, but was doing the right thing on the environmental front.

Of course the Illinois Department of Revenue had other plans.

"Wetzel uses recycled vegetable oil, which he picks up weekly from an organization that uses it for frying food at its dining facility.

"They told me I am required to have a license and am obligated to pay a motor fuel tax," David Wetzel recalled. "Mr. May also told me the tax would be retroactive.""

So egregious was his "crime" that the Department of Revenue sent 2 agents to his home to inform him and his wife of their malfeasance.

"Since the initial visit by the agents on Jan. 4, the Wetzels have been involved in a struggle with the Illinois Department of Revenue. The couple, who live on a fixed budget, have been asked to post a $2,500 bond and threatened with felony charges." [emphasis mine]

Now, I'm pretty sure a 1986 VW Golf isn't worth close $2500 itself, even in Illinois. And running a car on vegetable oil is hardly in the same league as murder, rape and child molestation.

But I suppose Exxon Mobile can't make money if everyone does that. And Archer Daniels Midlands (ADM) can't monopolize the bio-fuels market without government help, now can they?

Time for Direct Action

It has become frustratingly clear that we cannot depend on the government to do anything about our GHG emissions or global warming. The research I did for my previous posts on the topic show this quite clearly.

The Liberals have a horrid track record of saying one thing when out of power and doing another when the get in. The Kyoto protocol and the environment is no different, just in reverse - they did nothing when in power for 4 years after Kyoto was ratified in 2002 and now are pressing a bill to force the Conservatives to do something in 60 days.

The Conservatives, for their part, spent a good part of their first year in power delaying on even bringing forward their much touted "Made in Canada Solution", while cutting and gutting the few good programs the Liberals did put in place. When we did see the "Clean Air Act" it is was a model of doing nothing for 44 years. Clearly the Conservatives only want to spin and maneuver to engineer a majority government, where we will see gawd-knows-what come out. It is clear they don't really accept that global warming is real and caused by human activities, they are using the issue to extort us for votes.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives happily continued subsidizing the Oil and Gas industry to the tune of $1.5 billion per year, totaling close to $10 billion so far. In other words, they are allowing the most profitable sector in our economy to make more profit because you an I reduce their operating costs - thus allowing them to pollute more, with our own money.

As for the NDP, clearly they mean well, but it is also clear, as Don Martin recently observed, that even when holding the balance of power, they cannot get the other parties to do anything constructive. The Greens and the Bloc are essentially, and sadly, in the position of irrelevance right now.

We simply cannot depend on the government - they will not (and indeed seem not to even want to) take care of this. They aren't answering to the people any more. We must take it upon ourselves.

So, for get the government, do this:

1) Act locally, as I stated in my previous posts.
2) Do some of those things that Robert talked about in his series of posts. Or the things Zorph has recommended at the Wingnutterer.
3) Support NGOs that help with Global Warming or GHG reductions, rather than hoping the government will do something.
4) DIY - Do It Yourself
5) Stop paying your taxes.

Yes, you read that last one correctly. Don't pay your taxes. Clearly the government is not (and has not for a while) spending our money wisely, on things that most Canadians support. We grumble and complain, we argue and yell, but every day and every year, we keep writing them a cheque to keep doing what they are doing. At the risk of sounding like a bad bank commercial, its your money, spend it as YOU want it - the government clearly isn't.

Now, I am not recommending doing something illegal, but using the tax system to your own advantage and taking control of the situation. Stop having the taxes taken off every paycheck. Use that money to either maximize your RRSP if you have the space, or to donate to charitable organizations that give tax receipts - The David Suzuki Foundation or Greepeace, for example. Do this to the point where your tax payable is zero, so at the end of the year, when you file, you are not owing. That way, YOU control where your money goes, not the government. YOU can change your mind about that, if you wish. And the government gets no money from you.

The effect of this is twofold. Firstly, those groups and institutions that deserve support, get it because you control the cash, not someone in a back office in Ottawa. Something will actually get done. Secondly, if enough people do this, its sends a clear and resounding message to whomever is the government in Ottawa that you do not agree with their policies and you are withdrawing your support and consent.

That is a message no politician can ignore.

I have applied this to the environment, but the same applies for almost any policy. Don't like that we are in Afghanistan? Withhold your taxes as above. Don't like that millions go into the coffers of Group Action? Withhold your taxes as above. Don't like that millions are being spent on unneeded military aircraft in a no-compete bid to Boeing? Withhold your taxes as above. Don't like that politicians give themselves a raise but refuse to help the lowest paid in society (which helps Walmart and McDonald's more than anyone else)? Withhold your taxes as above. Do it the way I suggest, within the legal confines of the Income Tax Act and you will have no issues.

Update: Damn it, it appears my scheme isn't quite as easy as I suspected. Chris Taylor set me straight over at BBG. Well, do whatever you can then. I stand by the rest of this post:

As the Conservatives are fond of saying lately, the time for talk is over, the time for action is now.

Screw the government. Act now and take control.

Act Local

From the reactions to my last post, as well as comments elsewhere in the blogshpere, there seems to be an ideas that some party, alone at the Federal Level, can miraculously pass its policies and platforms and make us meet our Kyoto targets. Or reduce, even stop Global Warming.

Nothing can be further from the truth. There is no magic bullet. The only way to both protect the environment and to maintain a vibrant economy is to act at multiple levels of government and to take matters into our own hands.

First we must understand the problem and then act. First we Act Local.

According to the government's own numbers,19% of GHG come from road tranasportation - cars, trucks, mini-vans. Part of that comes from a shift to SUV and min-vans, but a greater part has been the shift to poor urban planning, as documented by Jane Jacobs in both "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and "The Dark Age Ahead" - we have become car-centric rather than community centric. This can be seen as Jacob's mantra and her greatest legacy.

Let me give you and example.

I live in Barrhaven, a suburb in the southwest corner of Ottawa. Ottawa in general and Barrhaven in particular, have experienced incredible - some would say insane - growth since 2000. Our community has at least doubled in size since then and is the fastest growing part of Ottawa. New housing developments are springing up regularly and quickly, as are new shopping centres and malls.

The problem is, however, not the pace or size of the growth, but how it is being done. Almost every single home is built with 2 car garages, on long winding streets with no sidewalks (read Jacob's entire chapter on the importance of sidewalks to see why this distinction is important. You are not meant to walk here. To do anything you must drive. To go grocery shopping, even when you can see the grocery store, you must drive. To get to the bus, many people must drive to the park-and-ride. To get the kids to school, may people must either drive their children or arrange busing, once reserved for farm kids. Stores and houses are separated by large ring roads and highways, with the stores rimming large, open parking lots. this means to even get from one store in the mall to another, one must drive. Much of the items sold in these malls are not locally produced, but trucked in from places like Montreal, Toronto and Vacnouver (where they were offloaded from ships or planes...)

Contrast this (for urban planning purposes) to the Glebe. The Glebe is a neighbourhood much like the Annex in Toronto (where Jacob's herself lived until her death). Every home has a decent yard and almost all services, including most shopping, is within walking distance. The stores are small and locally owned and the neighbourhood thrives.

The difference is in the zoning. The Glebe and areas like it are zoned for mixed usage, while the new suburbs are zoned single use - either business or residential. Why? Because it suits the needs of Big Box stores and outlets and of the the home developers, not the needs of the people who live there. They can make bigger profits from store rentals and densely packed homes sold, without having to worry about the infrastructure - we pay for sewers, streets and what passes as public transportation to these places with our taxes.

This has been the blight of most urban centers for over 40 years. Lets fix it.

Act:

1. Vote for city councilors that support the idea of mixed zoning, to allow neighbourhoods to grow based on the ability to walk rather than drive. Or contact your current councilors (if no election is looming) and ask them to introduce this into your community. Smaller, neighbourhood businesses are almost always locally owned and operated and rely on locally produced items as much as possible (or can be encouraged to develop local supply replacement, another of Jacob's favorite remedies). We reduce our dependence on cars to drive to a store (or any other activity), our dependence on trucks to bring in commodities from great distances and keep the local economy strong.

2. Buy local as much as possible. Not really possible for things like bananas or coffee, but there are a lot of things - furniture, foods, services - that you can keep locally. Again, reduce the need for trucking or flying these things across country.

3. Support and fight for real mass transit solutions. Not new roads, but real public transport alternatives.

4. If your city council won't do these things (because they are beholden or friendly with the developers), do them yourself - create local, cooperative car-pooling or busing, open up local stores illegally if you have to.

These are but a few small steps that, when everyone does them, can have an impact.

For what it is worth, when I lived in Toronto's Annex community, I did not own, nor did I need, a car. Nearly every thing I needed - from groceries, to restaurants, to various services - existed in the community, an easy walk from my home. I now find myself in a situation where I may need a 2nd car, because of the things mentioned above. No amount of tax credits or rises in the price of gas will eliminate that. I want to walk to the store or the rink, I just can't.

If we have to reduce our consumption of gas, and reduce our need to drive, we need to make these local changes i the way we live. They can be done not only relatively cheaply, but they will make our cities and communities better places to live.

STFU

For 9 years, after signing on to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, the Liberal Governments of Jean Chretien and then Paul Martin, did nothing. Between 2008 and 2012, Canada was supposed to have reduced our Co2 emission to 6% below 1990 levels. Instead, our cCo2 emissions have risen some 24% above 1990 level.

Any way you look at that, its a miserable failure.

During that time, the Federal Government has subsidized the oil and gas industry by about $1.4 billion per year (currently) in tax breaks and totaling some $8 billion between 1990 and 2003. The Sierra Club indicates that between 1997 and October 2005, the Federal Government - the Liberals - spent $2 on oil and gas subsidies for every $1 on reaching its Kyoto targets. According to the Pembina Institute, the Tar Sands are expected to contribute 47% of our industrial greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2020, yet receive massive subsidies and tax breaks from the Federal Government. The entire industry's emission rose 49% from 1990 to 2004. Emissions from generation of electricity and heat rose 37%.

All of these factors mean that Ontario and Alberta ore the biggest greenhouse gas and CO2 producing provinces.

All of this under the Liberal's watch.

But the blame does not stop there. The Conservatives did nothing during that time to attempt to hold the government's feet to the fire on the issue, even though they were the Official Opposition for most of that time. The never raised it as an issue in the House or during an election. In fact, they fought against the little the Liberals did do, for fear it would hurt "industry" and "business". They have never believed climate change was real and have fought against it at every turn. The Liberals did nothing, and the Conservatives - in their every Reform-Alliance-PC form - happily let them, active accomplices to increasing our emissions.

And since taking government, what have the conservatives done? Hyped a "Made in Canada" approach that they dragged out for nearly 8 months. All the while, they cut the few Liberal programs, like Energuide, that were doing some good. They continued to deny that global warming was happening. Their final "plan" was to consult with "industry" (see above) and cut greenhouse gases by 50% by 2050 - not-so-ironically the same time that the oil in Conservative Alberta runs out. Reducing by 50% in 50 years at a time when emission are expected to double by 2020 (again, see above).

Suddenly now, after Christmas, we are supposed to believe the Conservatives are the ones who are going to do something about global warming and our greenhouse gas emissions? After appointing the man responsible for killing and environmentally-friendly public transit project not 2 months ago for partisan political purposes (see my previous Baird post)? By announcing another round of money for "research" into things like "clean coal" (no such thing) or wind farming (owned by Transalta, ironically) - funds which are just another corporate welfare subsidy by Nanny State Conservatives?

Smug Conservatives and supporters, read the title of this post. You are not the solution. You are an accessory and an accomplice to the problem. The Liberals record is abysmal, yours is worse.

So, STFU.

You want real environmental plans and policies? Check out The Green Party or the NDP Envrinmental Platform. Both of these parties have a solid history of support and action on the environment and global warming, unlike the Liberals and Conservatives.

Listen to guys like Zorph and his great ideas. Take action yourself.

But don't ever - EVER - start off by saying "Yeah but, the Liberals did nothing for 13 years..." Neither did the Conservatives - in fact they helped the Liberals do nothing, so STFU.

Now, stop talking and passing blame on the problem, DO something.

Update:

For an example of what to actually DO, see what Dazz is doing over at the BPOC. He is analyzing the NDP environmental plans. I don't agree with everything he says, but he is being thoughtful, honest and doing a great job. I hope he looks at the Green Party policies and uses this as an opportunity to come up with alternatives that all sides can support and can work