Environmentalism without Government

It is plain enough, for example, that without the American Revolution, without slavery, without the Russian Revolution, without Hitler's Holocaust, and so forth, the world would be better or worse than it is.

The remedy champions of politicized environmentalism offer, namely, that the government ration our use of public or common resources, will not work.

If we look at the great moments in innovation, the developments that changed everything, we almost always find that the private geniuses did their bit, but the great clumsy, heavy hand of government is frequently what turned that bit into a new way of life.

It was government that linked America's coasts by rail, government that constructed the Panama Canal, government that built all the really big stuff.

Let's start with Frederick Bastiat's argument in which the French political economist shows that although what governments do often takes center stage on the historical and reportorial scene, it is folly to forget that such doings displace a lot else that might have happened had government not substituted its one size fits all judgment and coercive action for that of individuals who act by means of a great variety of voluntary cooperative efforts.

As to the railways that government has made possible from one end of the continent to the other, this has produced massive monopolies that later were used to justify antitrust legislation and that have run roughshod over private farming across the country.

I need say little about the fiasco that the Panama Canal has arguably been, politically and even economically, given what might have been done instead. The story is the same all the way across, including the flight industry where government airports have been the source of much consternation both for environmentalists and for those with different visions as to how that industry might and should have developed.

https://mises.org/library/environmentalism-without-government