@maxganz

Yeah, good question -- what's the ratio of "getting it wrong" to "getting it right" with legislation?

Part of the problem is that in any society, there'll be disagreements -- some who think the legislation personally screwed them, others who are like no dude it helped many others

I doubt the companies who were saving a ton of money by dumping untreated waste into the river *liked* the Clean Water Act

@clive Neighbourhood costs are I think always wrong, from an ethical point of view.

The question is whether legislature can deal with this, or the wide range of other ecological issues? and can it, upon recognizing an issue, produce legislation which actually has the intended effect?

Overall, are we better off with legislation, or worse off? more to the point, how can we even tell, given how complex the world is?

We need a mechanism which works overall and can be *proved* to be working.

@clive @maxganz Not all legislation is good, but good legislation can do great things.

Unregulated capitalism and unregulated pollution both lead to disastrous consequences. Regulate them appropriately and society can reap huge benefits, while minimizing external costs.

@MarkBrigham @clive That last sentence is a bit "belling the cat". It's a great sentiment, but how?

I may be wrong, but to my eye there is an underlying ethical principle which cuts across the capitalism or regulation and so on.

Everything must be voluntary and well-informed, except in self-defence.

You cannot force others to do thing, nor can you trick or deceive them into acting, unless you must be act in self-defence, in which case all bets are off.

@maxganz @clive

We’ve seen what happens when everything in the capitalist marketplace is voluntary: businesses monopolize & price gouge; abuse & endanger their underpaid (& unpaid) workers; and pollute like crazy.

Regulate away the worst abuses of capitalism (& enforce those regs) and big biz still finds a way to make trillions of dollars. They just do so without killing us.