Editor note: This three-part series began with A Free Market Energy Vision (Part I: Worldview) and continued with Energy for a Free Society: The ‘American Energy Act’ (Part II: Real World Reform).
In their essay on energy policy for the 111th Congress, Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of the libertarian Cato Institute offered nine priorities to move the United States from energy statism to free energy markets.
But there are more areas of pro-private pro-market exchange reform on the federal level. I offer four–perhaps readers can add more in comments.
Nine Policy Recommendations (Cato)
Congress should:
[Editor Note: With T. Boone Pickens (et al.) trying to get natural gas vehicles off the ground with a $80,000 per vehicle special tax break, it is worth examining the origins of the political means versus the economic means to business (profit/loss) success. All roads lead to Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1943), a German sociologist/political scientist who saw capitalism’s business leaders at work.]
“I propose in the following discussion to call one’s own labor, and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the ‘economic means’ for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the ‘political means’.”
– Franz Oppenheimer, The State. New York: Free Life Editions, 1908 (1975), pp. 24-25 (full quotation at end of blog).
MasterResource sharply distinguishes between enterprise that is motivated by and dependent upon consumer demand in a free market, and profit-seeking that is abetted by special government favor (SGF).…
“The Municipality of Central Huron requests that the Province of Ontario declare a moratorium on all current and future projects for on-shore and off-shore development of wind-energy facilities until it has commissioned properly-designed independent third-party scientific research into the long-term effects, released the findings for public comment, and has incorporated those comments to enact science-based maximums for wind-facility emissions, and for electrical emission from all related electrical facilities, and can therefore guarantee to Council’s satisfaction that the health and well-being of the Municipality’s human and animal populations are protected from the direct and indirect negative effects of being in proximity to those IWT facilities.”
– Central Huron Council Resolution, adopted June 6, 2011
Two days ago, the Central Huron Council passed a resolution against wind-turbine business-as-usual, a victory for local advocacy groups such as Toronto Wind Action, Great Lakes Wind Truth (see their Facebook page), and Central Huron Against Wind Turbines.…