Law-Forums.org

[kenway]

Do governments have regulations that limits the amount of toxic waste and factory fumes (or basically anything that contributes to the worsening environment) for all private property owners?

If private property owners have the right to do as they please with their property, how far exactly do they get to go?

Assuming that socialism takes hold of all private properties, how would such things as environmental crisises decrease?

[delrico]

"Do governments have regulations that limits the amount of toxic waste and factory fumes (or basically anything that contributes to the worsening environment) for all private property owners?"

Yes.

"If private property owners have the right to do as they please with their property..."

They don't.

"how far exactly do they get to go?"
1. If they did have the right to do as they please - ie in a free market society - they could go as far as they want, up to the limit which is, impinging on the personal or property rights of someone else. So if someone else is poisoned, or their property is damaged, or the pollution is a nuisance, then the private property owners aren't allowed to go that far, and would be liable to pay compensation if they did.
2. under a system of government regulation or socialism - they oculd go as far as they want, up to the limit which is, whatever arbitrary rules the government made up.

"Assuming that socialism takes hold of all private properties, how would such things as environmental crisises decrease?"
Firstly, in all the countries where socialism was tried, environmental problems didn't decrease, they got a lot worse. The reason is because everything belongs to the government, and the people in government pay no price for making the wrong decision, and the people who are affected have no right to impose limits or claim compensation, because everything belongs to the governments.

Secondly, it's easy to stop environmental problems or pollution. You simply stop all productive activity. The advantage would be that the environment would be unpolluted. The disadvantage would be that all the people would starve and freeze. So the problem is not how to stop pollution. The problem is how to know how much pollution is enough for purposes of human life, health, enjoyment etc, and how much is too much - disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

"Assuming that socialism takes hold of all private properties..."
In that case there would be no market for those properies, and no profit and loss. Therefore there would be *no way* for the socialist planning authorities to calculate whether they were producing too much or too little food or pollution.

Therefore the *only way* that socialism could decrease environmental crises, is by killing or starving or freezing people unnecessarily - which is exactly what happened everywhere socialism was tried. Over 100 million people were killed by socialist governments in the 20th century - mostly by starvation, and almost all of their own citizens. Where did you get the idea that socialism would be a better alternative? Somebody's been feeding you nonsense.

By the way, notice how the problem with pollution as you have supposed, is pollution of streams or air i.e. things that are publicly owned? This means that, even in your own theory, socialism - the public ownership of the means of production - is the original problem, not the ultimate solution.