Precautionary Principle and freedom


"The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it."
— Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting from the USSC decision United States v. Comstock

I want to talk about the Precautionary Principle and how it has warped government.

I talked about this City Journal piece in an earlier post, but it bears repeating here.

It’s here, about halfway through his book, that Brand finally begins addressing what Greens have dignified with a grand title: the Precautionary Principle. That sliver of vacuous pedantry, Brand acknowledges, has become “deliberately one-sided, a rejection of what is called risk balancing,” a single-minded determination “to prevent all the harm we can.” Or imagined harm. As the precautious mind-set calcified, “evidence of harm disappeared as a precautionary principle trigger, and science was explicitly devalued.” The Old Greens followed the science only when its predictions fit with a narrative of “decay,” “decline,” and “disaster.” This was a “formula for paralysis.” The New Brand supports the “freedom to try things,” subject to “ceaseless, fine-grained monitoring.”

Security expert Bruce Shneier is even more scathing.

There's a certain blindness that comes from worst-case thinking. An extension of the precautionary principle, it involves imagining the worst possible outcome and then acting as if it were a certainty. It substitutes imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis, and fear for reason. It fosters powerlessness and vulnerability and magnifies social paralysis. And it makes us more vulnerable to the effects of terrorism.

Worst-case thinking means generally bad decision making for several reasons. First, it's only half of the cost-benefit equation. Every decision has costs and benefits, risks and rewards. By speculating about what can possibly go wrong, and then acting as if that is likely to happen, worst-case thinking focuses only on the extreme but improbable risks and does a poor job at assessing outcomes.

Second, it's based on flawed logic. It begs the question by assuming that a proponent of an action must prove that the nightmare scenario is impossible.

Third, it can be used to support any position or its opposite. If we build a nuclear power plant, it could melt down. If we don't build it, we will run short of power and society will collapse into anarchy. If we allow flights near Iceland's volcanic ash, planes will crash and people will die. If we don't, organs won’t arrive in time for transplant operations and people will die. If we don't invade Iraq, Saddam Hussein might use the nuclear weapons he might have. If we do, we might destabilize the Middle East, leading to widespread violence and death.

Here's the thing. Americans have been conditioned over decades to believe that If There's A Problem, A Government Solution Is Always Better.

The evidence does not support that conclusion.

In fact, many of our big problems have been caused by government intervention in what should be a free market.

Housing bubble? Those sub-prime mortgages could not have happened without changes in the law and exempting certain firms from consequences.

Sky high medical prices? Medicare price supports, among many other government programs.

Oil spill in the Gulf? Who leased the oil rights and was supposed to oversee the platforms?

Every single time government tells you that it can eliminate risk, the only thing it will take is your freedom.

Nothing can eliminate risk. Including the free market.

What choice and the free market can do is trend slowly but surely towards less risk and more benefits.

Government can't do that.

How can I say that?

It all comes down to competition. If I have a choice of who I do business with, that company has to get my business and keep my business from it's rivals. It does that by offering something that the rivals can't. The moment that the competition is better. more people like me will start choosing something else.

Competition means that a product is going to be better today than it was yesterday.

But if I don't have a choice, then why should the company make their product better? It's more cost effective to lobby government to keep out competition.

And if change has to come from government, it could be years before it gets out of committee.

A firm with rivals can't afford to take that time or the business is gone.

So, given that risk CAN NOT be eliminated, the free market is the best way to minimize risk over time.

We can't afford the Precautionary Principle. It's already cost far too much.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - May 24, 2010 at 12:34 PM  Tag


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