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That sounds like a "motte and bailey" argument to me. It's common sense that "the good and bad consequences of regulations should be understood." That's a position that's trivially easy to defend. Libertarians usually argue for a great deal more than that: civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism and the abolition of the welfare state. But these things are not obvious simply from understanding the consequences of regulation; the arguments for them have to stand on their own.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

Just as patriotic and humanitarian rhetoric is used to justify certain polices that are far from patriotic or humanitarian, libertarian rhetoric is also sometimes used to justify lax regulation, crony capitalism, etc.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman

I love these rationality links. :)

I think most people who call themselves libertarian today have betrayed the first principle of libertarianism (my body and the fruits of my labor belong to me and me only) by adopting stances and definitions that are actually antithetical that principle.

Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian? is a must read.

http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html

> Libertarians are not anti-regulation

Yes, they are. See https://www.lp.org/issues/the-economy/

"Libertarians believe that the only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected."

First, the Libertarian Party is not "all libertarians".

Second, environmental regulation falls out of property rights, since pollution spreads onto people's property. If you pollute a stream, the stream carries the pollution to someone else's property and damages it.

And the libertarian response to that issue is not the ounce of prevention, but the pound of cure.

Rather than have a priori environmental legislation, the libertarian position is to wait until the (possibly irreversible) damage is done, then try and find the person who did it (if you can, and good luck if it was a variety of entities), then take them to a court, then prove them at fault (not a given, especially if more than one party), get a judgement of fiscal damages against them (hopefully they have enough money for recompense, but not enough money to tie you up for years), then actually get the money from them, and finally put that money towards cleaning up the spill (again, if it's not irreversible).

Not at all. A perfectly viable libertarian response to your hypothetical is a carbon tax or pollution tax - some cost applied to a negative externality.

Did I miss the stampede of Libertarians advocating that?

The Libertarian Party in the US does not represent the values of all (or maybe even most) libertarians. At its core, it just means not restricting people wherever possible, it doesn't necessarily mean having as little government as possible. Not all libertarians equate "freedom" with "low taxes" and "starving the government". You'll find that libertarians are a very varied group in terms of their beliefs.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism :

"Some libertarians advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights,[7] such as in land, infrastructure, and natural resources. Others, notably libertarian socialists,[8] seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production in favor of their common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property as a barrier to freedom and liberty.[9][10][11][12]"

> To give you an example of the folly of fuel economy regulation, consider that 90% of automotive pollution is created by the oldest 10% of cars on the road. Does it really make sense to force all buyers of new cars to pay extra? Why not charge a tax that increases for every year a car gets older, so that the person driving the smoke-emitting clunker has an incentive to upgrade into something that is cleaner and safer.

You have picked a bad example.

"Pollution" in the sense you're using it is entirely independent from carbon emissions. Old cars pollute because they have poor emissions controls. Carbon emissions are directly proportional to fuel consumption regardless of emissions controls. For example, a fifty year old VW Beetle gets the same 30MPG as a brand new car, which means it emits exactly the same amount of carbon, but much more pollution, meaning particulates and smog.

The purpose of fuel economy regulations is not to reduce particulates, it's to reduce carbon emissions and oil imports. There are separate regulations covering particulate emissions for new cars, but nobody complains about those because highly effective modern emissions controls are a solved problem. How to make a big fast car that gets 100MPG is not.

The correct solution to the smog problem is to impose emissions limits on all cars. If your old car pollutes too much you either pay to retrofit some modern emissions controls or you don't drive it on the road.

The correct solution to carbon emissions is an energy cross charge. You tax carbon (trivial to do at the pump for gasoline) and use the money to subsidize non-carbon energy. That lets you use half as much carbon tax for the amount of price differential you're creating between carbon and non-carbon energy, and it takes no money out of the average person's pocket. It just means you pay more for gas and less for electricity, which makes you want to use less gas and more electricity by buying an electric car.

In other words, CAFE is stupid but not for the reasons you said.

Great points, thanks.

> The correct solution to the smog problem is to impose emissions limits on all cars. If your old car pollutes too much you either pay to retrofit some modern emissions controls or you don't drive it on the road.

That's not really nice. Some poor fellow with his old beater he drives less than 2000 km a year gets to walk home and look into spending big money because his car didn't pass some arbitrary limit. The next guy who passes the limit by a hair may drive all the 30 000 km he wants and can easily afford?

Some libertarians believe that but in my experience at least an order of magnitude more have a philosophy which boils down to “you can't tell me what to do!” with some serious magical thinking about markets, trickle down economics, and the inherent merit of rich people.

I'm sure non-libertarians also believe regulation should be understood.

> Why not charge a tax that increases for every year a car gets older, so that the person driving the smoke-emitting clunker has an incentive to upgrade into something that is cleaner and safer.

Seems like this tax burden would fall disproportionately on the poor who couldn't afford to upgrade their old clunker in the first place.

Perhaps, but if new cars were cheaper then there would be more (and newer) used cars on the road. No matter who is driving it, an old clunker that creates 20x the emissions of a new car is harming all of us every mile it is driven.

It would be great if you'd clarify that you are generalizing about mainstream libertarianism thought in the US.

US libertarians are a special breed that hacked up classical libertarianism to fit within the framework laid down by the US Constitution.

Basically they are believers in the US Constitution first and libertarians second.

Not a rigid definition but neither is the parent post

It's not difficult to fit classical liberalism into the US Constitution. Both are children of the Enlightenment, and have the same philosophical underpinnings.

The article is about America's cars, so it's pretty contextual that we're talking about the US here.

> To give you an example of the folly of fuel economy regulation, consider that 90% of automotive pollution is created by the oldest 10% of cars on the road. Does it really make sense to force all buyers of new cars to pay extra? Why not charge a tax that increases for every year a car gets older, so that the person driving the smoke-emitting clunker has an incentive to upgrade into something that is cleaner and safer.

Isn't the problem the pollution emissions, not the age of the car? Charge people an emission tax based on manufacturers' guidelines, and then switch to periodic measurements after the car is greater than N years old (N>5). That way, people can buy new, polluting vehicles as they wish & their budget can stretch to.

This is the UK's approach, which works because cars have a yearly check for roadworthiness.

> Those names are chosen to sound good

Are you saying that the name Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act was chosen for something other than descriptiveness?

> The question is how to create regulations that are fair and don't create disincentives for innovation.

That's not what I've heard libertarians advocate. They generally advocate for regulations that don't restrict - that is, no regulations.

You spend a lot of words there describing what libertarians don't do and defending them from what I'm guessing you'd call a straw man.

So... am I right that you, as a presumptive libertarian, support the fuel efficiency regulations passed in the 70's and 90's, as witnessed by the evidence in the linked article? If someone expert told you that similar regulation passed today would have a similar effect, would you support it?

> am I right that you... support the fuel efficiency regulations passed in the 70's and 90's

No I would prefer a carbon tax charged per vehicle based on miles driven per year and the pollution emitted from the vehicle.

> If someone expert told you that similar regulation passed today would have a similar effect, would you support it?

What effect did it have? Do you think automakers would have continued to use 1960s era engines?

The question to be asked is not whether I support it but whether a different policy might have been far better. I think a tax would have had a far less distortionary effect on the economy and potentially a more beneficial effect on the environment.

> What effect did it have?

I genuinely don't understand how a technical person can look at the graph in the linked article and ask that question. This is just willful disbelief..

Perhaps the technical person in question understands the difference between correlation and causation.

The actual question implied was: "What effect did it have relative to other feasible alternatives."

Sounds great but it's a regressive tax when you consider that it disincentivizes people actually using their cars. Once they've bought their new, fuel efficient car you want them to drive around and create economic value. This tax will ensure that less value is created.

Your "far better" proposal is potentially worse.

Carbon equates to gallons of gas used, so from an environmental perspective we'd want to reduce unnecessary use to reduce the carbon impact.