Let's just tax carbon extraction and not worry about who's doing what with it.
Although I suppose there's a separate externality to creating friable material. The issue of discarding too much should be addressed with higher prices at the dump.
Although I suppose there's a separate externality to creating friable material. The issue of discarding too much should be addressed with higher prices at the dump.
But you could be right: carbon pricing down to the edge on all things might actually be good economics if we can work out how to make it run. Please don't say blockchain
Which brings us right back to (very) fast fashion.
sure - long enough for you to run around Central City robbing every bank.
Whether in inputs (unethical labor practices, questionable material composition, hazardous inputs handling, manipulative marketing tactics and artificial scarcity) or in outputs (planned obsolescence, unsustainable consumption, disposal, discounting full product life-cycle), socio+ecological costs are ignored to maximize profits while keeping prices fairly low.
It's good to democratize access to more and fancier options but if this comes by cheating and a dishonest accounting of costs, it's not worth it (full cost accounting will be better in the long run, having to account for product full life cycle might spur investment and innovations in say, mechanical disposal automation or plasma arc gasification).
If the dump costs more, people create unlicensed dumps. Thus the cost remains external.
Taxes (and thereby price adjustments) can achieve some social goals. Empirically so, not assumed.
Both the "state" and "us" are social constructs, and are simultaneously both essentially the same concept and entirely separate concepts. The nice thing is that we don't need theory here, we can just try it and find out if it helps, then try something else if it fails.