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You must remember that when the government decrees that everyone must do something or else and everyone does it, it is considered voluntary.

Yes, because our government is there by our voluntary action. If we find our government is making us do things involuntarily, we can change it.

That's a little simplistic, don't you think? What about, for example, the minorities who are made to do things involuntarily?

That's what the signers of the Declaration of Independence thought as well.

However, my point wasn't about whether the government could be changed, how it could be changed, or what it could be changed to; but that its monopoly on the use of force doesn't make the actions people take based on its rules voluntary.

What action did I take that constitutes my volunteering of government's legitimacy?

Existing on its soil. You can always move.

Ummm... no. The car companies have three choices: 1) buy credits, 2) pay fines, 3) make low emission cars that earn their own credits. These kind of policies that are designed to prevent the "tragedy of the commons" happen all the time in government. You still might not agree with this type of governing, but your basic facts are wrong.

Don't forget 4) they can leave the market. It's not something they are forced to do in anyway, it is a voluntary choice to continue serving that market.

This is the most important point. The government of California is not god, and generally cannot force a business to do anything if you don't do business there.

All of the companies paying these credits are paying them because they choose to do business in that market.

The government is setting a price on the previously unpaid externality of carbon emissions.

Voluntarily it would take a lot to resist making maximal short-term profits from gas guzzlers for long term unproven gains such as the ones Musk's company has been doing. Are you saying governments shouldn't institute any regulations, including carbon credit systems, and everything should be decided by the free market?

Sure, it's not voluntary, but then again neither is most of the stuff that producers of things do. The consumer demand is the taskmaster, and thanks to government regulations, so is the public interest, in the form of policies designed to reduce carbon emissions and pollution.

I think unqualified free market advocacy amounts to basically a wish for there to be consumer interest only, without any system for representing public interest that uses any signal other than money. But taken to its extreme, the absence of any system to balance the money signal can lead to things like buying up lakes to dump in, or buying up all the judges in a town, just because you can pay off enough people. In a completely free market, if you are rich enough, you can theoretically buy enough institutions and mercenaries and set up enough corrupt judges to let you kill people for fun.

Don't confuse free market advocacy with anarchy. Buying up judges, bribing other officials, and other fraudulent transactions, including stuff like misrepresentation of goods and other deceptive business practices, are not necessarily okay in a free market. However, direct government interference is. I don't advocate for a completely dog-eat-dog, caveat emptor society, but I do advocate for one in which those in power cannot control the flow of private wealth (often to their own benefit).

So then who is going to "interfere" on behalf of the society at large? On behalf of the environment? Will individual consumers do what's right for the common good, for the first time in ever?

Look, everyone is part socialist, part capitalist, part communist, part fascist, part anarchist. Just don't fall into the trap of thinking your current favourite blend of these colours is the one true path. If there's one thing you learn looking around the world, there are many blends that have proven to work comparatively well. (And others that clearly don't.)

I don't mean to imply I have the perfect system (though it obviously doesn't contain any errors I'm aware of), but rather that advocating a free market does not imply what he says it implies. Advocating a free market does not imply endorsing bribery and fraud. That was the extent of my point there.

I agree with you but the elephant in the room is, although you may be against "bribery and fraud" how would a community actually stop someone with enough money from doing just that, unless you do in fact have governments and regulations? What is going to balance the money signal? It's not enough to say that you are not for it, but what mechanism would the system actually have to deal with such abuses?

Again, I am in favor of government, just not its economic interference. Reducing its economic interference actually reduces the motivation for corruption and bribery (not that I think that's enough). Bribery and corruption should still have legal penalties and be prosecuted by the government.

Abuse of wealth should still be a problem, but that doesn't require the government micromanaging that wealth.

The irony is implicit -- the way to avoid the corruption of government bureacracies is to increase the size and power of said bureacracies.

I suspect that the above commenter is skeptical about carbon emissions as a legitimate externality. There are also plenty of people who do not think we should be able to address externalities through legislation.

It is strange though because it is often the people who acknowledge or advocate the use market approaches who later complain about them when they are put in practice.

Usually those proponents advocate the use of market approaches free from governmental intervention; a market where the commodity is a virtual creation (carbon credits) by the government is obviously contrary to their preferences.

(Note: I'm not saying the approach is wrong, I'm just explaining the position. Personally, I still haven't found anyone making a decent libertarian position on the issue. The only ones I've read/listen boiled down to "I'm not a climatologist, but I'm pretty sure it's not a real problem")

But it is a perfectly, wonderfully in fact, appropriate example of the government playing the role it is supposed to play by setting the terms of competition in the marketplace. Just as the government says I can't break into your house and take your stuff (which would just be another aspect of market competition, if you really liked your stuff you would have had better locks). If I do, you call the cops and punishment results. This isn't a waste of money or some sort of evil coercion, it's the government setting the rules we play by in a way that benefits everyone. Does the government always do this perfectly? Fuck no! But don't gripe about it when the system actually works!

The problem with this attitude is that pollution actually does have an economic, social and environmental cost. Putting in place regulations to ensure that the polluters pay that cost, instead of unfairly foisting it on everyone else, is perfectly sensible free market economics.

I suppose you would argue that we should all just pay all externalities created by the free market even if they would simply bankrupt or kill us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

For example, if HSBC knowingly funded murderous, criminal gangs around the world, they should be allowed to finance killing because it helps them pursue profit?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageo...

Car companies had a clear choice. They could give up one profitable market or they could take appropriate actions contributing to the cause of reducing smog-related deaths in California. There is a very huge public cost for eliminating these regulations, as was PROVEN to everyone in the 1990s when most green cars were killed on the spot when earlier regulation ended.

Two points. (1)The externalities are not caused by either the car makers or the oil producers. They are caused by drivers. Driving creates the emissions, and under a fair system drivers should bear the costs. (2) Mandating fuel efficient cars has the same effect on consumption as reducing the cost of gasoline.

#1 is only partly true. California proved most pollution can be stopped by the car's factory-provided emission controls before the driver ever enters the vehicle. The car maker has a great macro effect in reducing pollution. This is hugely important to Los Angeles, which is located in a bowl and has suffered from a considerable number of smog-related deaths and health costs.

#2 is incorrect. They did not mandate fuel efficient cars to reduce consumption. They mandated a certain percentage of zero and near zero emission cars. As an electric vehicle owner, I can reassure you that this does not automatically result in more miles traveled.