mughandle

Do you worry that a free market is too concerned with the present and not suited to deal with long term problems, like climate change? Hypothetically, if we could see that the free market was bringing about a catastrophe, should we intervene with our best idea of what suitable regulation would be?

I guess a good scenario would be the depletion of a natural resource. It could be quite clear, for example, that we are catching too much tuna, and driving their population extinct. I don't think the free market itself necessarily provides enough incentive for people to stop fishing, or to fish in sustainable quantities. I think there is more of an incentive to make as much money as you can while you can until the fish run out. I would argue that the only solution is some sort of rule that limits the amount of fishing that can be done.