The funny thing about Love Canal is that the Hooker Chemical was complying with the (entirely inadequate) environmental regulations of the day. While the containment was terrible, there was at least some containment of the toxic waste.
Then the Niagra Falls school board was like, “Hey that ‘Love Canal’ property you’ve got would be a great place for a new school” and Hooker chemical was like “No, that’s a terrible idea”. So the school board threatened to sue and just seize the land and Hooker chemical basically said “Okay, we’ll sell it to you for one dollar, on the condition that you don’t disturb the toxic waste and anything that goes wrong is on you”. Then the school board immediately bulldozed the land cutting open the clay containing the toxic waste turning a huge problem into a catastrophic problem.
Don’t get me wrong, Hooker was absolutely at fault, but IMO the school board is more to blame. It’s kinda like asking “Who do you blame, the guys who laid down a minefield, or the guys who decided to have a Riverdance jamboree on the site despite the warning signs?”
Love Canal
Oookay.
Hooker Chemical
Now you’re just pulling my leg.
Here’s the headline if I had been the editor of the local newspaper:
SUPERINTENDENT REGRETS HOOKER LOVE CANAL PURCHASE AFTER DISEASE OUTBREAK
How about: “Hooker superintendent has messy spill in backyard love canal.”
Hooker… Love canal… Hooker… Love canal… nope, nothing funny there.
Strange but true. The disaster led to the legislation that created the Superfund program.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
- Mark Twain
Any attempt to allow publicly traded companies to self regulate is obviously going to lead to this. They’re literally required to take every step to maximize gains and minimize losses. They will fire any CEO that won’t. Remove the rails and you are knowingly giving them license to rape and pillage at will.
It’s like people forget that a companies legal responsibility is to the shareholders. Not the customers. Not the employees. Not to anyone but the shareholders.
All the CEO has to do is say, “I think knowingly causing a disaster is going to be bad for business long term”.
Technically they dont have to. If the board actually agrees the goal isnt to min/max finance and have the goal be the best whatever, then thats the result. But until that becomes a bigger selling point for investors (the public), we are going to get the bottom financial line still.
That’s like saying that technically you can drive your car into a lake; nobody’s going to do it except by accident. Investors invest solely and specifically to get a return on their investment, regardless of what they might say their reason was. They want as big of a return as quickly as possible, and will make whatever changes they need to in order to make that happen. They don’t even think hard enough to find other more ethical avenues that might not destroy the world if they don’t give as big of a return that destroying the world would give.
Okay, but then line goes down and investors vote out the board.
And most stocks are held by a couple big Wall Street firms who own everything, not the public at large.
And technically never happens because investors like money and want money (After all, why they would invest otherwise?)
I think it’s more accurate to look at it as the same kind of survivorship bias as the companies themselves. Investors aren’t voters or politicians, they’re pools of capital. The bigger the pool, the more sway they have over things. If an investor were to consistently vote in such a way that did not maximize their returns, their pool of capital would shrink relative to those who do. Thus over time, the most influential investors will be the selfish ones and the less greedy ones will be naturally pushed out.
Thinking about it terms of them “wanting more money” makes it seem like they are a static entity with opinions and if only we could get better ones things would be ok. It ignores the way in which capitalism is a process that produces the outcomes we see. It’s an inevitability that an economy run on these principles will turn out this way.
And technically always loses to practically. 😞
Energy Industry:
Because thats not what self regulation means?
Self regulation means that the correct ammount of products will be made and distributed, as making too much leads to losing money, and too little to not realizing the potential of the investment.
Other than that, you are not talking about the same sense of the word regulation.
You’re mistaken, in this context it is when an industry or sector lobbies against governments regulating them, on the basis that’s it’s too complicated or expensive, and argues that they can do a better job themselves.
So what you’re saying is, you’re talking about another meaning of self regulation than the meme.
Why are you doing that?
Because no reasonable person who defends the free market and self regulation would use it in that manner, and for that reason this becomes very strawman-y.
Says who? I’ve certainly argued with many that would use it in exactly that sense. They argue things like the FDA and EPA aren’t necessary because markets will self regulate due to losing customers if their actions are antithetical to what society wants (I’ve seen the same argument regarding why civil rights wasn’t necessary and that the market would drive racists out of business, despite years of… that not happening).
Definitely arguable whether libertarians are reasonable or not, but they absolutely do use it in this way. I know because I both argue with them and unfortunately I’m a recovering libertarian myself.
no reasonable person
You may be right there, but it is how a lot of politicians use it.
You’re incorrect here, self regulation in this context means letting the individual industries try to follow all sorts of laws/regulations on their own. For example, Boeing was allowed to self-regulate for some time (and they probably still are to some degree) meaning the FAA and other relevant government agencies were not doing things like inspections - they left a lot of it up to Boeing. Then Boeing had two 737 MAX crashes due to MCAS and a door panel blow off near Portland, OR
