Well said. Similar to the passenger car example you described, I think a number of related metrics will be relevant to the electricity grid as it goes through its transition. For example - cryptocurrency mined near a wind farm on 100% renewable electricity could be compared to the relatively “lethal” crypto mined on a coal-powered grid. The challenge with climate action is balancing our favorite metric (costs, or supply vs demand) with other important metrics like you mentioned, and meeting the highest-valued (by multiple metrics) demand
This was an awesome way to frame the implicit trade-offs governments are making on key policies that effect us all. I loved the analogy with shampoo 2 in 1 to explain a pretty complex topic. Well done and looking forward to more!
Great first post. I appreciate your thoughts that maybe the government’s main purpose is to hold a monopoly on the use of force. I would agree that climate change could be considered a form of violence, but potentially a better argument lies in the government’s more secondary role of absorbing dangerous externalities that emerge from best-interest market decisions (thereby borrowing from Friedman’s free-agent logic while still making space for government action squarely in the public interest). And we can still integrate this secondary role for government into our theory that the main role of any sovereign authority is to sustain a monopoly on violence— the government could only absorb harmful externalities emerging from individualistic market choices IFF it has the means to efficiently and completely implement a system through which to deal with these externalities. How could it possibly devise such a system? Through its monopoly on force in a democracy; progress cannot be achieved when met with armed resistance at every turn (here we’d say from the NEOLIBERALS and Jan. 6 insurgents). Would love to see more on political economy from your blog! Also feel free to check out Weber, a German scholar, for more on the monopoly over the legitimate use of force.
Well said. Similar to the passenger car example you described, I think a number of related metrics will be relevant to the electricity grid as it goes through its transition. For example - cryptocurrency mined near a wind farm on 100% renewable electricity could be compared to the relatively “lethal” crypto mined on a coal-powered grid. The challenge with climate action is balancing our favorite metric (costs, or supply vs demand) with other important metrics like you mentioned, and meeting the highest-valued (by multiple metrics) demand
This was an awesome way to frame the implicit trade-offs governments are making on key policies that effect us all. I loved the analogy with shampoo 2 in 1 to explain a pretty complex topic. Well done and looking forward to more!
really interesting analogy with shampoo 2 in 1. keep going!
Great first post. I appreciate your thoughts that maybe the government’s main purpose is to hold a monopoly on the use of force. I would agree that climate change could be considered a form of violence, but potentially a better argument lies in the government’s more secondary role of absorbing dangerous externalities that emerge from best-interest market decisions (thereby borrowing from Friedman’s free-agent logic while still making space for government action squarely in the public interest). And we can still integrate this secondary role for government into our theory that the main role of any sovereign authority is to sustain a monopoly on violence— the government could only absorb harmful externalities emerging from individualistic market choices IFF it has the means to efficiently and completely implement a system through which to deal with these externalities. How could it possibly devise such a system? Through its monopoly on force in a democracy; progress cannot be achieved when met with armed resistance at every turn (here we’d say from the NEOLIBERALS and Jan. 6 insurgents). Would love to see more on political economy from your blog! Also feel free to check out Weber, a German scholar, for more on the monopoly over the legitimate use of force.