Alda Yuan
Professor Alexandratos
MHC 200
Week 3 Response
The struggle between government regulation and liberty is hardly new or unique to the environmental movement. Every regulation, every law redistributes something, takes power or wealth or liberty from one group and gives it to another, subordinates one interest to another. Even the most basic laws, such as prohibition against thievery are written with the view of putting the interest of societal order above the robber’s liberty to take what he or she wills. Depending on who you ask, environmental regulations are either an example of heavy handed governmental intervention stifling the free market or sorely needed protocols that tip the balance between powerful corporations and individuals.
It cannot be denied that environmental regulations put a burden on business. They force corporations to allocate resources and manpower toward avenues that generate no extra income for the company and open them up to governmental sanctions and legal liability. But it is far from obvious that such a burden is undue. This debate has had a central role in the current presidential election. The slogan of the Republican National Convention for instance was, “We Built It.” This is a linguistic play from a soundbite in which President Obama seemed to declare that business owners did not build their own companies. In reality, he was referring to the public goods such as roads made available and maintained by the government. But the distinction here is almost immaterial because the crux of the matter is that no one truly builds anything on their own. Even if an entrepreneur takes no loans from the government and accepts no help from family members, they cannot claim to have received no aid.
Free enterprise itself is only possible because the government provides a mechanism by which private contracts can be enforced and intellectual property protected. Public schools provide people the basic literacy and arithmetic needed to run even the simplest of businesses. The military might and diplomatic leverage of the country enable our goods and people to travel to and through other countries without hindrance. So while it might be politically expedient to declare businesses owners are all ubermensch, it remains a gross oversimplification. This is not to detract from the hard work and innovation people bring to the free market. And indeed, regulation should not be so onerous as to strangle this. Any country that wants to continue to be an economic power needs people who are motivated, dedicated and ambitious. The strength of a capitalist system is the power of profit as an incentive to continuously develop and improve. But, as the founders might have said, wealth and power come with the responsibility to act with virtue. At the very least, it means not harming the communities from which you derive benefit. And government regulations, while doubtless cumbersome to follow a times, promote the general welfare. Despite the suspicions of our founding fathers for government authority, they understood this principle. In his “Thoughts on Government”, which would serve as the framework for the Massachusetts Constitution and thus for the Constitution of the United States, John Adams said “the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.” Of course, he was arguing for a republican form of government but this utilitarian view of the role of government more than provides justification for intervention in areas where private entities have infringed upon the liberty and comfort of others.
