Feb 13, 2004
High Sierra
[cross-posted at Praxeology.net
As a longtime believer in greater cooperation between libertarians and the Left, I was pleased to hear that the Libertarian Party has invited Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, to speak at the LP's upcoming national convention. (See the story here.)
I've long been puzzled by the hostility between libertarians and environmentalists. Environmentalists warn against the unintended consequences of ignorant intervention into self-ordering ecological systems, but have no similar qualms about intervening in self-ordering economic systems; libertarians have precisely the inverse set of concerns. These are two groups that really need to sit down and talk with each other.
Having read a number of Pope's articles, I fear I'm rather skeptical of LP National Chair Geoffrey Neale's insistence that Pope is already quite market-friendly. But as Neale says,"you can't learn how to talk to the Left unless you're willing to occasionally listen to the Left as well." And Pope certainly deserves credit for fighting to resist the looming takeover of the Sierra Club by eco-terrorist and anti-immigrant activist Paul Watson.
As a longtime believer in greater cooperation between libertarians and the Left, I was pleased to hear that the Libertarian Party has invited Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, to speak at the LP's upcoming national convention. (See the story here.)
I've long been puzzled by the hostility between libertarians and environmentalists. Environmentalists warn against the unintended consequences of ignorant intervention into self-ordering ecological systems, but have no similar qualms about intervening in self-ordering economic systems; libertarians have precisely the inverse set of concerns. These are two groups that really need to sit down and talk with each other.
Having read a number of Pope's articles, I fear I'm rather skeptical of LP National Chair Geoffrey Neale's insistence that Pope is already quite market-friendly. But as Neale says,"you can't learn how to talk to the Left unless you're willing to occasionally listen to the Left as well." And Pope certainly deserves credit for fighting to resist the looming takeover of the Sierra Club by eco-terrorist and anti-immigrant activist Paul Watson.