On Financial Markets and Environmental Regulation
I save the instructions for an item so I can try to figure out what is wrong when it breaks. Given the state of our financial markets, I went looking for the instructions. I couldn’t find a copy of Adam Smith’s nine hundred page, two volume set The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776. I did; however, find the next best thing: P.J. O’Rourke’s On the Wealth of Nations, (Atlantic Monthly Press 2007), a concise 250 page explanation that is both informative and entertaining. In reading through O’Rourke’s summary, I noted that Smiths three principles that determine market behavior (i.e, pursuit of self interest, division of labor and freedom of trade) explain a lot about why the markets currently are frozen up. We have had perhaps too much of all three, and too much of a good thing rarely turns out well. Being an environmental lawyer, it also struck me that unintended consequences of current environmental regulations might be at least in part responsible for our current financial situation. Finally, given the change in administrations, it occurred to me that the interplay between the market economy and environmental regulation and policy will continue, so we need to be smart about it.
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