Why Libertarians Should Support A Carbon Tax—Even If They Can’t Love It
Ed Dolan | Jul 15, 2013 03:10AM ET
In the first two parts of this series, I discussed the reasons why both conservatives and progressives should love a carbon tax, and why many of each political persuasion do. In this third installment, I take up the more difficult case of libertarians.
There is no way that a good libertarian could love a carbon tax, or any tax, for that matter. Classical liberal principles hold that that state should play a role in economic affairs only when there are problems the cannot feasibly be handled in the private sector. Even those who support a role for the state in, say, criminal justice or national defense, do so only reluctantly. They secretly pine for a libertarian utopia like that in Robert Henlein’s . For more on the topic of this post, see my book TANSTAAFL: A Libertarian Perspective on Environmental Policy.
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