Refreshingly, the Green Party politicians here have been migrating away from their anarchist/communist roots towards a more pro-capitalist perspective (with possible help of a barrage of emails I've been sending them over the years). Their latest leader sports a Masters degree in Business, with an intensive background in corporate management and startups.

this is a great article, Vinay, and Thank You Much! -- j
.

Can't get the URL to appear.
Oh well, that never stopped me before.
It is unfortunate that rationality no longer is used in the asylum named after the man who was the epitome of rationality.

True. 80% of media, politics and academe are run via a tribal narrative.

True. And corporations, because of their potentially infinite life, often take an even longer-term view.

You can present every logical argument with factual information showing that capitalism makes every aspect of life better to certainly include the environment, but due to the poorly educated in the usa and I believe europe as well we capitalists have no capability to convince them of our position. THEM is supposedly the educated of our country. Losing battle.

Well said. What the environmental wackos don't understand is that true capitalists aren't one-and-done. They want to make profits every year. That's true business - long term and steady. It's the looters who are in it for a quick fix. Real businesses aren't interested in antagonizing their investors or their patrons because they need them! It's the same with their treatment of the environment: most aren't going to intentionally destroy something that could be used later - even if it requires a small effort now.

Excellent points. Indeed, the free rider problem can be overcome by voluntary contracting.

Stephen Hicks' article is very good.
I want to add some points-
-The technical name for the kitchen cleaning problem is 'the free rider hypothesis'. It is very common, it seldom works well.
-In the shared house, 'the eight private rooms varied from clean to messy'.
It can happen that the messy ones are a threat even tho' the rooms are private, for example as a source of pests. The concept of property rights does not permit intervention on the grounds of dirt or self-harm, but, intervention may be justified when the pests become a threat to others. If walls or barriers are nor practical then intervention should be based on some contract written or implied in which a standard of behavior and cleanliness is required.

Yes, indeed.

Great article