Alotta Fagina wrote:
You wrote:

Much of Europe has been deforested entirely.


Bu- bu - bu - bu - but Europe is a Socialist Utopia (TM) where everything
is perfect (or at least better than the mean old Yoo Ess of A.


Most of the deforestation of Europe occured before socialism was
invented.

Changes in society brought about by increasing urbanization in Europe
and the "industrial revolution" contributed to the early development of
socialist philosophy.



Actually, government-owned forests over here get razed because they're
leased to logging companies; forests owned by the loggers themselves are
carefully managed and replenished. So much for the "capitalists only seek
to maximize profits and maximize them NOW" crap.


So, you are arguing that the "logging companies" razing the forests are
not capitalist organizations? Do tell.

Farmers, fishermen, loggers, miners; they all make a living extracting
resources. That's very much OK, since the resources (with the possible
exception of minerals) will repenish themselves at a rate equal to
harvest if properly managed.

Fisheries management, and resource management in general in the US, is
one of those areas where our society actually operates from a semi-
socialist model. Because we have set aside "public lands" and "public
waterways" we have created public ownership of the natural resources
these lands and waterways contain. (Public ownership of natural
resources is a key principle in a socialist economy). This isn't some
new-fangled liberal invention foisted off as an insult to the flag in
the last 50 years or so, in fact "public lands" are a tradition that
dates back to colonial days in the US. (Most towns had "common"
pasturelands, i.e. Boston Common, where everyone could graze their
livestock in common).

If we operated from a purely capitalist perspective, the public lands
and waterways would be sold to private operators who would then be free
to do as they would with the resources.
Corporations under pressure from stockholders couldn't be blamed for
taking the management route that maximized near term profits; few
people are altruistic enough to care whether somebody who won't even be
born for another 50 years will be able to utilize a particular resource
of make a living harvesting it.

I support the allocation of harvestable resources into "shares". Sort
of. Take the crab fishery in Alaska, for instance. Under the
time-honored model, the "season" opens up for a couple of weeks and
everybody with a commercial crab license scrambles to board as many
crab as they possibly can. Crews are worked around the clock, and often
in weather conditions that are insane, and as a result there are a lot
of deaths each year associated with the fishery. If you can haul in
1,000,000 pounds of crab, great! If you get skunked or chased off the
water by severe storms conditions, that's just your tough luck and
better luck next year.

Under a shares system, each licensee is allocated a particular amount
of crab. If conditions are exceptionally dangerous, fishing can be
postponed until the weather moderates slightly (although during winters
in the Gulf of Alaska "moderates" is a relative term). When a licensee
boards as much crab as allocated, he or she either has to stop fishing
or buy unused allocation from another fisherman. Some free enterprise
prinicples still apply, as in order to maximize profits a fisherman
needs to collect his allocation as efficiently as possible.

The problem with the shares system is that within a few years most of
the small operators will have sold out to the mega-corporations.

Fisheries management, in particular, gets complicated because of the
recreational aspect.
(There are few "recreational" loggers, by comparison). From a purely
economic perspective, each fish caught by a recreational fisherman puts
a *lot* more money into circulation. How many fishermen are really
paying about $500 a pound, or more, for fish dinners? :-) Boats,
motors, fuel, bait, tackle, etc.....how many fish does a guy need to
catch to offset $100k spent on a fishing boat? A lot! So, nobody
realistically claims to be "saving money" when sport fishing.

From a larger perspective, that of providing food to the world, the
commercial fisheries are much more efficient than the sports fishery.

It's a tough call. Glad somebody else is making it.