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Volume 4 Number 30
November 3, 2006 |
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Trading in death Is it ethically permissible to run an open market in
the right to kill people? I was listening to a corporate executive talk the other day, explaining how his company has sold its pollution credits to another company for a tidy sum. What a shrewd businessman was he, he claimed. The claim only focused my longstanding unease with the practice. For those unfamiliar with pollution credits, let me explain. Suppose that the government mandates that all businesses reduce pollution by 10 percent by the end of 2006. Company A manages to reduce its pollution by 20 percent. This would earn it "pollution credits," the difference between 10 and 20 percent. As a reward, it can sell those credits to another company for whatever the market will bear, allowing Company B to continue pumping pollutants into the air. The whole idea makes the free marketers giddy with excitement. It's win-win-win, they claim. Overall pollution is reduced by 10 percent, Company B can still make its profit margin and Company A can give the CEO another mega bonus for being a shrewd businessman. The problem is, however, that there is a loser in the game. These are the people who will grow sick and die as a result of Company B's failing to reduce pollution. The link between air pollution is not a myth and it's not a guessing game. In fact, it has been rigorously studied, has been well documented, and is well understood. It is a predictable and linear relationship. If pollution increases by X, then hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiac symptoms will increase by Y, and premature deaths will increase by Z. If we increase pollution by 2X, then the others will increase by 2Y and 2Z, respectively. It's that simple. The idea of selling the credits has an intuitive appeal. After all, it allows some companies to be rewarded for exceeding the goal and supposedly benefits companies that allegedly can't afford to cut emissions right away. And, there is an overall reduction in pollution by 10 percent, when averaged across all industries. Here's where the "gotcha" crowd chimes in. Would you rather Company A not reduce its pollution by 20 percent. Or would you rather that Company B go out of business? Or would you think it's better if pollution isn't reduced by 10 percent overall? Of course not. What bothers me is that we have basically developed a commodity exchange in the right to kill people. And that makes me uncomfortable. Should corporations be allowed to turn a profit by selling to another corporation the right to cause the deaths of hundreds of people? Grimmer still, should the right to kill be traded openly, like pork bellies or soybean futures? So then, my critics will say, how do we reduce pollution by acceptable levels, assuming that, without an incentive, Company A won't reduce its emissions, and Company B simply needs more time in order to put pollution controls into place? Let's take the second part of the question first. Why doesn't Company B have enough time? This idea of pollution control isn't something we came up with last night. Companies have known for decades that they needed to do this. They've had plenty of time. Arguing that they need even more time is reminiscent of the student who comes to the professor during the last week of class whining that he needs more time to finish the paper that was assigned the first week of the semester. Reducing pollution is a good thing. Rewarding those who go beyond minimum requirements is a good thing. Imposing a financial penalty on those who fail to meet the minimum is a good thing. What's unsavory is creating a market in what is, at the end of the day, human life. There are just some things we don't leave subject to the so-called "free market." We no longer allow human beings to be bought and sold. We don't allow people to sell their babies to adoption agencies. We don't allow people to peddle their kidneys on eBay. You can’t sell your vote. Nor should we allow the right to kill someone to be commodified and put up for auction to the highest bidder. The issue raises two ancillary issues involved in life and death. The first is the distinction between killing and "allowing to die," or "failing to save." Some might try to argue that by selling pollution credits we're not so much killing people as simply failing to prevent the deaths of those who will suffer from the pollution. While it's an interesting ethical topic -- and has been fairly well discussed in others venues -- it doesn't hold too much sway here. Most discussions around failing to save involve dangers that are caused by someone or something other than the person who fails to save. I may not have a strong obligation to jump into a raging river to save you, but the situation changes when I'm the one who pushed you into the river in the first place. The polluting companies are not simply failing to save the victims, they are the ones who are causing the death and illness. So, the distinction between killing and failing to save doesn't hold here. The other, and more interesting topic, is the difference in our feelings between what we call "real people" and "statistical people," or alternatively, "hypothetical people." Real people have names and histories, families and friends, and we know who they are. Statistical people have all of those, but not at the time we make decisions about them. I know that 25 people will die from a certain amount of pollution put into the air. They will be real people, but before they become ill and die, I don't know who they are or where they live. We are much more comfortable about condemning statistical people to death -- even though their deaths will be just as real as if we were able to name them up front. Were I to tell you that Company B was going to buy the right to kill a list of specific people, you would be horrified and would be inclined to do what you could to stop it. However, when many people learn that Company B has just bought to right to put X amount of pollution into the air, they have a much different feeling, despite the fact we know that a certain number of people will die from it. We don't know who they are right now, but they will die. They are, as they say in sports trades, players to be named later. This isn't the only area where that disconnect comes into play. It explains why some people will aggressively oppose a one-dollar tax increase to fight a disease, which will affect thousands of unnamed people, and will then turn around and donate $25 to the family of a neighbor who suffers from the disease. Real people vs. statistical people. When that's the choice, the statistical people always lose. So, how do we reward those who exceed pollution requirements and provide disincentives for those who don't? It would be a simple matter to provide an incentive -- perhaps 75 of the market rate for the credits -- for overachievers, and a penalty -- perhaps 125 percent of the going rate -- for those who don’t measure up. The difference could be used to offset the increased cost of medical care caused by the pollution. Or maybe, after giving them decades to comply, we just hold all polluters to a higher standard. |
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© Copyright 2006 Carlton Vogt |