I've had difficulty eating lobster due to the whole boiling alive bit after reading this: http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf
Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
81–90 of 119 posts
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Green Peace & Environmentalists would like us to reduce our use of capture fisheries or abandon the practice altogether Bans seem to work better for charismatic animals. We spend about $10,000 per year per tiger on conservation efforts [1]. Meanwhile, marine protected areas [2], of which some are no-fish no-catch, are notoriously under-enforced [3]. Which kind of makes sense given nobody is directly incentivized to…
like I was saying, many people would like us to abandon this large source of protein even though sustainable fisheries are possible. Look at the fisheries in New Zealand or Alaska for examples of very well managed fisheries. In many developing countries it's not a tragedy of the commons problem, it's a structure/stability problem. How can you ever have managed fisheries without political stability, or with stability…
Hello from New Zealand! I beg to differ about "well managed fisheries". NZ has regulatory capture, massive bycatch problems, and some species are near to collapse the way that orange roughy collapsed. The government talks it up as a sterling example of property rights, but the results are atrocious. It's a faith-based claim of success.
Sample shenanigans: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/313631/mpi-official-a...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Barry_Torkington/public...
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#83I'm in the middle of reading Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly, which talks extensively about Maine lobster fishery rights. Along the sensitive areas of the coast, only owner-operated boats are allowed to fish, and these people must all have certified lobster fishing licenses. Their licensure also gives them voting rights around regulations for lobstering- in a sense, they own the…
> Kelly argues that this ownership of the lobstering commons, in a cooperative-like structure, leads to greater sustainability. >> Large corporate boats can operate only in designated areas. Instead of permitting limitless liberty to absentee owners for the seeking of wealth -- by hired hands indifferent to local custom -- Maine set spinning a new governing pattern…. That the right to make a living comes before the r…
>>So aside from imposing regulation, another way to prevent a tragedy of the commons is to get rid of the commons: grant exclusive use of the former commons to a single party, who then has an incentive for good stewardship.
>>As is often the case when the law arbitrarily privileges some parties over others, there is an overlooked harm here, suffered by would-be lobstermen that the rules say cannot be.
I fail to see how granting exclusive use to a single party would benefit "would-be lobstermen", if anything, its economies of scale would allow it to employ less people.
Not to talk about how the hypothetical single party might find another, more profitable, equilibrium point with less, and more expensive, lobsters in the market, employing less people. Or sending all of them to china and damaging the coastal tourism of Maine.
Also, I can't think of a modern instance of a monopoly that was given the control of a limited renovable resource and behaved nicely in an unregulated environment. All the instances I can think of were heavily regulated.
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Kelly argues that this ownership of the lobstering commons, in a cooperative-like structure, leads to greater sustainability. >> Large corporate boats can operate only in designated areas. Instead of permitting limitless liberty to absentee owners for the seeking of wealth -- by hired hands indifferent to local custom -- Maine set spinning a new governing pattern…. That the right to make a living comes before the r…
If we make the same argument in favor of taxi cartels, people see the flaw right away. The system may encourage conservation but that's only one of many side effects and we're glossing over the costs.
That's because they're different. "Over taxiing" won't deplete the population of taxi riders. Just because you know something about the economics of the taxi business doesn't mean you can indiscriminately apply the same logic to a different industry. Which in a thread full of condescending compassion for the economically illiterate, is by far the more common fallacy.
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#85I'm in the middle of reading Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly, which talks extensively about Maine lobster fishery rights. Along the sensitive areas of the coast, only owner-operated boats are allowed to fish, and these people must all have certified lobster fishing licenses. Their licensure also gives them voting rights around regulations for lobstering- in a sense, they own the…
A perspective from the north pacific on fisheries, counsels, voting rights, etc - The whole thing is a many sided tug of war. Ultimatly Fisheries are very complicated. Green Peace & Environmentalists would like us to reduce our use of capture fisheries or abandon the practice altogether. (Even though capture fisheries produce protein without damaging biodiversity, unlike farms. also less greenhouse impact.) Financial…
Is it a foregone conclusion that we need to be producing this much protein?
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#86I recommend reading the essay "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace :)
Funny coincidence, but I just read it a few weeks ago.
Yes, highly recommended reading.
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#87How can I help? I'll bring my own butter and salt.
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#88I'm in the middle of reading Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly, which talks extensively about Maine lobster fishery rights. Along the sensitive areas of the coast, only owner-operated boats are allowed to fish, and these people must all have certified lobster fishing licenses. Their licensure also gives them voting rights around regulations for lobstering- in a sense, they own the…
Skin in the game. You can't expect fair play if one does not put and risk his share.
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#89The Lobster chart in the article reminds me so much of the Cod Collapse()
() https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_north...
Re: Maine Is Drowning in Lobsters
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's interesting to think about the way such a system is a hybrid of different political systems. At the fishery level it's not communistic... But it's also not capitalistic. The fishery isn't owned by a single profit driven entity, it's a democracy or a beurocrasy, or however they have it set up. At the boat level it's a single profit driven entity, which is purely capitalistic On the boat itself you have a…
I really appreciate your insight that different political structures work better for different scales and different situations. I suppose that's intuitively obvious but I hadn't ever considered it.
There's some classic economic work on "the theory of the firm" by Coase that really gets into this question. Within companies, it's not an internal market but some kind of autocracy. Why? Coase makes an argument about transactional and informational costs.