The great wall of China is being worn down by tourists. I learned this from a friend that we had over for dinner the other day. He told us this as if it was some kind of catastrophe. But the great wall is already a ruin. What the tourists get to see is a restored section of the wall. What's being worn down is not the original wall, but its restoration. However, I didn't bother to point this out. The man was on a roll, so I let him lecture us further on the horrors of mass tourism.
Next thing up was the price of air tickets. They've been much too low for too long. This would have to stop. At this point, I mentioned the flu as a perfect excuse to make travel both difficult and expensive. But he brushed this aside. This was not about the flu but about sustainability.
Speaking of sustainability, the man went on to lament the fact that a container ship had to cross several oceans to bring a scarf ordered by his daughter all the way from China to Portugal. I had to smile at the thought. A whole container ship crossing oceans to deliver a scarf to his daughter. It conjured up images of utter insanity. However, the only insanity in this was the man's insistence that something had to be done about it.
My only concern with the current state of the economy is that it's fragile. Low prices is not a problem. It's a blessing, and it's borderline suicidal to invite politicians into this to make things more expensive.
Politicians are experts at making life both miserable and expensive, so they will be more than happy to help out in this respect if asked to do so. However, they can only do this if enough people beg for it, so they are constantly pushing narratives to defend the sort of waste that they can bestow upon the world. These narratives are picked up by friends in the media who in turn make scary stories about climate change and waste to persuade the romantics, and stories about wear and tear to persuade the conservatives.
The romantics and conservatives end up begging for regulations, and the politicians step in. However, there never was a problem in the first place. It's all in the minds of people. The oceans aren't overflowing with waste, as a romantic friend of ours discovered the other day when she was frustrated in her search for garbage littering the shores of Portugal. She was so convinced that there was a huge waste problem related to the oceans that she went for a walk with her children to collect garbage from the beach. But she found next to nothing.
Furthermore, things are cheap because they are made efficiently, and efficiency implies little waste. Industry is never designed to be wasteful; quite the opposite. Hence, there's nothing that a politician can do to improve the environment. All they can do is to protect certain industries at the expense of everybody else. China protects polluters by denying people the right to sue for damages caused by pollution of air and water. Western governments protect electric car industries and wind farms by turning a blind eye to the damage created to wildlife and nature due to this type of unsustainable sustainability.
But the dumbest of all ideas is the myth that humans are harmful to our planet and ourselves.
Well managed nature is superior to untended nature. My balcony is full of green plants and insects due to my management. Without my interference, our balcony would be a barren desert. Likewise, a well tended forest has more wildlife than an untended forest. A well tended forest doesn't burn because it's kept tidy. A well tended forest is rich in plants and wildlife. It's also safe and pleasant for those who live near it.
A well tended forest isn't cut down indiscriminately. That only happens in countries where property rights are weak. Countries like Norway, where property rights are strong, have well tended forests. It's in countries like Brazil, where property rights are fleeting, that we see mass deforestation with little willingness to plant new forest. Because there's no point in investing in something that may be confiscated.
Yet, the stupidest of all these dumb ideas must be the idea that buildings and artifacts need government regulations. These are things made by people. This has nothing to do with mother Earth, and everything to do with value. Why does anyone think that a bureaucracy is better suited to appreciate value than the owners of a property or artifact?
The great wall of China was restored for the purpose of tourism. The point was to get a lot of people up to the restored section to have a look at it and spend some money, so the fact that it's wearing down is proof of success. All that's needed in order to continue the success is to restore the worn down elements. That's it.
As for any old building in a town, the owner would be stupid to make something hideous of it. That would reduce the value of the building. We don't need bureaucrats to tell us this. The same goes for ancient coins and treasures found on private land. The finder will most certainly not melt it down or destroy it. It will be brought to an auction and a collector will buy it, who in tern will take good care of it. There are private museums where such treasures are displayed. They are no worse at taking care of their treasures than a state run museum; on the contrary. Private owners are always the most caring, because the treasures are linked to their wealth and social status. Bureaucrats on the other hand, have no such incentive to take extra care of things.
As for the old stuff that private entrepreneurs find of little value, there's little to no harm in having it torn down. We can't preserve everything. Some things must go in order to make room for new stuff, and what goes up is almost always superior to what's torn down. I live in a town that's been around for thousands of years. Imagine the squalor that would exist if nothing was ever replaced.
There's no reason to regulate buildings for their appearance either. Entrepreneurs seek to maximize their profits, so they have to make whatever they are putting up sufficiently appealing to attract buyers. They will do this on their own. They don't need bureaucrats to tell them the obvious.
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