It is very simple to explain why taxes and so called environmentally friendly products kill the environment.
Imagine you have 2 products. Both products do exactly the same thing. Light bulbs for example. One light bulb costs twice as much as another. There is no way that the more expensive light bulb is better for the environment than the cheaper light bulb because it is more expensive.
Okay so why is it bad for the environment to buy something which costs more and does the same job?
To understand the answer to this question we have to clarify what exactly money is.
Money is labour and property (like machinery, land, minerals, farm land, farm animals, office building, factories, houses) etc is a form which is easy to exchange between people.
Going to back to the light bulb argument and why the more expensive bulb harms the environment. If something costs more it means more labour/work and property need to be used it it’s creation than the cheaper bulb.
To break it down – Labour/Work
More labour means more work is required, which means
1. More food is required to feed people to replace the energy used working,
2. More fuel is burned to get people to and from work more often, working on Saturdays for example,
3. People working longer hours and spending less time with their family,
4. More time spent at work mean people have less time to spend on leisure,
5. People working more use more resources are required to supply electricity to the work environment, water to the work environment, more materials are required to carry out the work and so on.
All of these factors hurt the enivornment by people having to work and harder and longer and use more of the earths resource to achieve the same result.
More property is required to produce the same result which means
1. More of the earths materials are needed to achieve the same result
2. More machinery is reuired to product the same result
3. More land is required to produce the same result
4. More pollution is emitted to produce the same result
5. More buildings are required to produce the same result
The more expensive light bulb consumes more of the earths resources and creates more pollution that the cheaper light bulb.
This light bulb analogy can be transferred to any product that costs more and produces the same result as another product.
It is impossible for a product that achieves the same result but costs more than another product to be more friendly to the environment and it is absurd to claim that.
And it is not only the environmental effects of more expensive products it is also the social costs of more expensive products.
People spending less time with their partners, children, family and friends. People having less leisure time, people having to work harder for longer and the associated health care costs.
So in summary, more expensive products to do the same job
1. Consume more of the earth’s resources,
2. Create more pollution,
3. Force people to work harder and longer
and do general damage to society by
4. Forcing people to spend less time with their families and friends,
5. Forcing people to spend less time with their children and
6. Take less leisure time from people.
But the light bulb analogy can be expanded include one other critical issue and that is taxes except the effect of taxes is many times bigger than the effect of more expensive products.
Taxes increase the price of all products whether directly through sales taxes or indirectly through labour and social security taxes.
At least with more expensive products keep money in the private economy, with taxes you give your labour and property to the government which are notoriously wasteful and produce nothing in return.
Taxes of all kinds consume the earth’s resources at a much faster rate than is necessary, taxes do immense damage to society by forcing people to work harder and longer, taxes force people to spend less time with their friends and family, less time raising their children and less time enjoying the fruits of their labour.
Governments who claim they are pro-environment and do not reduce taxes are either hypocritical or uninformed.
Indeed most governments do the exact opposite, they claim to want to look after the environment but do the actual opposite and increase taxes.
Next time your government wants to increase your taxes and impose more regulations in general, in the name of the environment, remember that this means you will have to work longer and harder, will mean that you will have less time to spend with your family and friends, and means that more of the World’s resources will have to be consumed to maintain the same standard of living.
In other words, the exact opposite of what the government is claiming.
I hope you have found this article interesting and if you have any comments I would love to hear them!
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