Harold Meyerson recently published an editorial in the Washington Post on three supposedly infallible structures - the American financial system, deep-water oil drilling and nuclear power. He sites our current faith in the infallibility of science and technology as a potential Achilles heel, as evidenced in the recent economic recession, BP disaster and Japanese nuclear crisis. He sites the danger of a hands-off, libertarian policy towards such structures, calling instead for regulation in the realms of food safety, economic and environmental policy. A quote:
"The market may in time punish bad actors, which is the ostensible safeguard that libertarians prefer to regulation. Yet as the people sealed inside their homes in the vicinity of Japan’s malfunctioning nuclear plant could tell us, untold numbers of innocents may pay a much higher price, more quickly, than the executives and shareholders of offending companies. "
While I believe his calls for "active, disinterested government regulation" are a bit naive (government is never disinterested), I think he makes a sound point against libertarian philosophy that assumes inherent morality in the free market.
So, the question remains, what do we do with nuclear power? Many of the old-guard environmental activists have, in recent years, converted to a pro-nuclear stance. They site the cleanliness of the energy and rising energy demands fueled by development and population growth. I am reluctant to make decisions on policy in the midst of turmoil, but in the wake of Japan's emergency, what do we do with the obvious risks posed by nuclear energy production?
Props to Jim Rice of God's Politics for the Meyerson link.
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