Many in the Alle-Kiski Valley, the region I call home, were stirred into excitement by a loose alligator in the Kiski River. Alligators are not a common sight in Pennsylvania; they are only found in zoos or private residences, so this gator was likely dumped in the river by someone who kept it as a pet.
The gator, now named ‘Chomper,’ has since been found, but the gator mania doesn’t stop there. It turns out that this is much more common than one might think. Another alligator was spotted in western Pennsylvania in the Monongahela River a few days ago; another in Beaver Run Reservoir a month ago.
How ought a libertarian think about this? Walter Block has a partial answer in the chapter on “The Litterer” in Defending the Undefendable.
Litter can only take place in the public domain — never in the private domain. The ads showing the supposed evils of litter take place on highways, beaches, streets, parks, subways, or public bathrooms — all public areas.
This is not because most littering occurs in public places. It is definitional. If something resembling littering in all other aspects were to occur in a private place, it would not be considered littering. When large crowds leave a ballpark, movie, theater, concert, or circus, what remains among the seats and aisles is not and cannot be litter. It is garbage, dirt, or waste, but not litter.
It is perfectly legal in Pennsylvania to keep an alligator on one’s private property, but it is illegal to release it into the wild, which is public property. In the case of alligators, “the wild” refers to waterways, many of which were declared as public highways by the Pennsylvania government in the 1700-1800s. Were the waterways private, alligators being in the river would be subject to the consent of the owners of the river. If they are wanted, then no crime is committed. If the alligators are unwanted, the litterer is committing an aggression against the owners of the river or sections of the rivers.
Since rivers are public property, is there a legitimate crime committed by the dumper? While PA law maintains the criminality of dumping, libertarian law is agnostic on the issue of “littering” on public lands. Walter continues:
In considering litter in the public domain, there is no finely attuned system responding to the needs and desires of the people. Rather, the public domain is the ward of the government, and the government treats consumer demands in a rather cavalier manner, virtually ignoring them.
Government enterprise is the only enterprise that will deal with an increased desire to litter with a steadfast determination to eliminate it, thereby refusing to adapt to either consumer desires or changing technology.1 The law is the law. The government can function this way because it is outside the market. It does not obtain its revenues from the market process of voluntary trade. It obtains its revenues through taxation, a process completely unrelated to its ability to satisfy customers.
The governmental argument against litter is that it is done out of disrespect for others' rights. But this argument is without merit. The whole concept of private litter is a case in point. If litter were a violation of rights and a refusal to consider the comfort of others, what of the "litter" in restaurants, ballparks, factories, etc.? Litter comes about in the private market precisely as a means of satisfying the desires of consumers for comfort. One no more violates the restaurant owner's rights by littering than by eating, since both are paid for.
"Government enterprise is the only enterprise that will deal with an increased desire to litter with a steadfast determination to eliminate it, thereby refusing to adapt to either consumer desires or changing technology."
How is the government's failure to maintain a flexible litterbug policy in the public sector to be interpreted? It is not entirely due to indifference, although it is far simpler to totally prohibit something than to deal with it in a reasonable manner. The explanation is that no government, no matter how interested or beneficent, could maintain a flexible litterbug policy.
Such a policy must be supported by a price system — a profit and loss system — to measure the cost and benefits of littering, and to automatically penalize managers who failed to adjust accordingly.
What is the optimal amount of litter? Nobody can tell outside of the market system. What if consumers would prefer the government to simply ignore the alligator and allow it to die in the winter? This would save on search, capture, and relocation costs. In the absence of profit and loss, the government agents charged with dealing with the gator are clueless and are likely to be driven by public outcry, which is what happened in some of the cases mentioned. Some police departments originally planned to allow the gator to die in the winter, but human concerns were raised, which spurred public outcry and a search for the out-of-place creature.
Furthermore, what if the consumers prefer the gator to be in the river? Such a case is unlikely, but there is no reason to disregard it immediately, so allow me to make a suggestion.
In a private property society, the river would probably be owned by some business or association that either uses the river for recreation or commercial purposes. We know that the alligators would die in the winter, so there is no concern of a sustainable gator population becoming a problem. It would be completely permissible for the owner of the river to stock the river with dozens of gators in the spring or summer and sell permits for hunting them (I am not pretending to know the logistics of this, just making a suggestion).
This would be an immensely fun activity. I would certainly partake. Rather than having to travel to Florida or some other southern state to hunt gators, I could go down the street to the Kiski River.
If the gators wander from the private property boundaries of the river, then the owner would be liable for any damages the gators cause. There is no need for government to intervene.
Unfortunately, if someone wanted to do this today, the government banned releasing alligators into the wild. This kind of littering is not legally permissible; therefore, consumer preferences may be frustrated, either by the government taking measures to combat this littering or by arbitrarily labeling something as “littering” when people actually desire for the “litter” (the gators) to be in the river.
In the words of Walter Block:
In the light of the inflexibility of the government, and its apparent lack of interest in accommodating public tastes, how is the litterbug to be viewed? The litterbug treats public property in much the same way he would treat private property if he were but free to. Namely, he leaves garbage around on it. It has been demonstrated that there is nothing intrinsically evil about this activity, and that but for governmental calcification, it would be as widely accepted in the public arena as it is in the private. It is an activity that should be regulated by people's needs, not by government fiat.
We must conclude, therefore, that far from being a public enemy, the litterer is actually a hero. The courage exhibited by the litterer, given the intense campaign of vilification directed against him, is considerable. Even more important, the behavior of the litterer who purposefully "takes the law into his own hands" can serve as a protest against an unjust system.
Perhaps the owner of river would have allowed ‘Chomper’ to be dumped, maybe he wouldn’t care, or maybe nobody would own the river, but given that the government “owns” the river, we may never know how this scenario would have played out in a free market.
The actions of Chomper’s former owner are entirely justifiable. In fact, let’s assume that river would be unhomesteaded and unowned in a free society. He would be acting completely in his right to release Chomper. In fact, he could notify others about Chomper’s presence without fear of being arrested or fined. People would be better off in this case. Instead, the owner released Chomper in secret out of fear of the law, and he just had to hope that nobody got hurt.
Littering on public lands is permissible. The same applies to dumping alligators in public rivers. As we have noted, allowing the dumping by law and/or privatizing the waterways would eliminate many of the issues associated with releasing alligators.