[_gmnw]

This is super depressing, it's crazy to see how much the flora/fauna have changed locally in my lifetime.

It makes me wonder how much worse it actually is. Is looks like most of these were initially listed in the 80s, not too long after Endangered Species Act passed.

Is there some sort of time limit before they officially declare something extinct?

[beerandt]

The Ivory Billed Woodpecker hasn't had a confirmed sighting since 1944.

Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner of that 1944 sighting probably couldn't turn over a rock on his property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at least until now.

ETA: If I'm remembering the stories right, either the last or one of the very last IBW sightings was doubted by officials, because the guy was a farmer or something and "not a scientist or expert".

Not getting them to pay him any attention, he went home, shot the breeding pair, and returned to the officials office with proof.

[Johnny555]

Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner of that 1944 sighting probably couldn't turn over a rock on his property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at least until now.

The endangered species act wasn't enacted until 1973, so I think that landowner had plenty of opportunity to do what he wanted with his property.

[beerandt]

That's not really a fair comparison/ justification.

I don't know how much "warning" was given for the endangered species act, or if that even matters, since land that's about to be worthless is already worthless.

Also, I have no idea what actually happened in this case. But to speculate/generalize:

IBW were already (obviously) extremely rare in 1944, so there would have been an intense amount of pressure preventing him from "doing" anything with the land, and in a rural, wooded area, there probably weren't many options at the time besides farming it, anyway.

If the guy would have known in 1944 that the endangered species act would be passed in 1973, you'd maybe have a point. But he wouldn't have known.

If the government suddenly told you tomorrow you couldn't sell your house, then claiming it's fair because you could have sold it all the way up to yesterday doesn't do you any good if you had no advanced knowledge of it. And if it were public knowledge, who would want to buy it anyway?

[Johnny555]

Also, I have no idea what actually happened in this case. But to speculate/generalize:

Your argument would have more weight if you'd give facts instead of speculating what could have happened.

What actually did happen?

[Johnny555]

I was curious what actually happened so looked it up -- looks like conservancy groups tried (and failed) to purchase the land to preserve it, and the land was logged despite the presence of the known endangered bird: "Eckelberry also saw the logging that cut down the trees used by the last Ivory-billed woodpecker"

40 years later a NWR was established on the land.

https://www.fws.gov/ivorybill/pdf/IBW%20Singer%20Tract%20Fac...

[akerl_]

So, just to confirm: he did what he wanted with the land, and other than attempting to purchase the land from him and being declined, nobody interfered with his use of his land?

[beerandt]

I only speculated/generalized because that situation has happened, thousands of times, just not with the interesting backstory.

Landowner discovers he has an endangered species, reports it, gets rewarded by having his property restricted, endangered species moves on (or dies), and restrictions remain indefinitely.

Or landowner doesn't report it, "disappears" the animals, and uses it or sells it while it still has value.

Sounds like in this case, it somehow managed to be a bit of both of those.

[twelvechairs]

Government isnt there to protect every business from ever going out of business. Sorry but I dont see the argument for compensation. By your argument everyone who has planning controls changed in their neighbourhood should be paid out, tobacco companies should be paid for revenue loss due to taxation and government adverts and anyone with a house built next to them should sue their neighbour for overshadowing and traffic noise. Sorry but its unworkable. Its simply the risks of doing business.

[AnthonyMouse]

The purpose of taxing tobacco is to discourage consumption. The tax is directly the mechanism for achieving the desired purpose rather than a hardship imposed on some otherwise innocent people only incidentally. It's not a taking, it's a penalty.

When your neighbor builds a house next to yours, that's not a taking because it's not the government doing it. If you wanted to control what got built on a piece of property that isn't yours, you should have bought it yourself, or entered into a contract with the property owner where they agree not to do that for a particular period of years and you compensate them for the restriction.

Governments should have to compensate property owners for zoning restrictions and the like. That makes perfect sense, for the same reason they have to compensate for any other takings -- because you're imposing a hardship on a specific innocent third party for a collective benefit, which is unreasonable. If there is to be a collective benefit then it should be paid for out of the collective fund and not disproportionately imposed on unconsenting innocent people at random. And if it turns out that the cost of compensating the property owners for the restriction you want to impose exceeds the value you hope to achieve by imposing it, that's some pretty good evidence that you shouldn't be doing it -- which is exactly why it should have to be paid out.

The fact that courts decided not to do that with zoning is the whole reason we have a housing shortage -- because now we've over-produced zoning restrictions since they can be imposed without accounting for their cost.

[jen20]

> because you're imposing a hardship on a specific innocent third party for a collective benefit, which is unreasonable.

This sums up the American attitude to life better than anyone has ever done for me before.

[twelvechairs]

> The purpose of taxing tobacco is to discourage consumption. The tax is directly the mechanism for achieving the desired purpose rather than a hardship imposed on some otherwise innocent people only incidentally. It's not a taking, it's a penalty.

And the purpose for environmental regulation is to discourage extinction in the same way. You are arguing black with one and white with the other...

> When your neighbor builds a house next to yours, that's not a taking because it's not the government doing it.

So when I'm overshadowed, my view is blocked, added noise etc. thats not 'taking'? Only governments can take not private citizens? I don't understand this view at all.

I agree zoning has been completely overdone but its definitely necessary unless you want your neighbour to be a 24-hour chemical plant.

> If there is to be a collective benefit then it should be paid for out of the collective fund and not disproportionately imposed on unconsenting innocent people at random.

Its going to have to be a huge fund to pay for all of this. Where's all this taxation going to come from to compensate me for not being able to build my chemical plant? or skyscraper?

> The fact that courts decided not to do that with zoning

I think you need to look deeper into the history of zoning. For me the new york zoning of 1916 is a good start in the United States - it was obviously needed and lobbied for by all the boroughs, as well as huge numbers of residents and landowners. Nobody could have had the money to pay for the compensation you ask for. The Euclid case I would tend to agree wasn't a proven good and has started a downhill trend.

You should also understand that land has historically always had a communal quality and this is growing more important in the 21st century as a scarce resort. Land use regulation of some kind has always co-existed with land ownership through history.

[KorematsuFredt]

Imagine you are a farmer and you actually see an endangered species. What do you do ? Kill it and hide it so that no one finds it. If you by mistake report it, boom, your land is not your land anymore.

Check this report by John Stossel here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubIvbtzVoZM

[bluejekyll]

Not the same species at all, but you just reminded me of the family of three Pileated Woodpeckers that I saw with my parents this summer in rural NY. They are really amazing looking (and bigger than I thought) birds. Hopefully more people will recognize the importance of saving our natural habitats and preserving species like these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileated_woodpecker

btw, I'm not saying this particular bread is at risk, it is not, but for how long before they are in a similar situation?

[beerandt]

It's funny, because the number of people who regularly claim to have seen an IBW is really high. And 9 out of 10 times you can show them a picture of a pileated, and they instantly realize their mistake.

Idk why people who can't ID fairly common birds get so certain in thinking they've ID'd a really really uncommon one, but they do.

[beerandt]

There's also the perverse incentives of developers and farmers not wanting endangered species to be "discovered" on their property because of the restrictions that will incur.

But what gets really interesting is re-introduction of endangered species, like with sandhill cranes being re-introduced to Louisiana (transplants from other surviving populations).

Is government introduction of an endangered species on/near private land, in a way that will certainly incur restrictions on that land (to protect said species), considered a "taking" under the constitution, or should it be?

More practically, as was the case with the sandhill crane, the government had to make concessions to land owners to get them on board and make the project politically viable.

Now they're protected, but it's a "special/experimental program" where farmers and other land owners aren't restricted in the ways they would be if they were still naturally occurring in that location.

(Of course it's still illegal to shoot them, but every few years someone manages to misidentify a 6 foot tall bird as a goose or something else legal to hunt.)

[Johnny555]

There's also the perverse incentives of developers and farmers not wanting endangered species to be "discovered" on their property because of the restrictions that will incur.

I'm not sure that's really a "perverse incentive".

By hiding, destroying, or not reporting the endangered species, they're going to develop the land and harm the species.

But if there were no endangered species act making them afraid of the endangered species being discovered, they'd have just developed the land anyway, so the end result is the same. But at least with the endangered species act, they face some legal repercussion if they are caught harming an endangered species.

[LanceH]

The "perverse incentive" is that people who might otherwise be hospitable to a reintroduced animal will likely lose control of their property if they do anything to help. They could put out feeders, cull predators or provide habitat. Instead they are encouraged (if they want to keep control of their property) to be as uninviting to these animals as possible.

[beerandt]

The incentive is to kill/not-kill the animals, not necessarily protect the habitat.

The only fix I can see is making it a worthwhile rational decision: incentives for reporting endangered animals that are worth more than the value in developing the property. But that has it's own pitfalls and potentials for abuse.

[bumby]

>The incentive is…not necessarily to protect the habit

Except many of the incentives explicitly state the goal is to protect habitat.

“How does a CCA or CCAA help species? These voluntary agreements reduce or remove identified threats to a species. Examples of beneficial activities include measures for restoring or enhancing habitat, expanding or establishing habitat…”

https://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa-library/pdf/CCAs.pdf

[beerandt]

The land owner's incentive to be a bad vs good actor.

There aren't maps of some universal truth as to what habitat is protected for what species.

Many habitats aren't "known" and made protected until the endangered animal is actually discovered, on-site.

The land owner has incentive to prevent that discovery from happening, and therefore has incentive to kill the animals before they can be discovered on his property.

[xxpor]

>considered a "taking" under the constitution, or should it be?

Perhaps, but you'd also have to consider Euclidian zoning to be a taking. And that'll never happen.

[beerandt]

Not especially- because generally whenever zoning is enacted, the current land owner gets to decide the initial zone of their property.

And land that is already zoned can't be rezoned without the current property owners consent.

So the only thing restricted / "taken" here, is if the property owner wants a re-zoning and is denied.

Yeah, being forced into the system at all is arguably a violation of rights, but I don't think requiring the land to be used in a consistent way (of the owners initial choosing) is at all comparable to not being allowed to use the land.

The owner never consents to endangered species restrictions. For zoning they do.

[xxpor]

Even if that's generally true (which I doubt), it has nothing to do with the legal theory in which Euclidian zoning operates.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_Euclid_v._Ambler_....

"The court ruled that speculation was not a valid basis for a claim of takings."

[ceph_]

> Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner of that 1944 sighting probably couldn't turn over a rock on his property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at least until now.

Citation? Oh I see further down the chain you just made this up.

[prescriptivist]

Sounds like the limit is discretionary. From the NYT:

"Scientists do not declare extinctions lightly. It often takes decades of fruitless searching. About half of the species in this group were already considered extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the global authority on the status of animals and plants. The Fish and Wildlife Service moved slower in part because it is working through a backlog, officials said, and tends to prioritize providing protection for species that need it over removing protection for those that don’t."

[laurent92]

I’m appalled by the housing codes (PLU in French). They do require to estimate and compensate the fauna and flora, by providing other shelters in another forrest for example, or manually moving individuals (butterflies, birds).

But it will never be the same! Maybe that land was in the middle of a communication axis, maybe it had the right fungus. If you move all the species around, it’s like when you move all the humans around: They become unrooted, and, ultimately, stress on their lives shows up as obesity or as socially disordered!

We need to stop colonizing more land. We need to limit population in a country.

[Retric]

It’s less about structures than it is other modifications to natural habitats like pollution, cutting forests, draining swamps, introducing invasive species, and growing crops.

[shepherdjerred]

Climate is cyclical. Species come and go. We don't mourn the dinosaurs.

We are too small and insignificant to make any true, lasting impact. Nature will heal itself given enough time, and new species will emerge.

Humans will feel the effects of climate change. The Earth will be fine.

[ayushnix]

> We are too small and insignificant to make any true, lasting impact.

Holocene Extinction?

I guess it depends on the scale we're talking about. If we're talking on a planetary scale and the grand scheme of things, humans are insignificant insects. However, if we stick closer to a relatively more tangible reality, humans are responsible for an ongoing mass extinction event and the climate change crisis.

[ikiris]

The naturalist fallacy, in a nutshell.

[Stupulous]

Surely the same fallacy is the reason we care about these species in the first place?

You can kind of make an argument from entropy, an extinction cuts off our access to information about a species. But if that were the reason, taking samples for DNA and then killing off the animals would be okay. We care about extinction because we like nature and want to preserve it.

[shepherdjerred]

It cuts both ways. Having more species is not inherently better.

Climate change is a battle against ourselves, for ourselves. We will be the ones to pay the cost (potentially with our lives, or way of life at the very least); nature will persevere whether we win or lose.

Life will always find a way no matter how much humans (or ice ages, or asteroids, or whatever) screw up this planet.

[alistairSH]

From the article: Many of the species were likely extremely endangered or extinct before the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, meaning that possibly no amount of conservation would have been able to save them

Most of these wouldn't have been around in any sustainable number well before most of us were born. The real question is whether or not conservation efforts are working on species IDed in the 48 years since. I suspect not, given climate change is bigger than any single species.

[inter_netuser]

How come they don’t investigate WHAT is actually causing this exactly?

Yes climate is changing but did it change that much since 80s?

What if it’s some pesticide? or some food packaging or something

[openasocket]

In the case of the ivory-billed woodpecker it was probably extinct in the 80s too. There hasn't been a universally accepted sighting of one since 1944, the few sightings made since then aren't really conclusive.

For most of these creatures they only existed in one particularly small region or area. The San Marcos gambusia, for instance, historically only lived in a single 1km stretch of the San Marcos River. Species with that tiny of an area can be driven extinct by a single bad weather event or epidemic. Or because some real estate developer decides they want to build a couple apartments. It doesn't even necessarily have to be something big. It's unfortunate, but sadly something like the San Marcos gambusia would probably have gone extinct within a few centuries, human activity or not, unless it was able to adapt to expand its range.

While climate change is definitely something to be concerned about, it is not, currently, the main driver of extinction events like this. The far bigger cause is more direct human activity, like poaching and land development.

[beerandt]

Hawaii had iirc 14 species of birds on the list that were all native to either one island or a portion of one, with some preferring certain altitudes or only living on certain plateaus, etc.

The funny thing about Hawaii though, is that there are only two or three (extremely isolated) places that remain with any true Hawaiian plant habitat, because Polynesians brought their own plants with them that almost universally outcompeted the native plants.

Birds on islands are some of the quickest animals to specialize and differentiate into new species.

Which makes Hawaii incredibly interesting, from an island biogeography perspective.

Something as simple as the fact that no mosquitos made it to Hawaii until Captain Cook accidently introduced them, means no native fish, frogs, birds, lizards, or anything that specialized in eating them.

Now extrapolate that to wiping out all the native flora and replacing it.

That so much biodiversity remains in Hawaii today ought to actually give us some comfort in nature's ability to quickly adapt to significant change.

[bpicolo]

The introduction of the mongoose to hawaii was a big problem for bird biodiversity

[beerandt]

There's similar issues with possums in New Zealand, who also have no natural predators there and have flourished. New Zealand wants to eradicate them to save their native birds.

But what's interesting is: the same possum is extremely endangered in it's native habitat in Australia because of so many introduced predators.

So do you go to war to kill the invasive species, even if that contributes to their extinction?

Does it matter that as an invasive species, they might cause multiple species of birds to go extinct?

Lots of interesting ecological, biological, and ethical things to consider.

[dustintrex]

The common brushtail possum is very common in Australia and far from endangered, if anything it's adapted quite well to urban life. There are other species of possums that are endangered, but they're not the ones in NZ.

[inglor_cz]

This fish lives in a single rock hole in Nevada. Fewer than 200 individuals alive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devils_Hole_pupfish

[_gmnw]

From the article it sounds like invasive species, plus the fact that we have royally screwed up the local ecosystem.

For instance — white-tailed deer are growing exponentially, eating all the underbrush and outcompeting other animals, and they have no/few natural predators left.

I agree that not much has changed since the 80s, I think it's just catching up to us now.

[titzer]

> white-tailed deer are growing exponentially

Yes, and worse, some (uninformed people) see the growth of any species as a positive sign that nature is bouncing back, or whatever. When in reality, ecosystems are hugely out of balance and the vast growth of one species is just a spasm as the system shakes itself apart. The knock-on effect of one species's sudden growth spurt may take decades to play out in the shadows, but it is almost assuredly not a good thing.

[techrat]

Ripple effects.

Humans have ruined a lot of ecosystems that had a natural balance. Wolf culling being one of the most obvious examples of our cause and effect.

https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-r...

[jakemauer]

White-tailed deer have only recently recovered from over-hunting and returned to their pre-colonization population levels.[1] Do you have a source that frames their growth as exponential?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_deer#Population_a...

[_gmnw]

Apologies, I'm based in Pennsylvania and it's definitely more noticeable here. I expect it will become more apparent elsewhere too.

We're at 3x the total population that existed when europeans started settling here, and without an appropriate way to cull the herd I don't see that changing. We have milder winters (so no starvation), less interest in hunting, and again a lack of natural predators.

https://extension.psu.edu/white-tailed-deer

[BitwiseFool]

The Hawaiian deer population follows boom and bust cycles. They were introduced for hunting purposes, have no natural predators, and tend to mess up the ecosystem so badly via overgrazing that they end up dying off and then recovering.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2021/01/molokais-fabled-axis-deer-...

I have no idea about exponential growth outside of Hawaii, though.

[rubylark]

Deer population growth during that recovery period (of white tail deer at least) seems pretty exponential. [1] However in the absence of natural predators it seems that disease and human culling have pretty effectively kept their population to stay at about pre-colonial levels rather than continuing upward to the point of over population.

[1] http://www.deerfriendly.com/decline-of-deer-populations

[cultofmetatron]

plus the parasites that they spread are decimating moose populations yearly

[justin66]

> How come they don’t investigate WHAT is actually causing this exactly?

Who exactly do you believe should be studying causes of species extinction but is not doing it?

[09bjb]

Us!

[SamBam]

Far more extinction is caused (so far) by land development, logging, and things like that.

Though probably in the next couple of decades we'll be seeing waves of extinctions caused by global warming.

[bparsons]

It is usually just plain old development destroying their habitats. Suburbs, highways, logging etc. destroy their home and the species dies out.

[AlwaysRock]

It's absolutely changed that much in since the 80s. For humans? Not that much. For tiny animals and bugs? Small change is massive change.

[loonster]

It seems like there were a lot more bugs that would get splattered on cars in the 90s than they do now.

[ComputerGuru]

That’s almost entirely aerodynamics. I recently drove a boxy truck from the 90s on the same stretch I’ve driven bug-free and had a deja vu from how bug-splattered the windshield was.

[loonster]

This news [0] article makes it seem like there was an 80% decline in bugs over the last 30 years.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/insects-pa-state-wire-ap-top-news...

[noselasd]

Most of it is habitat loss.

I.e. look at e.g. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.9922189,-97.664741,145755m/d... , and it's just patches of fields no matter which way you go for hundreds of miles. Areas that once was wild forrest (or praerie), and housing numerous of of species having enough space to live and reproduce.

Give it some more years, perhaps a few hundred, and e.g. this https://www.google.com/maps/@43.9922189,-97.664741,145755m/d... , will look much like the above map, with fields for hundreds of miles in all direction. With it goes the home of many, many species.

[shadowgovt]

Over 20 species, so causes are as varied as the species.

In several cases, it was a combination of human activity and (relatively) fragile initial population conditions. 11 of the species are native to Hawaii and Guam, and when human expansion puts pressure on your ecosystem, there's nowhere to move to. One of the fish species lived in one particularly slow-flowing section of one river.

When your whole universe is one island, there's a lot of things humans can do that would render 100% of your habitat unusable.

[daveslash]

Yeah, I agree. To add onto your sentiment that it was a combination [of things]... I'd like to add that it's a bit reductionist for people to suggest an extinction is one thing (e.g. it was pesticides, it was climate change, etc...). Sure, sometimes it might be ONE thing, but I would guess that in most cases it's a combination of stresses coming together.

[pvaldes]

How many times have you heard the past government talking about the problem with Californian porpoise?

[hanniabu]

> What if it’s some pesticide? or some food packaging or something

What if it was? I don't expect things to change much with corporate's death grip on the government.

[WalterBright]

> I don't expect things to change much with corporate's death grip on the government.

Statements like this always imply that if the government ran the businesses (socialism) things like this wouldn't happen. But the evidence is it is worse. The USSR had major problems with their heavily polluting industries, which persist today.

[dmkolobov]

Comments like that suggest no such thing.

There is plenty of middle ground, including restrictions on corporate election donations, and generally limiting corporate lobbyists access to our legislators.

[WalterBright]

Again, you're saying government control won't have these problems.

Socialist governments produced tremendous environmental problems because even though the government consisted solely of altruistic, self-sacrificing, dedicated, incorruptible administrators, the people still needed food, clothing, and washing machines. And the government would try to provide them, rather than face mass starvation.

[dmkolobov]

No, I am not.

I am saying corporate interests are not aligned with those of the people at large, they are aligned exclusively with those of their shareholders. I do not want my country’s laws to reflect a small group’s desires to make money.

[dmkolobov]

And speaking from a Russian perspective, your assertion that anyone in the USSR viewed their officials as self-sacrificing and altruistic is quite frankly hilarious.

[mcguire]

Clearly, there's nothing to be done.

Thoughts and prayers, ivory-billed woodpecker, thoughts and prayers.

[scythe]

It's ironic that in tarring all forms of "government" with the same brush, conservatives who lackadaisically compare the actions of multi-party democratic governments to those of single-party states minimize the importance of what was probably the most important structural difference between the Eastern Bloc and Western democracies. Eisenhower would be horrified.

[bumby]

I don't understand why this is portrayed as some sort of false dichotomy.

There can be government regulation without reverting to socialism. There can also be systems of checks and balances to both the ills of unfettered free-market economics and government power structures.

[dTal]

Bro, the government forbidding companies from using a certain pesticide because it's driving the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct isn't "socialism", man. Or if it is, then the very premise of governance is socialist. You're so desperate to attack your personal bugbear that you're thrusting it into a totally unrelated conversation by quite extravagantly strawmanning someone.

[WalterBright]

My posts here often talk about "internalizing the externalities" by putting taxes on externalities like pollution. The tax rate would be higher the more dangerous they are.

Free markets do not imply being free to hurt others or destroy others' property. A proper function of government is to protect people and property.

For example, I would not ban gasoline. I would tax the carbon content of fuels to reflect their true cost to the environment.

[_lqaf]

The "Ranting about Socialism" session is down the hall. This one is about extinction.

[jussij]

The USSR was a communists country.

There is a world of difference between Social Democratic (i.e. socialism) countries like Finland, Sweden, Norway for example and the USSR.

The hint is right there in the title, democratic.

The USSR never had a functioning democracy.

[WalterBright]

Democracy never made socialism competitive with free markets. Democracy in Seattle led to the government purchase of port-a-potties at $250,000 each and $12,000,000 per mile bike lane striping. All involved were comfortably re-elected.

Norway pumps 20% of its GDP out of the ground.

[jussij]

Firstly I was only pointing out your assertion that the USSR was a good model of socialism is wrong.

As to being 'competitive in free markets', I would suggest that is more of a measure of capitalism than socialism.

Socialism is about equality and a better measure of equality would be something like 'standard of living'.

When you look at which countries lead the world on that measure it should come as no surprise Social Democratic nations dominate:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-...

[Stupulous]

Finland, Norway, and Sweden are all capitalist countries. They just have better welfare institutions than the US.

[rsj_hn]

There is a difference between "social" and "socialism". The social welfare state was invented by Bismarck in order to fight socialism.

Thus calling it "socialist" is a pretty gross error. Indeed the foreign minster of Denmark had to plead with uninformed Americans to please stop calling his nation "socialist" when it is a social democracy - this was back when Bernie was running as a democratic socialist and his schtick to try to normalize socialism was by saying Denmark had it which lead to this mess of misinformation.

The idea of social democracy is that you have social welfare programs. That is, you tax private industry and give the money to people for things like pensions (which is exactly what Bismarck did, and this basic model has not changed since it was developed in 19th C Germany).

Socialism is the idea that private ownership of the means of production be banned (thus you cannot own your own business). In communism, all private property is banned (thus you don't even own your clothes, or car, or apartment).

Obviously the utopia of banning all private property was impractical, but seizing factories was more practical. Thus even those nations that were controlled by communist parties officially declared that they had not reached communism, they were in the state of socialism, and were working towards, or "building" communism. This led to many jokes in the Eastern Bloc about when the building of communism would be completed and how could it be done with all the shortages, etc. That is why all the communist nations called themselves socialist. Now you know the difference between communism and socialism.

What about socialism versus democracy. Here the problem is the enormous amount of totalitarian government control needed to organize production based on political concerns rather than concerns of price -- e.g. market concerns. Even if you are just a painter, you need paint. How do you get the paint? You have to requisition it based on some political justification. Now the government needs to plan how much paint is produced each year. Then you need to plan how many paint buckets and paint brushes. It goes on and on. There were mathematicians working full time on these linear programming problems in the soviet union, just trying to figure out how to plan their economy. Imagine all the inputs you need, imagine writing them down, and requisitioning them, as part of a big five year plan.

This requires a vast array of secret police and government micromanagement and that is what makes socialism not free. Whereas the genius of Bismarck is that he understood that workers just wanted pensions, and did not care so much about political organization of the process of production. So it's a lot easier to tax private enterprise -- something that was done even in ancient Mesopotamia -- rather than trying to control the process of production. Thus social welfare states are more "free" than socialist states, and no socialist state can be free, it must be micromanaged by the Party. Nevertheless they all called themselves Democratic. E.g. the Democratic Republic of Germany.

Thus we have these two types of economies, the social welfare state and the "democratic" socialist state, but they are not gradations on the same scale, they are two rival approaches to the problem of providing a basic safety net for the people.

In one approach you do it by taxing and giving people money who then go out and buy what they need on the open market, and in the other by political administration of production and then political distribution of production to those groups you believe "deserve" the output the most.

It is not two ends of the same scale.

[5faulker]

With the current development in climate change and resource exploitation, one can expect this to be the tip of the iceberg.