Any capitalist can see that the world would be far better off without all these people polluting it and using up our resources.

There has not, never has been, and never will be a completely free market. Since there never has been a completely free market the situation you attempting to use to condemn free markets does not work. Then the idea of "externalizing" the cost of the environmental disaster you mentioned is BS. Every single company's income to pay all of the costs of doing business; whether they are payroll, research, advertising, taxes, buying raw materiel, or production, come from its customers. Since no business has a penny unless it gets it from their customers of course any and all costs are not "externalized." How can INcome possibly be EXternalized? It can't!

I agree that there has never been a completely free market economy, and submit that there never can be. But that wasn't the topic.

I think that you do not want to acknowledge the concept of externalization. If so, then you obviously can't explain how Classical Liberalism deals with it. I think it deals with externalization of economic costs by refusing to acknowledge that it exists. Therefore, I can see how you might well be a Classical Liberal.

BTW, a Classical Liberal has virtually no relation to a Contemporary Liberal, in case anyone was wondering.

The "externalization" of economic costs is, as I said, a form of argumentation like deconstructionism. It is a form of obfuscation and irrelevant to the discussion. The costs of doing business have always been passed onto the consumers. They have because the consumer pays for everything a business does. No [i]income[/], no business. By talking about "externalizing" economic costs you are putting the cart before the horse. It is a way to sound intellectual but is actually being pretentious.

So, who’s paying for the consequences of the Berkeley Pit?

So lemme get this straight? Damage to the environment up to and including illness and deaths of workers and citizens are of absolutely no concern to you? That industrialists should be allowed to ravage the land and leave it a stinking toxic cesspool is perfectly fine as long as they are able to make a buck?

It'd be perfectly fine if I hopped on your table and sh*t on your dinner as long as I was making a profit?

And you wonder why capitalism has gotten such a bad rap lately.

Whoever is buying the products of the company that owns the Berkeley Pit.

By that logic we should all be paying fifteen to twenty dollars a gallon for 87 octane regular gas. Because: Externalization.

Where in the HELL in my comment did I even come close to saying or even suggesting that I don't care about pollution and the medical problems it causes? No, you just assumed that I don't care. Since courtesy is important here I will not say all the nasty things that your completely inaccurate comment made think of. Someday Greger you might stop making ridiculous assumptions about capitalists. And someday the Vikings will win the Super Bowl two years in a row.

The former owners of the Berkeley Pit abandoned it and left society with the costs of dealing with it. The Capitalists forced socialization of the externalized costs.

This isn’t rocket science, Hatrack.