At the present time, the United States federal government retains title to roughly a quarter of the nation's land, including national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and several hundred million miscellaneous acres. Managing these properties is expensive and often contentious, and few manageme...

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Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Lehmann, Scott (Author)
Format:	Book
Language:	English
Published:	New York [u.a.] Oxford Univ. Press 1995
Series:	Environmental ethics and science policy series
Subjects:	Public lands > United States > Management Privatization > United States Geschichte Öffentliches Grundeigentum Privatisierung USA
Summary:	At the present time, the United States federal government retains title to roughly a quarter of the nation's land, including national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and several hundred million miscellaneous acres. Managing these properties is expensive and often contentious, and few management decisions escape criticism. Some observers, however, argue that this criticism is misdirected, that the fundamental problem is collective ownership itself; the solution, therefore, would be a move toward privatization of such property. A free market, it is claimed, directs privately owned resources to their most productive uses, and privatizing public lands would create a free market for their services This timely study critically examines these claims, interrogating the concept of productivity. Lehmann argues that there is no way of understanding "productive" so that greater productivity is at once desirable and a likely consequence of privatizing public lands or "marketizing" their management. The discussion is fully self-contained, with background chapters on federal lands and management agencies, economics, and ethics. It will interest philosophers, public policy analysts, and all those concerned about the future of land use in the United States
Physical Description:	XI, 248 S.
ISBN:	0195089723