Nevermind the bow tie, Will knows from ANWR

George Will drops a bunker-buster on ANWR protesting collectivists in his column today, giving them a solid round of pummeling that finishes with this:

For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end.

The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality.

People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.

Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern -- the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.

It's worth reading, but I'll add this. Collectivist scalliwags are undoubtedly the root of the modern enviromentalist scourge, but there are also an awful lot of genuine believers in the necessity of caring for the planet. For myriad reasons, the free-marketers haven't done the best job of communicating not just that progressive environmentalism hurts people from an academic economist's standpoint, but from that it also is more likely to hurt the planet by placing either indifferent, incompetent or outright malicious leaders in charge of its care. Private property rights promote good stewardship of resources; collective ownership creates incentives for abuse. The modern environmental movement, however earnest in their goals, has it entirely backwards.