April 03, 2007 ... Knut: Power and Market. STOP
THE PRESS! Under the circumstances pertaining to nature including the reasoning of some animal activists, Knut, the polar-bear abandoned by his mother Toska in Berlin zoo would no longer be with us. However, as has been pointed out in previous Procapitalism Op-Eds, and elsewhere, animals and the environment are better protected whenever they are privately owned and their protection becomes a matter of property rights.
Whilst this may be somewhat moot in the case of Berlin zoo, the principle is exactly the same, in so much as intervention was possible as per the choice of Thomas Dörflein and his employers at Berlin zoo, and the right to do so was unable to be challenged by those who would have chosen differently. Knut is now alive, thriving and entertaining crowds of Berlin zoo visitors, and may also be available for breeding more polar-bears in future years. His survival has also been a source of profit for Berlin zoo, international media organisations, a renowned German child-pop-star, and a line of soft toys and other merchandise. Knut cannot exercise a conscious choice about how he is made use of, but it is likely that he will be handled more sensitively than his mother Toska, a circus bear in East Germany prior to being taken on by Berlin zoo. |
