This one is a little preachy and esoteric towards the end, but bear with me.

Interesting, if not surprising, results from a J.D. Power study on Chinese auto consumers:

A new study by market research firm J.D. Power suggests that the country’s consumers are more interested in appearance and comfort than fuel economy when they make auto purchases.

Only 17% of consumers who intend to purchase a new vehicle in the next 12 months say gas mileage is among their top three considerations, according the study, the first of its kind J.D. Power has done in China. The study, based on 4,694 online responses in 32 Chinese cities in April and May, found that more prospective buyers rated exterior styling (23%) and seating comfort (19%) as top considerations.

China’s consumers, overall, tend to buy smaller-engine cars than their counterparts in the U.S. – but the study’s results suggest that may have more to do with other factors, like price, than with prioritizing fuel economy.

The implication of the WSJ blog post on this study is that the goal of reducing pollution will take a hit because Chinese consumers are not environmentally conscious. That’s what I got out of it, anyway.

I have a fundamental problem with this thinking. My brain has been preoccupied these days with issues relating to altruism and government policy, and my reading of Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene has kicked this cogitation into high gear.

One result of this is a visceral reaction against policies or movements that rely on altruistic behavior. For many years now, I have been railing against government and industry programs that purport to reduce intellectual property infringement by “teaching” the public that: 1) such activities are against the law; and 2) they hurt IP owners and society at large.

Why are these programs doomed to fail? I assume that you’re familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons and the concept of a public good. Some kinds of IP are similar to public goods. A copyrighted work such as a book, for example, can be viewed by many people without diminishing its availability to others, and if it is available online at Pirate Bay, one cannot effectively exclude anyone from viewing it.

Folks download the book because it costs nothing. In a sense, they are all free riders. Preaching morality will not help because people are essentially making cost-benefit analyses: if the monetary cost is zero and the risk of getting punished is negligible, the “consumer” will download the book. Morality and altruism do not enter into the equation — yes, I’m a cynical bastard on this point, but I think I’m right. The only way to fix the problem is to increase the cost, which in my example means raising the risk of punishment.

Air is a classic public good, and air pollution is a classic free rider problem. I applaud the efforts of environmental activists and folks that preach energy efficiency, in hopes that consumers will change their habits. But these high-minded people are fooling themselves if they believe that a Green Revolution will grow out of altruistic consumer behavior. Ain’t gonna happen.

People in China buy cars based on appearance and comfort because they can. Gasoline is too cheap here and, recent changes to fuel economy standards notwithstanding, the government allows companies to sell inefficient cars in this country. Sales of Hummers in the U.S. only went down when oil prices spiked and the economy tanked; without those changes, people would probably still be purchasing the ugly monstrosities.

When thinking about pollution and the ways to fix the problem, consumer preferences are way down the list of things I care about. Fuel prices, technology standards, tax disincentives — these are all ways of getting the job done. True costs must somehow be applied (law school grads will remember reading about the Coase Theorem, Richard Posner and the Chicago School, probably in Torts class) to the purchase or operation of an automobile for consumers to make the kinds of choices we want them to make.

I’m going to be saying this a lot in the future, because it relates to many policy areas: public education campaigns, consumer choice and altruism are not a substitute for tough government regulation when it comes to problems relating to public goods and large-scale social problems. Allowing altruistic initiatives to suck the energy out of the regulatory process (and I refer to the political will to regulate) is ultimately self defeating.

As issue-specific activism becomes more energized in China, as it has over the past few years, I hope that folks will focus their attention on regulatory reform — new laws and enforcement. To be sure, it is much easier politically to avoid discussing government action in China and talk about private companies and consumers. But this simply will not get the job done.