Free Trade and the Near Extinction of the Buffalo

A pile of American bison skulls in tht mid-1870s (Image via Wikipedia)

Olaf Storbeck on an interesting study from M. Scott Taylor about the extinction of the American Bison:

Never before in the history of mankind had humans destroyed so much nature in such a brief period of time. Over about 15 years, the American bison was hunted to extinction. Up to 1870, 10 to 15 million bison had been living in the American West. Less then two decades later, about 100 animals remained.
For more than 100 years academics have been looking at the causes of this tragedy. Until now, most researchers blamed the American army, the failure of the federal government and the triumph of the railway.
However, all these explanations fall short, as M. Scott Taylor, an economics professor affiliated with the University of Calgary, shows in a fascinating paper.
According to Taylor, the most important driver of the extinction of the American bison was technical innovation, globalisation and unfettered capitalism.

Yet one more example of the effects of unregulated capitalism run amok in the second half of the 19th century in the United States.  Republicans seem to consider this the golden age of America, but I think we are better off with a regulated economy, provided the regulations aren't routinely undermined.