John D. Giorgis wrote:
>If you're willing to admit (along with Kat, Sonja, et al.) that all
>environmental proposals should be subjected to a thorough cost-benefit
>analysis, then I think that our discussion will be much more profitable.
Why?
What is it, exactly, that cost-benefit analysis is supposed to prove?
This is what I hate about capitalism; they're so fuzzy about their
goals....
I mean, what exactly is money *for*? No, wait, don't explode yet, John. I
think I understand what you're saying, but I seriously disagree with your
vocabulary. Read the rest first. *Then* yell at me. (And I'll yell back
<evil grin>
One of the things I was taught by my parents was to always subject
everything to goal analysis- Holistic Resource Management, I believe was
the name of the theory they drew from and liberally elaborated on.
Basically, whenever one intended to do something major like start a
business or go to college, one sat down and said "Why am I doing this?
How does this serve my goals in life? And what exactly *are* my goals in
life, anyway?" (This is not as simple as it sounds, take it from someone
who had to sit there sweating and trying to come up with a better answer
than "because everybody goes to college" for her parents.)
And then, once you'd figured out what you wanted, you worked your way
down to the nuts-and-bolts practical stuff. Generally one did not get to
the stuff like "money" till way, *way* down the chart. The problem I have
with most economists- in fact with most *people*- is that this sort of
thing is where they start. Seriously. Plenty of kids (*and* adults) I've
met have worked their lives on this sort of principle. "Why am I going to
college? Because I want a job." "Why am I taking this job? Because I need
money." "Why am I going to this protest? Because I want to save the
environment." They never ask the *next* question. These aren't goals.
These are implimentations of goals.
There's a big difference.
I am a bad person, who hasn't reworked her goal recently, but basically
it still boils down to:
I want to enjoy my life.
(Oddly enough, most people's do.)
To enjoy my life, I want work; I want to be doing something I am good at,
something that I feel is important or necessary, and something that
offers benifit to those around me, not simply to myself. I want to be
challenged and to continue learning and changing, but not to be
challenged to the degree where I become deeply frustrated or paralyzed. I
want space for when I feel the need to breathe, people of like intellect
for when I want to interact, and beauty around me always, that I never
become dull or discouraged.
And once you go from there, the rest tends to unfold itself, right down
to the part where I say "and a job that can support this lifestyle."
When you say "cost-benefit analysis", John, you immediately put my back
up, because all too often cost-benefit analysis means *skipping* all the
rambling stuff I've been describing above and starting at the lower
levels. It doesn't mean it's a *less important* level. Goals without
implementations (which seems to personify a lot of the environmentalist
movement) are nice, but not particularly useful. However,
implementations- "I want to make more money"- without goals are useful,
but usually not very nice, and often they can damage your overall *goal*,
making them actually counterproductive. Work, but make-work, time-filler,
just "scraping by" without actually approaching the actual goal.
This is what I think about when you say "cost-benefit analysis". I think
what you *mean* is a rational method of balancing the pluses (as defined
by the goal) of a particular action against the minuses, which I can in
fact agree with. However, what you tend to *give* me is a straight $$
value of this vs. that, which as far as I'm concerned is avoiding the
issue. Money in and of itself is nothing but pretty paper; its only real
value is in how it advances the goal of a person or a group of people.
So, to return to the original subject: I am perfectly willing to admit
that all environmental proposals should be subject to cost-benefit
analysis, if *you* are willing to admit that cost-benefit analysis is
merely a fairly insignificant step in a far larger process of determining
the "value" of an action or proposal to a person- a business- or a
country.
Kat Feete
-------------------
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is
that people will insist on coming along and trying to put
things in it.
--Terry Pratchett
