----- Original Message -----
From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2001 9:25 AM
Subject: Re: Cost-Benefit Environmentalism RE: Europe, the US, and
Environmentalism
> In this particular scenario: no, I still wouldn't sell.
>
> You see, if I sell you the land, you will build an airport on it. I assume
> you intend to make a profit from having that airport there, and I assume
> you expect that profit to be substantially more than the $100 million you
> offer me for the land.
>
> So, if this piece of wilderness is going to be sacrificed, I'm better off
> building an airport there myself, so *I* (and not you) will collect the
> profits. I can then use those profits to buy land elsewhere (including
that
> patch of Brazilian rainforest) to set it aside as wilderness forever.
> Better yet, I can buy a lot more land than I could have bought from the
> money you offered me.
>
This assumes that the profits for building the airport are as available for
you as for JDG. That isn't always true. Indeed, it usually isn't.
I'll give a clear counterexample in question form. Why does a big
multinational company often pay a small machine shop to build things for
them, when the small machine shop can make a very nice profit selling to the
big multinational? Why wouldn't the big multinational keep the profits for
themselves. (It isn't that the small machine shop pays the workers less: in
the case I am thinking of, they pay them substantially more.)
Dan M.
