From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION: "Full Cost Accounting"
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 01:33:18 GMT

In article <9209031858.AA22248@poly.math.cornell.edu> harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (Harel Barzilai) writes:

>1. The market has been proven to be incapable of satisfactorily 
>allocating resources for social welfare or environmental 
>preservation; the profound crisis of today demonstrates this 
>case. 

Profound crisis?  Markets are unable to allocate resources?  Don't make me
laugh!  I have been saying for years that each time a new heap of
government (ie. anti-market) restrictions are added to the economy, that
poor efficiency and distributions of resources will result, and sure enough,
we have a lot of inefficiency.  The question is whether in our mixed economy,
the inefficiencies are due to the market part or the statist part.  A simple
experimental way of testing this is to look at the efficiencies of various
economies and to correlate them with the degree of market-drivenness of
them.  The command economies have legendary inefficiencies and perverse
incentives, which are much less apparent in the mixed economies of the 
industrial west.  Do you really think that capitalism is inefficient after
looking at the economic history of the past 200 years?  Gimme a break.

>4. While the effects of production and trade on society and the 
>environment are very clear, contemporary analysis lacks the 
>capacity to consider the issues of economic growth, ecology and 
>society outside of the theory of the marketplace. 

Sigh...an unrestricted market takes into account ALL of the desires and
values of the participants, including the environmental ones and others.
Your compaint seems to be more that the public disagrees with you than that
the market is incapable of responding to the desires of the citizenry.

>This results in 
>errors like that of assuming the environmental impacts of trade to 
>be merely a matter of externalities.In other words, it is presumed 
>that the market functions adequately and the need is to find a 
>monetary expression of these impacts. 

Sure...just allow private ownership of those resources.  Pretty simple, huh?
Somehow, I doubt your ideology would allow such a solution though, since you
seem unable to trust people to take care of their own business (thus you are
obliged to poke your nose in to "help", invited or not).

>5. Nothing guarantees that the additional resources generated by 
>the internalization of costs will be effectively transformed into 
>investment to improve environmental or social conditions. These 
>resources can be appropriated by the private sector and allocated 
>for rent-producing investments. 

Allocated by whom?  For what purpose?

>8. For enterprises to decide to invest, they must anticipate a 
>return on their investment. In the case of environmental 
>investments, the logic is completely different. As a rule, the 
>"environmental investment" will not be made unless the state 
>enforces effective policy measures (regulating and financing 
>measures, etc.), for this type of investment does not aim at 
>creating extraordinary profits. 

In other words, they are literally a waste of money!

>11. Financial mechanisms can be developed which would make 
>resource allocations conditional upon environmentally benign 
>production, but these only become meaningful  coupled with 
>political instruments capable of influencing both commercial and 
>public policy choices. In the same way, resourting to taxes and 
>fees as instruments of environmental policy in international level 
>implies the existance of some kind of multilateral deliberating or 
>intermediating instance . Otherwise, who will define the levels of 
>taxes and under which criteria? 

And more importantly, who, but the largest companies will be willing or
interested enough to go through the government gauntlet in order to engage
in commerce?  Whose trade is it anyway?  Who do you think you are to tell
me whether I can or cannot buy or sell with other willing buyers?

>12. It is not sufficient to attribute a value to environmental 
>costs through the price mechanism, as these costs reflect factors 
>that do not pass through the marketplace. Furthermore, the 
>monetization of these costs would be a matter of subjective and 
>essentially qualitative evaluation -- not quantitative. 
>Therefore, the evaluation must be made according to political 
>criteria based upon factors such as quality of life, the social 
>value of nature, and the concept of public space. 

In other words, these costs are essentially infinite and justify an
essentially infinie tax on business?

--Brian

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