Chapter Eight 1. The Cost of Choice Having knowledge of potential uses for resources is one thing. Putting that knowledge into action is another.
Human action is costly.
For every action we take, we necessarily forgo taking innumerable others. When I chose to write this morning, this choice foreclosed me from working in my yard, reading a book, or going shopping-all things that I would also have liked to do. I chose to write because I thought that, all things considered, on balance, the benefits that would accrue to me from writing would make me happier than those that would result from doing any of these alternatives, not to mention the countless other actions that I would like even less. By allowing me the jurisdiction to make this choice, the rights of several property and freedom of contract permit me to pursue my partial interests by putting into action my personal knowledge of how I might best pursue happiness. My choices might well turn out to be wrong - the benefits that would have accrued to me by reading that book may have been subjectively greater than those which I gained from writing.