Economic logic
by Benjamin on June 10, 2009
Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane… Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelieveable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional ‘economists’ concerning the nature of the world we live in.
Wrote José Lutzenberger, Brazil’s then-secretary of the Environment, to Larry Summers in 1991 when Summers was still chief economist at the World Bank, in response to a memo by Summers on how low income countries should bear the burden of all ‘health impairing’ pollution from the industrial countries as the lower per capita income would make it more efficient to reduce the life-spans of people in these countries, as Summers put it:
I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
This quote and story from Frank Ackerman‘s new book Poisoned for Pennies which I am currently enjoying on how and why cost-benefit analysis is not the transparent, all-encompassing idea which economic analysts want it to be. Expect more along these lines from me, as conference season intensifies.
Ackerman, Frank. 2008. Poisoned for Pennies: The Economics of Toxics and Precaution. London: Island Press
