Tragedy of Common (sense)

Imagine a day 2020 million years ago... let's say in June.

Everything was tranquil, still, peaceful and quiet... no humans, no crime, no corruption, even no dinosaurs yet, only equilibrium!  Somewhere on this peaceful planet there was a shallow inland sea (on today's maps that sea is 120km South West of Johannesburg, South Africa).

And then BOOM!! A meteorite, as big as Table Mountain, hits this shallow sea, explodes. Vast amount of energy are poured into every living and geographical thing, the Earth's crust is crushed, melted, moved, flipped, crumpled and pushed into new forms, the inland sea evaporates like a new years resolution.

And then it was over, within the time you would take to make a sandwhich and fall down on the couch... it was still again.  An eery shocked stillness.

This was the biggest meteorite to ever hit the earth, even bigger than the one that killed of the dinosaurs. The impact zone is about 300km wide.  It was massive, majestic, immense, aweful and awefilled.

This impacted our lives today as well.  Firstly, the gold of the Witwatersrand is said to have come the meteorite, which overturned the Earth crust and barried it deep enough to only be exposed in our time and drive our economy.  Even the South African currency, the Rand, is named after this gold ridge (rand is Afrikaans for ridge).

In the heart of the impact, the meteorite caused the stone to melt and set almost instantly, this made beautiful patterns in die granite; black lines and parts that looks like a river of stone.  This beautiful rock is said to be the oldest rock on Earth and it lies there, pretty in shades of pink.

And what did the humans do? 

Yip, we mined the granite, we blown it to bits and used it in our very import kitchen tops. For millions of years that rock was majestically untouched... even the Bushmen who roamed the area respected the old rocks.

Sure, we did not know what we were doing, we did not realise the magnitude of the area in which we dug for nice counters!

In neo-classical economics we calculate the value of a piece of land with cost-benefit-analysis.  A cost benefit-analysis is not to say that only money is important - it wants to include the TOTAL value of a natural entity by expressing everything in terms of money.  Then see if the value is more than the benefit from harvesting the natural entity.  In this total economic value, use and non-use values are included.  Use will include direct use and indirect use, such as timber from a forest and oxygen out of photosynthesis, respectively. Non-values include,  option use value, were you would pay to keep the option of harvesting the entity later open. Bequest value, would be how much you are willing to pay to protect it for future generations.  Existence value would be how much you just want the entity to live.  Most cost-benefit analysis only include these three non-use values. 

But there is a fourth, QUASI-OPTION VALUE!  Quasi-option value is the amount you are willing to pay to ensure you don't destroy something of value today and only realise it's true immense value tomorrow. 


I conclude; it is clear to see that the neo-classical system is not only failing in theory but also failing in implementation (example; some idiot forgot to include the quasi-option value before he blew a World Heritage Site to bits).  Ah, who cares for something a million times older than the story of Jesus - as long as we have nice counters to chop and dice on!!