----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 10:20 PM Subject: Re: Opportunity costs of war
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 23:09:30 -0400, JDG wrote > > > On the other hand, if a given amount of government spending on the > > war has greater benefits to the country than costs, once again, by > > all means that spending should be undertaken. > > As I think about this, I'm having a hard time applying cost-benefit analysis > to war at all. The costs are not quantifiable and benefits aren't very > predictable (which is to say, I suppose, that a risk assessment is needed, > which I assume is non-controversial on the face of it). Certainly the money > costs are, although there are plenty of ways to count. But the cost in terms > of the impact of the war on people is incalculable, I suspect. > > At a personal level, I can report that the cost of losing a family member in > the war turned out to be far, far higher than I ever imagined, in terms of the > pain we're all feeling. Although I remain on guard against self- > righteousness, I do believe, five months later, that those of us who have been > directly touched by such a loss really do have a much better idea of the cost > of war than those who haven't. And most of us can hardly bring ourselves to > imagine multiplying what we're feeling by 100,000+. Parents having to bury > children, in particular, feels so deeply wrong that doing any sort of math > around it seems impossible. > > Parents watching their kids grow up without opportunities because of a lack of > health care, education, etc., doesn't come far behind, in terms of > immeasurable costs. And there are all the violence and other social problems > that go with poverty and injustice (one of which is war itself, I'd argue). > > On the other hand, this could point us to utilitarian arguments about counting > lives saved v. lives lost. As a true last resort, I'm sure war has to be > evaluated that way. So I'm more concerned with truly making war a very, very > last resort. It seems as though we could all agree that war, like abortion is > something we want to seek to make rare, indeed, no matter how we might differ > on strategy. > > I really don't mean to inflame things by asking, but would you apply cost- > benefit analysis to abortion? Well, if it were human life, then if it was the mother's life or the child that would be lost, then I really cannot see telling the mother she must die. From a human cost basis, all human deaths are equally tragic, so this would be equally bad either way. If the chance of the mother dying were small, this type of calculation would argue against abortion. Obviously this is predicated on considering dealing with two people, but I think that was the premise. Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
