Abstract
Fuel is needed to make anything go. A living organism feeds on fuel in the form of food. A car or a plane burns refined oil. For the economy at large, energy is literally the propellant, just as coal and oil and electric power are physical prerequisites, of growth in a modern society.
… we have in general permitted economic activities without assessing the operator for their adverse effects. There has been no attempt to evaluate—and to charge for—externalities. As Boulding says, we pay people for the goods they produce, but do not make them pay for the bads.
Ansley J. Coale, 170 Science 132
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References
Ali Bulent Cambel, et al., Energy R & D and National Progress (Interdepartmental Energy Study, 1964);
Considerations Affecting Steam Power Plant Site Selection 1968, by the Energy Policy Staff, OST, Executive Office of the President;
Hearings by the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, 91st Congress, published under the title, “Environmental Effects of Producing Electric Power” (1969).
The FDR anecdote and the David Potter quote are from Potter’s People of Plenty (1954), pp. 80 and 123. The “edge of the unused” concept, by Dixon Ryan Fox, is developed on p. 145 of the Potter volume. The Hurst quote comes from the cited volume (1964), p. 112, and the opinion quoted at p. 26 comes from Erich Zimmermann, Conservation in the Production of Petroleum (1957), p. 93.
For historical perspective, see Hamilton’s text in X Syrett 230 and the J. Q. Adams speech in II Messages and Papers of the Presidents pp. 311–17. Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) gives a full exposition of laissez-faire. For.a more technical exposition of the economic theory applicable to market distribution of resources, see Robert Dorfman, The Price System (1964), especially Ch. 6; and Robert Heilbroner, The Making of Economic Society (1962), Ch. 3. The Samuelson text cited at p. 34 remains a standard for lucid presentation of what has become the conventional economics.
The well-drilling costs cited at p. 31 are taken from pp. 12–13 of Section I, Joint Association Survey (November 1970) by the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, and the Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association.
The Lilienthal quote at p. 29 appeared in an April 25, 1934 TVA Press Release. The Kneese-D’Arge quote at p. 34 comes from a report by the Joint Committee on Economics, Analysis and Evaluation of Public Expenditures: The PPB System (91st, 1st, 1969), reprinted as Resources for the Future No. 80, “Pervasive External Costs and the Response of Society.” The Ayres and Kneese comment on externalities appeared in the July 1969 American Economic Review. The statement by Garett Hardin is taken from his article in the May 10, 1969, Saturday Review.
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© 1972 W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
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Garvey, G. (1972). Accenting the Positive. In: Energy, Ecology, Economy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02421-6_1
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