trade-offs...

A great essay by Thomas Sowell on one of the first topics in Econ 101: trade-offs.

A whole nation following the tragedy of a mine cave-in in Utah was struck by the further tragedy of another cave-in at the same mine, killing men who had gone underground to try to rescue the miners trapped there.

The second tragedy was avoidable -- but only if we were willing to talk about human life in terms of trade-offs. But our society has become too squeamish to do that.

As day after day went by, with no sign whatever that the trapped miners were still alive and with dwindling chances each day of their remaining alive, even if they had somehow survived the cave-in, at some point it makes no sense to risk more lives to try to save them.

"But what if it was your brother or your father down there?" some would say. "Would you want to stop looking if there was any chance at all that he might still be alive?"

The short answer is: What if it was your brother or your father who had to risk his life in a rescue attempt underground?

After discussing Utah, Sowell gets more general...

Trade-offs are inescapable in every aspect of life but anyone who talks about trade-offs when life is at stake is likely to be denounced as someone lacking in compassion, if not cruel.

Squeamishness is too often confused with humanity, but the consequence of squeamishness can be needless suffering and needless deaths.

From there, Sowell continues with applications to capital punishment and organ transplants.

The inability to identify primary and secondary consequences-- a thorough cost/benefit analysis-- leads to all sorts of unfortunate personal choices, business decisions, and public policies. At the end of the day, "good people" can still disagree on "the right choice", but too often the decisions are based on woefully incomplete analysis.