My new Forbes article takes on what Ebenezer Scrooge got wrong about population economics. In this spirit, I offer the following, from my Econ 100 final exam. If I may, this might very well be the perfect liberal arts college economics exam question:
Bald Eagles are currently endangered. Suppose the government passes a law allowing Bald Eagles to be owned privately, raised on farms, and eaten. A few months later, you go to Buffalo Wild Wings with your friends Glaucon and Thrasymachus to watch a Mixed Martial Arts pay-per-view and discuss the social merits and demerits of televised professional violence. Glaucon notices that the restaurant is running a special to introduce two new products: Bald Eagle Wings and Eagle Tenders. He is appalled and claims that this will hasten the extinction of the majestic Bald Eagle. In light of what you have learned this semester, evaluate Glaucon’s objection.
Is it? I don’t know, but almost all of my students wrote superb answers. What would David Allan Coe think? Actually, I think I know the answer (warning: link marginally offensive).
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Short answer: The eating kills them one at a time, yes, but the owning of them (for the purpose of then selling their meat) will provide the economic information needed to know whether it’s even worth breeding an endless supply of them.
As soon as someone has an economic incentive to see that they are not allowed to become extinct, rest assured that they will thrive — perhaps not ‘in the wild’, but there will never again be a shortage of eagles. This is also true of forests. There are too many corporations (and individuals) who rely on the forests to provide their income. They will do whatever it takes to see that they are responsibly managed and replanted.
I’m new here so forgive men if I’m off base here, but your forest example seems like it could be off a little. Wouldn’t the corporations only keep the amount that is most profitable to them? What if that is not enough ecologically? Also, most deforestation occurring today is on privately owned land. It is cheaper to move on to new forest as opposed to “responsibly managing” what they started with.
It is cheaper to move on to new forest as opposed to “responsibly managing” what they started with.
Not really. There are some other factors at play here:
1. It costs money to aquire land in the first place. So buying a forested piece of land and razing it would be tantamount to destroying your investment.
2. Land speculation is a curb to “cutting and leaving” since a company doing such would quickly finding itself facing the consequences of the demand it’s creating
3. The first two points don’t really matter since most forest land is publicly owned and it is given away either through land grants or sold at prices disconnected from supply and demand (kind of like government water which is sold at a same price, be there rain or drought)
Also, most deforestation occurring today is on privately owned land.
I have to question the accuracy of that statement.
Also, most deforestation occurring today is on privately owned land
My experience says otherwise. Perhaps you meant on land that is owned publicly but managed privately. That is a different story.
rest assured that they will thrive — perhaps not ‘in the wild’, but there will never again be a shortage of eagles.
Obviously, you guys never learned any biology in school. What is the point of the concern over the extinction or survival of eagles?
It is the role they play in the ecology.
What is the frigging point of having “no shortage of eagles” if they ain’t where they supposed to be, “in the wild”?
“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And I would add, “But they ought to know better!”
i think, even if a good grade was on the line, i would take the gambit and write a one sentence answer to this question:
“define endangered.”
how much do these wings cost?
What kind of sauce are we talking about for the Eagle tenders?
It is a good question, although obvious once you learn a little about property rights and any historical evidence whatsover.
I forget where I first saw this, but the line went something like: “The best thing that could happen to any endangered species is for humans to find out that they are delicious and farm-able.”
1.3 billion cattle on Earth – enough said.
An eagles is a bird plus its landbase. An eagle in captivity is not an eagle.
Strange definition of an eagle…
So, just for entertainment, what is the entity that becomes an eagle after it is released?
So property = captivity?
My nephew has a bald eagle. The eagle hunts regularly. He also has a nice home to go to. He seems ok wit it.
This debate seems a bit odd. There seems to be a certain juvenile loss of reality in thinking that if you make it legal and available people will do it. Really? People would go to the corner “On Eagles Wings Stop” and chow down? It seems to me that this line of thinking contaminates a perfectly good philosophy for how to preserver nature. Besides, I think this isn’t even the point that Art is trying to make. He’s cleverly posed his question by turning it around and asking from the point of view of what is (what if it was already legal and available) instead of what isn’t (how it is now). The point is to analyze your philosophy not to present the idea of finger lickin’ eagle.
The only reason we don’t have an Eagles’ Wild Wings on the corner is probably because because eagles aren’t that easy to capture, kill or raise. Sure, it could be done, but other animals are far easier to capture, raise, kill and eat: cows, chickens, goats, turkeys, rabbits, squirrel (oh, that evil little rodent), fish, etc.
I do wonder though, if the turkey had been chosen as the national bird, would we still be hunting and eating them? Man … I’m getting hungry.
It is cheaper to move on to new forest as opposed to “responsibly managing” what they started with.
1. It costs money to aquire land in the first place. So buying a forested piece of land and razing it would be tantamount to destroying your investment.
2. Land speculation is a curb to “cutting and leaving” since a company doing such would quickly finding itself facing the consequences of the demand it’s creating
3. The first two points don’t really matter since most forest land is publicly owned and it is given away either through land grants or sold at prices disconnected from supply and demand (kind of like government water which is sold at a same price, be there rain or drought)
If that were the case, then why is the forestry industry in the United States nearly exclusively tree farmers and not razers? It was this way long before the EPA was even formed.
Sorry. I posted it twice
I didn’t know this. In my country it is done by the method I described, so I assumed wrong.
And I’m glad it is tree farmers, but I’m afraid there might be subsidies involved somewhere.
The question gets at the important distinction between protecting the environment and the more narrow goal of ensuring that you have a certain number of a given species. Eagles in captivity are not at all the same as eagles in the wild; we lose their function in the wild as an apex predator, we lose the experience of the eagle in the wild.
The actual answer to the question depends on whether hunting wild eagles is still banned and the relative cost of hunting vs breeding. The market for fish has not prevented many species of fish from being driven to the edge of extinction, because the unit cost of catching them in the wild remains cheaper than farming the fish, since the negative externality of destroying the breeding stocks is not exacted from the individual fisherman.
It might be cheaper to hunt the last bald eagle on earth rather than breed them in captivity. Cheaper for the seller, not for society as a whole.
On the other hand, a hybrid approach that leaves the current laws against hunting in place might be highly successful. Something like this has been proposed for tigers; use the tigers bred in captivity to expand the supply and depress the cost of tiger- or eagle-stuff, thereby rendering poaching relatively less attractive. Combine with vigorous anti-poaching enforcement, and the recovery of the animal in the wild is more likely than with either approach in isolation.
not for society as a whole
What is that, exactly?
Combine with vigorous anti-poaching enforcement
And what is the economically-sound amount to spend on that, exactly?
Or, if you do not have a number handy, then maybe you could describe how the economically-sound amount is to be calculated, so as to avoid taxing-and-spending an amount that causes detriment to “society as a whole.”
Look it up.
It depends how valuable the species’ continued existence in the wild is to humanity. In practice, that is settled at the ballot box.
It depends how valuable the species’ continued existence in the wild is to humanity.
“Humanity” is an abstraction. It has no values. It makes no decisions. It takes no action.
I think it’s safe to conclude that each individual comprising humanity places a different value on the continued existence of the species, compared to every other concern in their lives, and these values change over time as each person’s circumstances change.
Likewise, even to the extent that this goal is shared, and the priority of that goal is identically ranked among multiple people, each person places a different value on the employment of anti-poaching personnel as a means of achieving this result as opposed to every other available method of achieving this goal.
Still further, even to the extent that the goal is shared, prioritized the same, and they agree that the employment of anti-poaching personnel is the best means of achieving it, each person places a different value on the various methods that might be utilized by those employees in the course of that employment, as opposed to every other method they could possibly use.
Given this variation, which changes constantly, is it really useful or meaningful to claim that “humanity” values something?
In practice, that is settled at the ballot box.
A vote collapses the wide variation of values (in terms of goals, means and implementation), across a wide range of voters, across a wide range of issues, all of which are prioritized differently by each person, into a single, binary decision. That decision masks all of the valuations described above, and more.
Also, a vote is not taken on how highly one values the continuation of a species. It is taken as to the selection, from a limited slate of options, of the identity of the person who will hold an office containing a wide range of discretion.
Furthermore, a vote is not an expression of one’s value placed on paying for the continued existence of the species. It’s a vote on the value each voter places on getting other people to pay for it. Even the value placed on the foisting costs onto others varies widely from person to person.
And even that amalgamated, binary decision, for a person, is only held periodically (once every few years, typically).
Considering that each person has a different value on the goals, means and implementation of those means, as mentioned above, how would you describe the quantity and rate of information provided by this information-gathering device you mentioned — the ballot box? Compared to a free system of private property and prices, involving millions of people making hundreds of independent economic decisions per day, does relying on the occasional results of a ballot box reduce or increase the volume and rate of economic information about the value that people place on eagles?
This might offer an exciting opportunity to expend the influence of the Austrian School. In 2008, libertarians polled 0.4% of the vote for their presidential candidate . . . clearly, libertarians are every bit as endangered as bald eagle. This will change once we establish laws allowing interested entrepreneurs to breed libertarians in captivity, and sell their organs on the open market, creating powerful market incentives to increase the number of libertarians and saving this unpopular sect from extinction.
As long as there’s no coercion involved–the organs to be sold are contracted for voluntarily–why not?
And if you need breeding stock for the farm…
I see what you did there… Well played, sir.
A market price per bird, wether tendered or winged, would demand the capitalist manage his stock sufficently for reproduction of said meal.
That being said, I will try one with the sweet and sour and one in tangy BBQ.
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