Cost-benefit analysis’s appearance of rationality masks its insensitivity to systemic, long-term context

Evidence

This book argues that policy makers cannot be content with the local equilibriums identifi ed by conventional costbenefi t analyses but instead must aim to alter— over time and in rather dramatic macroscale ways— the economic and technological forces that combine to structure any given policy context with its microscale snapshot that seems to admit of only one “optimal” solution. To effectively serve such ambitious aims, environmental law must form part of the social glue that binds a po liti cal community together in pursuit of longterm and uncertain goals. To serve that function, in turn, laws must have continuity with the concepts, values, and discourses expressed by real people. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 16

Categorization

• XREF: Bridges directly to Eco-Justice course thread: the critique that policy tools claiming neutrality smuggle in contextual blindness parallels the soundscape argument that objective measurement erases place-based meaning. — connects to: Cost-benefit analysis normalizes the status quo and caps law at incremental tinkering — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 615; Cost-benefit proponents are covert collectivists despite claiming state neutrality. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 160; Cost-benefit analysis causes the very distortions it claims to prevent — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 237 (+7 more)
• SEED: Angle: how ‘optimality’ rhetoric in environmental regulation functions as a rhetorical shield against questioning which values the calculus bakes in.
• recurring: this claim recurs 3 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Cost-benefit analysis treats dynamic policy processes as static snapshots #expands (0.95) — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 311
• Cost-benefit analysis causes the very distortions it claims to prevent #corroborates (0.85) — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 237
• Cost-benefit analysis erases the moral remainders that technology standards preserve #expands (0.80) — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 578
• Weber’s formal rationality blinds judgement to the worth of means #corroborates (0.75)
• Pricing option value masks the ethical nature of grave collective choices #corroborates (0.75) — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere, 249