The Bhopal Tragedy by William Bogard

Author:William Bogard [Bogard, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9781000314861
Google: LgiiDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 49787849
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Cost-Benefit Decisions

Perhaps the most common strategies that technocrats use to solve the definitional problems of hazards and mitigations are formal decision methodologies (cf. Kates 1977, p. 27; Fischhoff et al. 1981, pp. 101-105). One large class of these methodologies are the various forms of cost-benefit analysis. Simply stated, cost-benefit analysis selects from a range of technical options the one that can be shown to produce the greatest expected amount of economic benefits relative to its costs. With regard to the choice of methods to control pests, for example, cost-benefit analysis may be used to decide among organic, inorganic, biological, or environmental controls (or some particular mix of these controls) (cf. Norris 1982, p. 25). This form of analysis may also be used to decide on more specific mitigation measures within each of these alternatives. In each case, the effective outcome of the analysis is the definition of a particular technique or set of techniques as a hazard (a preponderance of costs) or a mitigation (a preponderance of benefits). The analysis itself is used to inform one about the relative degrees of hazardousness, vulnerability, safety and risk in economic terms.

Because cost-benefit analysis informs in this matter, it can itself be defined as a type of mitigation, i.e., cost-benefit analysis is a practical tool intended to enhance safety. But then, like any other mitigation, it has the potential for failure and thus the potential to increase hazardousness and vulnerability. There are several ways this can happen.

Perhaps the most serious criticism leveled against cost-benefit analysis is its inability to calculate relative harm and safety in other than economic terms. A13 potential consequences of a decision to implement a technical solution to a problem that are not amenable to this kind of valuation are automatically excluded (Parish 1976). But how is one to attach, other than arbitrarily, an economic value to things like the quality of human life or the aesthetic appreciation of the natural environment? In accepting only data that can be expressed in market values, significant—perhaps the most significant—hazards are hidden from view. And it is important to realize that they are hidden as a function of the analysis, i.e., as a function of the selective discourse of cost benefit research itself, which considers only those values that can be reduced to a common denominator (cf. Douglas and Wildavsky 1982, p. 71). While Carbide's operations in Bhopal could legitimately be expected to strengthen the economic base of the city and the regions agricultural export market, the potentially negative effects of such an industry on the traditional values and lifestyle of Bhopal s resident could not be calculated so easily. Because they could not be couched in the neutral language of cost-benefit analysis, these values, and the threat posed to them, were systematically, if unmaliciously, ignored. The limited framework of the model of economic choice, which devalues all arguments incapable of being set forth in its language, effectively glossed over the public discussion of these values when the time came to decide whether to license the facility.

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