Week Four Discussion Contains Unread Posts Actions

Week Four DiscussionContains unread postsActions for Week Four DiscussionSamuel Scaletta posted Jul 5, 2016 1:17 AMSubscribeThe reading that interested me the most was Scott Paeth’s essay titled “Social Cost” which explains the idea of finding the total cost of an economic activity not just in terms of money changing hands in a transaction, but how an economic activity effects society in general. Paeth writes that social cost “seeks to determine how best to account for and correct for those externalities, with the goal of minimizing the overall harm caused by production” which actually details a utilitarian approach. The utilitarian theory is about the greatest number for the greatest good and this is relevant to the discussion about social cost because the consequences of economic activities can have far-reaching and potentially significant outcomes. In terms of the social cost, there are two ideologies that attempt to demonstrate how economic activities have social effects with regard to societal problems like the overwhelming pollution of the environment. The first is the “Pigou Tax” where companies are incentivized to lower causes of pollution because fees are accessed to those that have a high number of polluting emissions. However, with this theory, the government is