This week we looked at the Broken Window Fallacy: that destruction is never good and that while a broken object may increase the economy of the industry that has to replace the object, it hurts another industry where other objects were never bought.
Rizzo always brought up natural disasters and wars as examples. He would then ask "if it's soooo profitable, then why don't we destroy things ourselves?" Well, here are some examples.
I was watching the Simpsons, and there is an episode where Bart wants a new bike so he throws his old one in front of a car (Dr. Hibbert's). Dr. Hibbert buys him a new bike. I immediately thought of class and the whole idea that now the world was now poorer thanks to Bart. (I am making everything up from here on. This did not happen in the episode). Yes Bart has a new bike, and yes the bike company profited, but the world didn't. Dr. Hibbert had money and Bart had a bike. Now Bart has a bike and the doctor has no money. Not only does the world lose the resources for making bikes, the metal and rubber, the world looses out on the Duff Beer that Dr. Hibbert was about to go buy. The Duff company then doesn't get as much money and is forced to fire Duffman. Bart's selfishness to get a new bike has caused the world to be poorer and cost a man his job. ¡AY CARAMBA!
Here's another example.
When Rizzo talked about Lander Auditorium and the horrible-ness of the classroom for a test/lecture/whatever, a student behind me decided we should just burn it down and make a new one. I looked at the future arsonist with two puzzled looks. First off, Lander Auditorium is where Men's Glee Club rehearses and the acoustics are amazing in that room. (No one knows this benefit!) And yes we shouldn't put classes in that hall because it is a horrible classroom. If we were forced to build a new Lander Auditorium, my rehearsals would have to be moved, and that would be annoying. Perhaps we would go to Harkness during all office hours for practice. The second puzzled look was because of what we had just been learning in class. If the room magically burned down (without the rest of Hutchinson burning down) the world would suffer. Rochester had money and an auditorium. After reconstruction it only has the auditorium. Rochester would have to go get more wood, cement, lights, etc for the new auditorium. The world would then not have these resources. Then Rochester would also have less money and would increase the tuition and donations of the students and alumni. Then we don't have the money to go spend on other things in the world and the chain continues. Also, we are building a lovely new academic building whose construction site is next to our economics class. Now because of the construction, we don't have the materials or money to finish the project. But we admit the students for 2012 assuming it would be finished and now we have an overpopulated university. And we get to keep the eyesore on the quad.
Destruction is NEVER good. Whether or not it "helps" the companies that get to replace the broken things or people get newer things (bikes and auditoriums), the world suffers by destruction. We lose the money and the resources and there will be a trickle effect of hidden costs.
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