have tourist benefits, for example rides in cable car or in a ferry along a
picturesque waterway.
Each means will also produce costs. Direct financial cost is the most obvious.
There is also indirect financial cost in that some means of transport, for
example motor vehicles, are a high pollutant bringing increased health costs
and loss of productivity. Health costs also have a personal measure in terms of
loss of well being for the persons concerned. Motor vehicles often also cause
a general lowering of the amenity of an area.
In these cases, where the generic outcome can be achieved in a number of
ways, the policy maker has to evaluate each option. They have to identify and
measure both benefits and costs. Following this, they add up benefits, add up
costs, then subtract total costs from total benefits. The resulting figure
represents the net benefit of the option, which conveniently constitutes a single
measure of its worth. When the net benefit of each option has been
determined, rational policy maker will then settle for the option that yields the
highest net benefit.
Level 3: Overall Outcome
Level 3 involves considering an overall outcome composed of a number of
generic outcomes. This involves the macro socio-economic function of
government. Voters demand the full package. Certainly they want a good
transport system. But they also want good health care, good education, fair
and efficient industrial laws, low inflation,
a high rate of employment and so
on.
In this case the government has to balance off improvements in one system
against lessened capability in another. Economists sometimes refer to this as
the choice between guns and butter (or bread and battleships), using the stark
difference between spending on peace and spending on war to symbolise the
choice that has to be made.
268
___________________
268
The origin of the phrase is not clear. Two famour early usages came from
Nazi Germany. In a speech on January 17, 1936, Minister of Propaganda
stated: "We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of
peace, not without arms. One cannot shoot with butter, but with guns”. Sometime
in the summer of the same year, Hermann Goering
echoed this sentiment, but
with a lessened love of peace, when proclaiming: "Guns will make us powerful;
butter will only make us fat”.
 |
 |
 |