Download [PDF] Priceless: On Knowing The Price O

As clinical as it sounds to express the value of human lives, health, or the environment in cold dollars and cents, cost-benefit analysis requires it. More disturbingly, this approach is being embraced by a growing number of politicians and conservative pundits as the most reasonable way to make many policy decisions regarding public health and the environment.<br /><br />By systematically refuting the economic algorithms and illogical assumptions that cost-benefit analysts flaunt as fact, <i>Priceless</i> tells a “gripping story about how solid science has been shoved to the backburner by bean counters with ideological blinders” (<i>In These Times</i>). Ackerman and Heinzerling argue that decisions about health and safety should be made “to reflect not economists’ numbers, but democratic values, chosen on moral grounds. This is a vividly written book, punctuated by striking analogies, a good deal of outrage, and a nice dose of humor” (Cass Sunstein, <i>The New Republic</i>).<br /><br