In me lately luck In an op-ed article about how Trump-era policies are driving capital out of capitalism, I argued that markets cannot function without trust, transparency, and a sense of common purpose. Since then, the administration has taken new steps to take that argument to the logical, and frankly frightening, next step.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did something surprising as a prelude to rescinding its endangerment findings. Modified the way air pollution rules are evaluated by not considering the benefits of lives saved or diseases averted. The technical term for what’s gone is the “value of a statistical life” (VSL), which was previously measured at about $11.7 million per person. Instead? there is nothing. zero. as new york times The market value of a human life is currently $0 when it comes to regulatory decisions regarding fine particulate matter and ozone, according to the report.
The EPA’s rationale is bureaucratically brutal, and its implications cruel and extreme. The agency argues that quantifying health benefits is too uncertain. But the untested compliance costs to industry are conveniently tangible. To be clear, the ledger currently only tallies what businesses pay, not what people lose, such as asthma attacks, hospitalizations, shortened lifespans, and deaths. The results are not neutral. It’s a rigid ideology.
If human life has no economic value, what is it? Why do we have a medical system in the first place? Why invest trillions of dollars in hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and medical research if we accept that the results of people living longer and healthier lives are meaningless? According to this logic, emergency rooms are a sunk cost and preventive care is a frivolous luxury.
If we push this ideology further, the entire economy will collapse. If the intrinsic value of humans is zero and businesses derive value only from human expenditures, then the total economic value will also be zero. congratulations. All stock indexes should trade at $0. The S&P 500 becomes a philosophical thought experiment, and the Bloomberg terminal blinks into existential silence.
This is not an exaggeration. This is an inevitable calculation given the Trump administration’s position on the EPA and the value of human life. If a company dumps toxic waste into a local river and children get sick and die, there is no loss of value, no damages, and no liability. This is Milton Friedman’s ultimate rationale for cost externalization.
As a University of Chicago climatologist pointed out, excluding health benefits from a cost-benefit analysis does not make regulation more “objective.” It just rigs the equation so that pollution becomes cheap and people are disposable.
Michael Greenstone, environmental economist, They said the changes could make the air dirtier and undermine the gains made since Congress strengthened the Clean Air Act in 1970, which increased the average lifespan of Americans by 1.4 years. “Clean air is one of the great success stories of government policy over the past half century,” Dr. Greenstone said. “And at the heart of the Clean Air Act is the idea that if people can live longer, healthier lives, that’s a value that can be measured in dollars.”
A worldview in which human life has zero value fits neatly into the broader Trumpian project. People are reduced to abstractions or enemies. Haitian. Somali. journalist. comedian. musician. Stephen Colbert and Bad Bunny are assigned a value of 0 because they are an inconvenience, annoyance, or insufficient respect for authority. Is there anyone in Trump’s orbit of value? Melania? Eric?
For decades, cost-benefit analysis has played a role, albeit imperfectly, in recognizing the importance of human life in economic decision-making. Assigning a dollar value to life is in no way intended to cheapen it. It was to make sure it didn’t get lost. Removing that value does not make the policy any stricter. It makes policy morally and ethically empty.
Capital markets are very sensitive to signals. When governments declare, implicitly or explicitly, that people don’t matter, investors should listen. This is because an economy that reduces the price of human life to zero will ultimately have zero value.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary articles are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the author’s opinions or beliefs. luck.
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