Last October, in celebration of the bicentennial of the opening of Erie Canal, a replica of the Seneca Chief re-created the inaugural voyage of the original Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City.
At each of the stops on the commemorative journey of the new Seneca Chief, a White Pine tree was planted as a symbolic tribute to the Haudenosaunee, the confederacy of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayagas, and Senecas, and as a commitment to a sustainable future. The tribute to the Haudenosaunee was fitting because the Erie Canal contributed to their displacement.
Hudson was a stop on the Seneca Chief's bicentennial celebration journey, and our White Pine was planted on Promenade Hill.
At the Conservation Advisory Council meeting tonight, CAC member Joshua Cohen reported that he had recently gone to Promenade Hill to check on the well-being of the tree and discovered it was gone. There was no evidence that it had been cut down; it was just gone. He reported this to Rob Perry, Superintendent of Public Works, who investigated and found the tree, quite dead, on the slope leading down to the river. Someone had yanked the tree out of the ground and tossed it over the fence.
CAC member Alexandra (Sam) Semchenko resolved to find out who had done this. Peter Frank, who was in the audience, volunteered to plant a replacement.
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This explains Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy perfectly.
ReplyDeleteWe should call it Hudson's Yanked Out Tree Fallacy.
Sure, it's heartwarming that a volunteer stepped up to replace it (the "seen").
But the "unseen" cost is what Hudson lost: if the original tree hadn't been vandalized, Peter Frank's money and generosity, and DPW's time, could have been used to plant a second tree somewhere else.
Instead of the community moving forward and gaining a new asset (2nd tree), we are forced to waste resources just to get back to square one (original tree).
No mention of finding and stopping the person who destroyed the tree.
Hudson's "unseen" costs, opportunity costs, spiral.
Reference:
That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window