Part 1.

nature+technology+regulation = prosperity.

nature+technology-regulation = plunder (in most of the societies of the bottom billion but mostly in the wealthy contries of the OECD)

But technology is a fickle friend. Technology leaded us to the problem of carbon dioxide that will overheat the planet and we have needed to make someting else substitutes as technology has developed.

nature+regulation-technology = hunger.

The argument of this book is that environmentalists and economists need each other.(p.9)

The finders-keepers rule may gives rise to needless inquality and is likely to be inefficient.(p.21)

Economics is mostly based on Utilitarianism. Collier says that the ownership of natural assets are regulated with an ethical framework; utilitarianism which is the ethical action to achieve "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Utilitarian economists doesn't consider the future generation because they might not exist. This also must be applied to the exploitation of natural assets or foreign aid. Collier says that this utilitarianism inappropriate fromework for thinking about natural assets and liabilities.

Plunder can take two distinct forms. In one, natural assets that should belong to all the citizens of a nation are expropriated by the few for their private benefit. In the other, natural assets that should belong to all generations are expropriated by those citizens currently alive for their own benefit.(p.31)

Individual people can differ on wider ethical issues but indeed they all recognize above two forms of plunder as unethical. Actually we do not have more right to enjoy natural assets than the future generation(Remeber this idea is contrast with that of utilitarianism).

According to writer, we are not obligated to preserve environment but nor we at liberty to plunder natural assets without considering the future generation. Mankind can not only preserve natural assets but also utilize them.

'The failure to harness natural capital is the single-most importatn missed opportunity in economic development.'

According to Collier, the "real" failer should be measured with the harm relative to natural assets' potential not the damage they cause. Environmentalists assert that natural assets should be left in the grond but this might be inefficient and negate the efforts to break down poverty. After some analysis, he recognized that the resource curse(Natural assets often do more harm than good to the poorest countries and ruin a country) is caused by poor governance. Superficially democratization might raise standards of governance in the resource-rich countries out of the range of the resource curse. However, Collier predict that democracy would work less well in resource-rich countries than in resource-scarce countries(p.52). Natural assets need good governance in order to be harnessed for the benefit of the society. Mral complextion of resource extraction is determined by its likely beneficiaries. How can we judge who the likely beneficiaries?

The first problem in developing countries is that they can not afford the cost of exploration for natural assets. Thus he says it should be financed predominantly by donors. However this is not what actually happens. Once natural assets have been discovered, that value should be amassed as revenue to government, the representative of society. But the value is very often taken by not the entire government but a handful of people(a couple of high officials). Global companies bribethese representatives. To solve this corruption, transparency and an effective legal system are need but by no means enough to prevent corruption. With some record uniformly not bad, Collier says that resource extraction might as well be nationalized so the value could be owned by the representatives of citizens even though some other economists dispute his idea.

'To date, in the low-income countreis natural assets have been plundered by the present generation: insufficient regard has been paid to the reasonable rights of future generation.'(p.125) According to him, we can fulfill our ethical obligations by bequeathing to the future other kinds of assets of an equivalent value. Thus we have a responsibility to save for future generation. The decision to save revenues has complexity due to interest between stakeholders(such as governments and companies), and is by itself not enough. Some facts support the idea that the resource-rich countries of the bottom billion must successfully invest in thier own societies. In order to accomplish that, they shold overcome many obstacles such as corruption and outflow of the revenue from the countries to global companies.

If the government has saved the bulk of the revenues, the final process is to implement that domestic investment. However, it might actually damage the economy by congesting fragile public investment systems and causing a collapse in quality. Corruption is related to this failure again. Thus, an investment project should be implemented under more strict supervision. World Bank supervision of projects might be consistently invaluable for the success of domestic investment.

Part 3.

It is obvious that renewable natural assets are more susceptible to being plundered than depletable natural assets. People are instinctually reluctant to plunder renewable natural assets but in reality, we have a right to eat the physically sustainable off-take. This means that we should regulate the use of them for the future generation. Collier says that we have a usuful way to do that. According to him, we need superviser for renewable natural assets-fish, plants, etc.-just like depetable natural assets. We might assign the natural assets of the oceans to a world organization which limits harvest.

What about climate change? Collier is a bit skeptical about need for curb carbon emissions even though it seems consistent with our ehical obligations. The bottom billion countries should be the ones most severely affected by climate change. The rich world might as well to prepare for the costs that the bottom billiion incur in addapting to the climate change. But eghics is not enough. To make things go right, we should understand the natrual world more than this.

Part 5.

The reason natural assets are plundered is based on bad governance and the limitations of good governance. In the most countries of bottom billion fail to management their natrual assets, and their natural assets is in risk of being managemented beyond national boundaries globally. That means the nonrenewable natrual assets in the territories of the bottom billion are soldem harbessed for the development of their societies. 'The international revewable natrual assets, such as the fish of the high seas, are liable to be plundered to extinction, whild the natural liabilities, such as carbon, are liable to accumulate.'(p.230) To assist poor societeis harness the potential of their natural assets, we can build that critical mass of informed opinion by making public the potential revenues from resource extraction. This is a gradual process involving workshops, writing retreats, and presentations. 'The key to addressing global problems lies with the exploitation of the new collective power.'(p.241)

환경, 경제, 환경경제학