![]() These costs theoretically exist at the time of extraction, even if they must only be paid down the road. Lifecycle costs include things like health effects, pollution, waste management, opportunity costs, lost time, safety, maintenance, and wear-and-tear of assets among other things. Unraveling the Mystery of Lifecycle Costs They pay a profit that “buys” or fuels further extraction, but again, they don’t cover the full cost of that product from extraction until the end of its service life. Consumers are not covering the remainder of the lifecycle cost either, they only cover a relatively small markup on top of the extraction cost. In our current economic system value extractors and producers only cover the cost of extraction, which in many cases does not make up the majority of the lifecycle cost. Every piece of extracted value has a lifecycle cost that covers the time from extraction to waste. The costs associated with goods don’t stop there though. This is the supply chain from Extraction to the moment value is purchased by an end-user or consumer at the Point-of-Sale. Once the value has been extracted, it is sold. Value is extracted from the raw resources on this planet we call home. Photo by Gerrie van der Walt on Unsplash The Journey from Extraction Point to Point-of-Sale is a Small Part of the Story That is to say, I can see the justification for increased formal socialization of costs, but I think the informal, externalities-based model of small government can work too. If done correctly - meaning comprehensively and holistically - either cost-socialization ideology can work. This article is not about the pros and cons of formal socialization however, you can’t pretend the social cost doesn’t exist like today’s leaders. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to formally socialize costs. This is what our cities look like when we choose the product with the lowest extraction and point-of-sale costs, without considering all the lifecycle costs. This is what our cities look like when we choose cheap products with high social costs but have governments who are reluctant to formally socialize anything. It’s cheap when all the pieces are interchangeable. A leading cause of this urban form is the manufacturing of “ place.” You can copy and paste this simple urban model in any city, or so the theory goes. When you look around in your city, do you ever feel like we’ve got an epidemic of cheapness? Our strip-malls and parking lots, our asphalt jungles and assembly-line homes, the same pattern of “restaurants” selling food-like substances repeat every 30 blocks as do the fast-fashion retailers… It seems most new cities - like those in North America - are 80% cheap, unremarkable, tedious, repetitive, inefficient, and temporary land-use while the other 20% is desirable and focused on quality. ![]()
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