ABSTRACT
This chapter expresses that conventional economic prescriptions for the efficient allocation of available resource flows have severe limitations. In particular, any measures which attempt to put prices on resources, traditionally held in common and freely used, have to confront three major problems. First, it is a by no means trivial task to actually calculate meaningful price measures. Second, and much more important, the use of 'willingness to pay' as the criterion for allocating renewable resource flows raises crucial equity considerations. Third, the introduction of realistic prices for goods and services which were previously free or low cost inevitably raises the opposition of those entrenched economic interests which had benefited from being able to pass on to others the social costs of resource degradation and depletion. It is significant that most resistance to the use of pollution or resource depletion taxes comes from business interests, owners of polluting factories, freezer boats and fish-processing plant manufacturers or farmers, and so on.
