ABSTRACT

The notion of social costs reflects such basic concerns as worker safety, environmental protection and consumer protection, but also equity and social justice in society. Talking about social costs today means talking about the costs of labour or costs shifted towards future generations, i.e. the storage of atomic waste. Karl William Kapp, indeed, explored these social costs, and many more, in the USA of the 1950s. But we tend to forget that the idea of social costs has its genuine epistemological background. This chapter reviews the theoretical core of Kapp’s concept of social costs and explores its interdisciplinary nature. This translates into a view of public policy providing insights into institutional reform in the German health sector.