From Ronald Monroe
Perhaps there are other ways of looking at the behaviour of people who fall
prey to the “sunk-cost” or “Concorde” fallacy—the tendency to judge
options according to the size of previous investments rather than the size of
the expected return
(“Call it quits”, 23 May, p 40).
Measured in monetary terms and using the British taxable population as the
reference system, the production of Concorde was not financially useful. Using
the engineers who designed and built Concorde as the reference system, the
project was very successful in that it pumped money out of general circulation
into their pockets as wages.
However, in cultural terms (feelings of national self-esteem, stored
technical expertise and so on) the British taxable population may consider that
the building and running of Concorde is a culturally useful activity.
Perhaps the real fallacy is the reasoning that says, “If it can’t be
quantified it needn’t be considered”. It is hard to put a monetary, social or
any other numerical value on cultural activities.
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Port St Mary, Isle of Man
