precautionary principle

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

reading a manuscript, I came upon the "precautionary principle," defined as
saying that "when an activity raises threats of harm to the enviornment or
human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and
effect relationships are not fully established scientifically" (from the
"Wingspread statement" of 1998). (pen-l's Peter Dorman had an interesting
paper on this subject at the recent URPE@ASSA conference.)

The Enron and dot.con melt-downs suggest that a similar principle should be
applied to accounting (in the face of new corporate forms that stretch
traditional accounting norms).

But can capitalism -- which centers on the aggressive accumulate-to-compete
or compete-to-accumulate principle -- ever follow any precautionary
principle without strict governmental restrictions?

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine