188 The Broadening Base of Resource Policy 



designed specifically to affect the time rate of resource use, even 

 though practically all of them have had such effects? 



This question can be answered in part by the fact that the develop- 

 ment of public policy in the natural resource field has not reached the 

 point where future policy can be based, without a violent and wide- 

 spread public debate, on the particular kind of economic analysis for 

 which Dean Mason makes such a strong case. The case — as set forth 

 in his paper — seems well proved in the mineral resources field, but it 

 becomes somewhat less convincing when attention is turned to water 

 and land resources, or to the whole field of energy resources. Further- 

 more, when water, land, and energy resources are taken together, the 

 paper appears to abandon the case and simply declares, ". . . we are 

 considering the country's resource base. Any substantial diminution 

 of this base involves a reduction in the potential, not of particular 

 outputs, but of output over-all." 



Here seems to be the key Dean Mason offers for opening the door 

 to the political economy of natural resource use in modern times. If 

 the over-all effect of public policy is to reduce the total resource base, 

 the result is not a desirable one in the national interest. The reasons 

 for this are so obvious that I shall refer to them only briefly. 



If we should assume the United States to be a closed economy, a 

 gradual reduction of its total resource base could lead to a weakening 

 of the national economy and eventually its impoverishment, perhaps 

 its complete breakdown. More important, the consequent loss of na- 

 tional power — given the continuation on the international scene of the 

 Soviet-Communist threat — might well imperil our national survival. 

 Even if we do not assume a closed economy, but assume that foreign 

 trade could offset any gradual losses in our resource base, increasing 

 dependence on overseas supplies of raw materials would eventually 

 make us extremely vulnerable to both the cold and hot war tactics of 

 Communist imperialism. 



The question I have posed can also be answered in part by the fact 

 that we have had only an imperfect knowledge of the resources that 

 are really available to us and the uses to which they can be put. That 

 knowledge is being rapidly improved, and if the second half of the 

 twentieth century sees as rapid scientific and technological advances 



