Environmental Policy-Making: Reflections on the Process of Technology Assessment

The limitations on the nature of our technologically oriented decisions are in large part a response to fundamental assumptions contained in our legal system. The legal and economic systems have existed within a symbiotic relationship from which each derives the ability to define itself through the interaction of theory and control. Issues of "business" costs of an exterprise and "non-business" costs of technological proposals exist simply because the "law" creates such a dichotomy. These cost definitions arise, not from some command of natural law, but because the power of economic self-interest and shared class identities have dominated both courts and legislators. However, in the same manner as legal definitions are created, they can be redefined.