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Wandering around the Acropolis Print E-mail
Written by Tim Worstall   
Friday, 12 October 2007
I was in Greece recently, chatting around the subject of whether it would be a good idea to spend millions pounds stopping people from dumping a few hundred thousand tonnes a year of caustic waste into the Gulf of Corinth. Yes, of course it would be nice to stop that happening, but the chatting was all about how we make it profitable to do so...something which is really not all that easy. It won't happen unless it is profitable, either, as with so many desirable environmental changes. Indeed, it probably shouldn't happen unless (including any externalities) it is profitable – for that surplus of income over costs is what tells us we're doing the right things.

Anyway, so having finished my meetings I pottered off across Athens and went to look at the Acropolis. Nice setting, certainly, cradle of civilisation and all that, but it was a bit of a let down, as I had thought it would be.

After all, I've already been to Bloomsbury and seen the Elgin Marbles: what's here is the bit no one was worried about preserving, isn't it?
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