Outside Observation 1: Gold Rush Alaska

During thanksgiving break, as I was flipping through the channels one evening, I discovered a TV show with which I had been unfamiliar.  The show is called “Gold Rush Alaska” and it follows a group of Oregonians who have made the trip to Alaska in order to spend the summer mining for gold.  As I watched the show, I became more and more horrified. 

As the cameras move to and from each of the characters’ respective mining sites, the viewer watches as bulldozers tear apart miles upon miles of beautiful, untouched, Alaskan wilderness.  While at this point in the show, most of the characters still have found no gold, at one point there is a small discovery.  As the camera zooms in on the excited miner, there are extremely tiny specs of gold visible in his pan.  The miner declares that the find is at least one ounce of gold and thus worth roughly $1800.

The show has become a hit and Alaskan state officials have become worried about the message that is being sent to the three million viewers that are tuning in each week (http://www.oregonlive.com).  In addition to the seemingly unregulated destruction of virgin forests, the show has aired the killing of a black bear, the diversion of natural streams, and scenes of miners driving heavy machinery across rivers which some concerned environmentalists have claimed to be salmon spawning habitats.

From my point of view, the show embodies many of the flaws in our economic system which we have discussed in class. There can be no question that the environmental services destroyed by the mining by far exceed the value of one ounce of precious metal.  Even worse, gold has no inherent productive value, only subjective monetary value.  Finally, all of these perverted efforts at value creation will be counted as an increase in Gross Domestic Product.