In the following blank write, in dollars, how much you feel your life is worth: ______________________. Do you believe other human beings are more or less valuable than you are? Is a child worth more or less than an adult? Is a sanitation worker worth more or less than a mayor? Is an Australian bushman worth more of less than the person who will be the next president of the United States?
You may have read that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just lowered the value of a human life in the USA from $8.04 million to $7.22 million. I have no idea why your life and my life just lost value or how the EPA arrived at these values.
The value of a human life is used in the cost-benefit analysis of environmental projects. In determining the worth of a project, the EPA calculates a project cost and a human cost; if the total cost of the project is less than the projected cost of human deaths, the project doesn't make sound financial sense. There's something about this formula that makes me feel more than a little uncomfortable.
This has been bugging me ever since I heard it on the news. I assume these types of calculations are used for making other decisions as well. For example, a country can use such calculations to justify a war, or a corporation can use them to decide whether to take the risk that a defective product will generate more revenue than the potential liability resulting from any harm or death associated with its use.
Recently a woman committed suicide because her home was going into foreclosure. Somehow she got really confused; she felt her home was worth more than her life. She thought that her family would value having the home instead of having her daily presence. Is any home or object worth more than a life? It's absolutely frightening and dispiriting to feel that we are applying the principles of capitalism to the valuing of life.
Sometimes I ask myself, "Did I accomplish anything of value today?" And I must admit that my cash register isn't always making a lot of noise. So maybe for some days, the $7 million is a true gift, but am I missing the point by narrowing my view of life to only things that produce dollars? Should I be requesting dollar credits if I bolster the spirits of a friend or my wife after a long hard day at work? Are these actions to be valued for their return on investment (ROI)? What about a mom who stays home and nurtures her children, who then go on to become caring and responsible adolescents and adults? How valuable are those labors of love?
Are we missing the richness and the value of life's purpose? By focusing on the ROI of life are we decreasing our human bank accounts and creating compassion debt? Maybe the economic recession is really a compassion recession.
Have we become more and more calloused to the tragedies of lives being lost to war, genocide, and climate change and to people's homes being lost to foreclosures? Haven't some banks and mortgage companies become more intent on making a profit than caring whether families can afford the payments on their loans? This same ROI mindset helps to account for why the life of a Tutsi mother in Darfur is considered to be of far less value than the $7.22 million you and I are worth.
I can't stop the EPA or any other government or corporate entity from assigning a dollar value to my life, and trying to stop them would be a waste of my life. What I hope is that when I die people will feel that I contributed more than 7 million dollars of value to the world - not in dollars but in the integrity, compassion, and gratitude I shared with others. I will have met my life's purpose if people say, "He made me feel like I was worth $7.22 million dollars."
Tom Wojick is an expert in assisting leaders and organizations in developing emotionally intelligent solutions to their human performance issues. For aditonal information contact Tom at
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