{"id":1347,"date":"2005-02-07T05:28:47","date_gmt":"2005-02-07T13:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/02\/07\/ask-a-19th-century-whaling-expert\/"},"modified":"2005-02-07T05:28:47","modified_gmt":"2005-02-07T13:28:47","slug":"ask-a-19th-century-whaling-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1347","title":{"rendered":"Ask a 19th Century Whaling Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

You should go over to Crooked Timber and read “Ask a Nineteenth Century Whaling Expert,”<\/a> in which Ted asks an expert (Kenneth Gardner) how it is that whales were so valuable.:<\/p>\n

I’m baffled at the economics of nineteenth-century whaling. In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville says that a whaling expedition would be a success if a crew of 40 men captured the oil from 40 whales in 48 months. Each whale produced about 40-50 barrels of oil. Presumably this oil had to be cover the approximate costs of four years’ labor, plus the costs of operating the ship, plus a sizeable profit for the investors in these risky ventures.<\/p>\n

How could whale-oil have been so valuable? I understand that it was scarce, that illumination is highly desirable, and apparently it smelled nice. But there were substitutes, weren’t there?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gardner’s answer is interesting. However, I might not have gotten around to linking to this had it not been for the following post from the comments, by Dsquared:<\/p>\n

My latest column at “Whale Central Station”? is up, exposing the leftist myth of finite whale supplies.<\/p>\n

1. Whales breed. Therefore, the potential supply of whales is unlimited.<\/p>\n

2. As whaling technology improves, our ability to exploit this limited supply of whales becomes ever-greater. A few years ago, 40 whales in a four year trip was regarded as good going. Modern Norwegian whalers capture and process 40 whales a month. All of the estimates of the “sustainability”? of the whale-based economy were put together before such inventions as exploding harpoons. And remember that the supply of whales is self-replenishing. Leftists seem not to understand that whales have sex.<\/p>\n

3. Reducing whaling would cost vast amounts of money and destroy our economy; credible estimates would suggest that without whale-oil lamps we would all sit around in the dark until we die. This money would better be spent on providing aid to the Inuit.<\/p>\n

4. We can’t give the Inuit property rights over their whales to help them manage the speed of whaling, because that’s just politically impractical.<\/p>\n

5. Arrrrr!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You should go over to Crooked Timber and read “Ask a Nineteenth Century Whaling Expert,” in which Ted asks an expert (Kenneth Gardner) how it is that whales were so valuable.: I’m baffled at the economics of nineteenth-century whaling. In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-the-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}