Write 2-3 pages, double spaced, references , on this topic.

For this assignment we will watch and I want you respond to some scenes from the 1985 movie “Pale Rider” starring Clint Eastwood. The movie deals with a fictional clash over mining rights in California. If you are unable to watch the scenes in class, the main part of the moves you will need to watch starts at the 43 minute mark, or in Scenes #11 and 12 if you have the DVD of the movie.

In the part of the movie I want you to watch, the land baron & large miner, LaHood, offers to buy out the claims of a group of small scale miners working a claim called Carbon Canyon. For the purposes of this assignment, assume that Mr.LaHood’s offer of $1000 per claim were perfectly sincere and would be paid off if the miners accept the deal. Of course they do not, but I want you to listen closely to the reasons the miners give for refusing. LaHood employs large scale, hydraulic mining which in many ways must be a more efficient way to mine for gold. And in the miners’ discussion of the deal, it is stated, and we’ll stipulate for the purpose of this assignment, that the $1000 offer was more than fair, in other words, more than the likely amount of gold the individual miners were likely to ever get from the tin pan mining operations.

For the assignment, I want you to consider LaHood’s offer from the perspective of Coasean bargaining. Does bargaining really lead to more efficient uses of resources being captured? Or do considerations like those voiced by the miners prevent transfers? Do factors like a way of life and dignity matter, or do they get in the way of efficient resource use? Given the pervasiveness of the concerns raised by the miners, will voluntary transactions ever capture all, or even a good portion, of the efficiency gains? Or to put this matter differently, does this example from “Pale Rider” simply show that transactions costs are so high that trades won’t occur in the market, even assuming that property rights for a functioning market can be laid out?