RAW MATERIALS BECOME NATURAL RESOURCES ONLY AFTER BEING EXPLOITED

RAW MATERIALS BECOME NATURAL RESOURCES ONLY AFTER BEING EXPLOITED BY HUMAN INGENUITY. Abundant resources were themselves in many ways a reflection of the advanced state of American technology. This statement, by an eminent economic historian, is further evidence of the validity of Julian Simon‘s brilliant insight that the ultimate resource is the human mind. All materials, raw or otherwise – including so-called “natural resources” – become useful (i.e., become resources) only if and when human creativity and effort devise means for using such materials to serve human ends and devise means for doing so in cost-effective ways. There is no such thing as a truly “natural” resource.