Is a $40,000 case of wine euvoluntary? Neil Irwin says no, and underpinned by utilitarian calculus, it's not an unreasonable claim. If you've got a few dozen thousand dollars to throw at a half a liter of rotten grapes, you can afford to buy some bed nets or tap an aquifer in sub-Saharan Africa.
Of course, that's generally true for people of more modest means too. You might not be able to save 1.5 million people, but you can surely save one or two lives by brewing your own coffee instead of queuing up at Starbucks for fru-fru sugarmilk confections. Does the suffering of distant people enter into your BATNA calculus?
Should it? How do we know when it becomes salient?
Showing posts with label subjectivism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label subjectivism. Show all posts
Monday, July 29, 2013
Friday, April 13, 2012
Does Pure Subjectivism Require That All Transactions Be Euvoluntary?
An interesting, though overwrought and overwritten, article from the UMass Daily Collegian.
Treating the argument as generously as possible, the author raises the following question: If one accepts subjectivism completely as the basis for judging exchanges, does that mean that ALL exchanges are assumed by the subjectivist to be voluntary, regardless of how much one party is actually harmed? An excerpt:
Here are some examples of free market transactions: selling hard drugs; prostitution; selling guns to warlords; selling human organs; buying forests for the purpose of clear-cutting them; selling food that may cause cancer; paying for advertisements that contain outrageous lies; paying for entire news stations to broadcast lies; selling your goods to white people only; buying up public schools to turn them into for-profit ventures; selling health care only to those who can afford it; selling insurance with the intent to deny claims; engaging in any kind of banking or financial transaction on Wall Street, including insider trading. The list goes on. If one agrees with the Austrian School that all voluntary exchange is good, then one agrees that all of the above are good. In the world of libertarian economics there is only one rule: As long as both the buyer and the seller agree to the exchange, then it improves happiness.
Well, no. As long as the buyer and seller agree EUVOLUNTARILY to the exchange, then it improves happiness.
Still, ignoring the cant (The only time we clear cut forests is when we sell sweetheart below cost leases, not purchases, on FEDERAL land, pumpkin. The problem is that those lands are NOT private property, and private property would fix the problem. But I digress...) the author raises a question that has vexed me. To wit: If you genuinely accept subjectivism, and personal autonomy, then aren't any exchanges that don't involve actual coercion "voluntary"?
Treating the argument as generously as possible, the author raises the following question: If one accepts subjectivism completely as the basis for judging exchanges, does that mean that ALL exchanges are assumed by the subjectivist to be voluntary, regardless of how much one party is actually harmed? An excerpt:
Here are some examples of free market transactions: selling hard drugs; prostitution; selling guns to warlords; selling human organs; buying forests for the purpose of clear-cutting them; selling food that may cause cancer; paying for advertisements that contain outrageous lies; paying for entire news stations to broadcast lies; selling your goods to white people only; buying up public schools to turn them into for-profit ventures; selling health care only to those who can afford it; selling insurance with the intent to deny claims; engaging in any kind of banking or financial transaction on Wall Street, including insider trading. The list goes on. If one agrees with the Austrian School that all voluntary exchange is good, then one agrees that all of the above are good. In the world of libertarian economics there is only one rule: As long as both the buyer and the seller agree to the exchange, then it improves happiness.
Well, no. As long as the buyer and seller agree EUVOLUNTARILY to the exchange, then it improves happiness.
Still, ignoring the cant (The only time we clear cut forests is when we sell sweetheart below cost leases, not purchases, on FEDERAL land, pumpkin. The problem is that those lands are NOT private property, and private property would fix the problem. But I digress...) the author raises a question that has vexed me. To wit: If you genuinely accept subjectivism, and personal autonomy, then aren't any exchanges that don't involve actual coercion "voluntary"?
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