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I guess the question is, is quality of life zero-sum? I want to say no because I feel like I can improve my QoL in ways that don't harm others, but all these e

by yifanl 6y ago

I guess the question is, is quality of life zero-sum? I want to say no because I feel like I can improve my QoL in ways that don't harm others, but all these examples are telling me that its really that I don't (or maybe even choose not to) see the negative consequences until its compounded by a large enough group and it ends up being another one of your examples.

antisthenes 6y ago
The quality of life is not zero-sum, bot on a local level and a short timeframe, many things are indeed zero sum. The best example is land & desirable real estate. It only takes a few people with "outside" money to drive up prices in the market or to purchase land and sit on it in perpetuity, driving up prices by taking it out of the local supply.
- bobthechef 6y ago
  From [0]: "Aquinas believed that it was specifically immoral to raise prices because a particular buyer had an urgent need for what was being sold [...] Aquinas would therefore condemn practices such as raising the price of building supplies in the wake of a natural disaster. Increased demand caused by the destruction of existing buildings does not add to a seller's costs, so to take advantage of buyers' increased willingness to pay constituted a species of fraud in Aquinas's view." "Aquinas believed all gains made in trade must relate to the labour exerted by the merchant, not to the need of the buyer. Hence, he condoned moderate gain as payment even for unnecessary trade, provided the price were regulated and kept within certain bounds" So if this is true (and I'm sure certain tacit assumptions are not mentioned in this Wiki page), then it seems that crazy market price fluctuations have to do with the divorce of market value from labor which was "replaced by the microeconomic concept of supply and demand from Locke, Steuart, Ricardo, Ibn Taymiyyah, and especially Adam Smith". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_price
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    The purpose of increased prices is to incentivize more supply to come into the market. If prices do not rise with demand (and static supply), then you’re left with a market where certain buyers are lucky (or connected) and some don’t get anything.
    - dcow 6y ago
      Which sounds arguably (although I’ not sure I agree) more “equitable” in the sense that access to goods is a big social lottery rather than a true market.
    - bordercases 6y ago
      It's hard to talk about the "purpose" of a price in this way. In the case of a monopoly, or otherwise any market with large barriers to entry, the purpose of the price increases are to gouge the consumer for profit. And in the case where price raises are stemming from aggregate demand then price increases are about consuming opportunity costs. Either way the price increase may incentivize market entrants in cases where entry is possible, but the "purpose" of the actors controlling price is always to maximize profit. The market itself cannot be spoken of volitionally.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      ERCOT's dismal failure the past several months has once again shown the fallacy of this thinking. Raising prices to infinity cannot induce supply of a good or service for which there is simply no capacity to provision. Nor does discrimination by price for life's essentials result in fair or equitable distribution when there is a tremendous inequality in purchasing power among the population, much if that itself the result of random chance, inheritence, or nonproductive gains. There's another market mechanism for addressing probabalistic risks, which is to prepare in advance, to assess penalties for failure to provision, to maintain stockpiles and emergency response plans, and to move stochastic future costs to present expense through mechanisms such as risk premiums. These create present incentives for managing such risks, and are based on data and modeling which ground those costs in the likely long-run and widespread average experience. Moving expenses to the present also creates opportunity and incentive to manage, mitigate, and avoid risks.
zip1234 6y ago
Governments should definitely think this through. A good example of the tragedy of the commons and QOL is driving/private automobiles. Once you get enough of them around, QOL goes way down. Who wants to live next to a 5 lane road with speeding cars? They are noisy, polluting, and dangerous, but also so exceptionally convenient for the one that is driving.

by yifanl 6y ago

antisthenes 6y ago

The quality of life is not zero-sum, bot on a local level and a short timeframe, many things are indeed zero sum. The best example is land & desirable real estate. It only takes a few people with "outside" money to drive up prices in the market or to purchase land and sit on it in perpetuity, driving up prices by taking it out of the local supply.

bobthechef 6y ago
From [0]: "Aquinas believed that it was specifically immoral to raise prices because a particular buyer had an urgent need for what was being sold [...] Aquinas would therefore condemn practices such as raising the price of building supplies in the wake of a natural disaster. Increased demand caused by the destruction of existing buildings does not add to a seller's costs, so to take advantage of buyers' increased willingness to pay constituted a species of fraud in Aquinas's view." "Aquinas believed all gains made in trade must relate to the labour exerted by the merchant, not to the need of the buyer. Hence, he condoned moderate gain as payment even for unnecessary trade, provided the price were regulated and kept within certain bounds" So if this is true (and I'm sure certain tacit assumptions are not mentioned in this Wiki page), then it seems that crazy market price fluctuations have to do with the divorce of market value from labor which was "replaced by the microeconomic concept of supply and demand from Locke, Steuart, Ricardo, Ibn Taymiyyah, and especially Adam Smith". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_price
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  The purpose of increased prices is to incentivize more supply to come into the market. If prices do not rise with demand (and static supply), then you’re left with a market where certain buyers are lucky (or connected) and some don’t get anything.
  - dcow 6y ago
    Which sounds arguably (although I’ not sure I agree) more “equitable” in the sense that access to goods is a big social lottery rather than a true market.
  - bordercases 6y ago
    It's hard to talk about the "purpose" of a price in this way. In the case of a monopoly, or otherwise any market with large barriers to entry, the purpose of the price increases are to gouge the consumer for profit. And in the case where price raises are stemming from aggregate demand then price increases are about consuming opportunity costs. Either way the price increase may incentivize market entrants in cases where entry is possible, but the "purpose" of the actors controlling price is always to maximize profit. The market itself cannot be spoken of volitionally.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    ERCOT's dismal failure the past several months has once again shown the fallacy of this thinking. Raising prices to infinity cannot induce supply of a good or service for which there is simply no capacity to provision. Nor does discrimination by price for life's essentials result in fair or equitable distribution when there is a tremendous inequality in purchasing power among the population, much if that itself the result of random chance, inheritence, or nonproductive gains. There's another market mechanism for addressing probabalistic risks, which is to prepare in advance, to assess penalties for failure to provision, to maintain stockpiles and emergency response plans, and to move stochastic future costs to present expense through mechanisms such as risk premiums. These create present incentives for managing such risks, and are based on data and modeling which ground those costs in the likely long-run and widespread average experience. Moving expenses to the present also creates opportunity and incentive to manage, mitigate, and avoid risks.

zip1234 6y ago

Governments should definitely think this through. A good example of the tragedy of the commons and QOL is driving/private automobiles. Once you get enough of them around, QOL goes way down. Who wants to live next to a 5 lane road with speeding cars? They are noisy, polluting, and dangerous, but also so exceptionally convenient for the one that is driving.