Time to finally bring it to an end. The notion of positive rights is intrinsically Marxist.
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Time to finally bring it to an end. The notion of positive rights is intrinsically Marxist.
Comments are closed.
The right to a fair trial is a positive right. The right to a fair election is a positive right.
They may presently be written as such, but they don’t need to be framed that way.
I don’t see how it has anything to do with how it is written, so much as it has to do with who pays for it, and whether that payment is voluntary. Isn’t “who involuntarily pays for it?” the distinction between positive and negative rights?
If you want taxpayer-funded elections, the right to a fair election is a positive right.
No.
My starting point was the article by Epstein which Rand linked to.
Epstein says, after listing Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights, “All of these are positive rights, which means necessarily that some unidentified individuals or groups have the duty to provide decent wages, home, health, and education to the people.”
What definition are you using?
I’m *so* tempted to go to wikipedia right now, but I’ll resist. Instead, I’ll look in a slightly more high-brow source, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Here is an excerpt:
2.1.8 Negative and Positive Rights
A distinction between negative and positive rights is popular among some normative theorists, especially those with a bent toward libertarianism. The holder of a negative right is entitled to non-interference, while the holder of a positive right is entitled to provision of some good or service. A right against assault is a classic example of a negative right, while a right to welfare assistance is a prototypical positive right (Narveson 2001).
Since both negative and positive rights are passive rights, some rights are neither negative nor positive. Privileges and powers cannot be negative rights; and privileges, powers, and immunities cannot be positive rights. The (privilege-) right to enter a building, and the (power-) right to enter into a binding agreement, are neither negative nor positive.
It is sometimes said that negative rights are easier to satisfy than positive rights. Negative rights can be respected simply by each person refraining from interfering with each other, while it may be difficult or even impossible to fulfill everyone’s positive rights if the sum of people’s claims outstrips the resources available.
However, when it comes to the enforcement of rights, this difference disappears. Funding a legal system that enforces citizens’ negative rights against assault may require more resources than funding a welfare system that realizes citizens’ positive rights to assistance. As Holmes and Sunstein (1999, 43) put it, in the context of citizens’ rights to state enforcement, all rights are positive. Moreover, the point is often made that the moral urgency of securing positive rights may be just as great as the moral urgency of securing negative rights (Shue 1996). Whatever is the justificatory basis for ascribing rights—autonomy, need, or something else—there might be just as strong a moral case for fulfilling a person’s right to adequate nutrition as there is for protecting that person’s right not to be assaulted.
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It is amusing that they cite Holmes and Sunstein — I really didn’t expect that.
So, presumably, Titus and other like-minded libertarians reading this, you don’t agree with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. What definition do you use, and what reading do you recommend?
Sorry, here is the link:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/
However, when it comes to the enforcement of rights, this difference disappears. Funding a legal system that enforces citizens’ negative rights against assault may require more resources than funding a welfare system that realizes citizens’ positive rights to assistance.
Here, it looks to me like enforcement, even if of a nominally negative right, is in their language, a positive right, which I’ll explain a little more below. So IMHO there’s no point to be made here. They’re just saying implementation of one positive right is somewhat more expensive than implementation of another positive right. Which is zero content since it’s always true for implementations of unequal cost.
It’s also worth noting that the rights of the Constitution are constraints on government against people, citizens, and voters, not people against each other. There’s no right against assault by another person.
So with respect to these rights, all the government has to do to satisfy the right is to abstain from the offending behaviors proscribed by the right.
But a right to not be assaulted by someone not a member of government creates an obligation to exercise force. That makes it just as positive a right as the right to welfare.
A fair trial for the accused, and fair elections don’t require taking the property of someone else.
They certainly do, Peter. How much do you suppose elections and trials cost, and who do you suppose foots the bill? If you think fair trials and fair elections don’t require taxes, you should elaborate. Moreover, if you think having a government doesn’t require taxes, you should elaborate. And even if you can describe a beautiful system of government which doesn’t require taxes, do you support the idea that all systems of government which do use taxes are Marxist?
Court costs are piad by the loser Bob.
The right to a fair trial is not a positive right, it’s a negative right on the state which is prohibited from using anything but a trial for prosecutions in criminal cases.
But just to be sure, I filed a $10 million lawsuit against the State of California because they refused to give me a fair trial, which is mine by right. They said I wasn’t charged with anything, so I couldn’t have a trial. I said I can have a trial whether I’m charged or not, because it’s my right under the US Constitution. I then demanded lots of cameras and cable TV coverage of my trial, and smoking hot prosecutors and defense attorneys. The court still hasn’t responded to those last requests, but I’m sure they’ll soon realize that they have no legal ground to stand on and cave in.
What about civil cases? (Yes, I understand, the attorneys may be less sexy looking for those, but I’m wondering about the right to a fair trial when you are sued.)
Or, for that matter, the right to sue. Is the right to sue a positive right?
No. Suing is a negative right because you aren’t allowed to sue before your own hand-picked judge and jury. Prior to suing you would drag someone before your family, clan, and tribe, vent your anger, and exact what you regard as justice. (John Locke talked about this at some length). Suing is giving up your natural right to vengeance to have the matter settled before an impartial panel of judges or jurors, because the aggrieved party was too commonly overzealous in their application of justice, initiating a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. Your right to sue is actually a surrendering of your right to rape, pillage, murder, and burn those who have wronged you.
The Navy has jurisdictions that apply Bob. Don’t wet yourself, they’ve got guns.
Ha! That’s funny.
The idea of believing in natural rights, but only positive natural rights, is amusing. If animals could talk, maybe some species would have philosophies like that. Ants. Or even wolves. Ask a pack of wolves about rights, and you might hear a list of positive rights — what each wolf owes the pack, and what the pack owes each wolf.
Wolves are well known for not owing anything or being owed anything. They take care of the pack because strength comes in numbers and discipline, but they don’t tolerate failure, eat according to status, and decide leadership with a blood challenge when the leader shows weakness.
Rabbits, on the other hand, exercise and understand property rights and real estate.
If natural rights had to be granted, they wouldn’t be natural.
In the case of a life-and-death medical emergency, I’m in favor of allowing the police to commandeer civilian vehicles to use as an ambulance. In such situations, I’m also in favor of the police taking on quite a number of serious responsibilities toward the owners and/or drivers and passangers of any commandeered vehicles. I wouldn’t be in favor of an absolute “right to an ambulence” because that creates ridiculous situations where people can demand an ambulance regardless of where in the wilderness they choose to live, but I would characterize my preferred policies as “the right to an ambulance priority” and “the right of the commandeered to necessary protection and adequate compensation”, or some such — I’d characterize my commandeering policies as positive rights. Are these commandeering policies Marxist, and if so, are they really all that bad?
That’s the right to self-defense. And standard liability law. Civilians should have the same priority as a policeman in that situation.
Expressed as prohibitive rights, this is:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,”
and
“nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Those are “restrictions on government”.
Government doesn’t have (or need) the -right- to do the right thing here. A policeman (or citizen) will actually often ignore police/rule/law if it seems absolutely necessary. But the populace -does- need the protection of being justly compensated. Or it’s just seizures all the way down.
That’s policies, rules and law.
So, some people should not get the medical care given by the government because they don’t live in big cities? Who gets to make the choices of who gets coverage under a universal healthcare modle like we are implementing now? If healthcare is a right, then shouldn’t all people have access to the best treatments and practices?
I find it troubling that geography would be used as a discriminating factor in distributing healthcare. And we all know that rural people tend to be poor. Why do you want poor people to die by not giving them the same healthcare as everyone else?
***
Maybe, as with taxes and government, we have room for both posative and negative rights but the arguments should be how how appropriate the implmentation of posative rights are. Funding for elections is hard to do without and the same goes for a judicial system. A government run healthcare system will cause more problems than it solves and even though the people who passed Obamacare want healthcare to be a right, they don’t actually think people have to right to get the best care.
Wodun,
Ambulances are traditionally provided by local governments, but you do raise a good point. After all, much has been made on this blog about Obama’s supposed war on the suburbs. Well, I consider the lack of a federal ambulance service, and in particular, the lack of a federal ambulance service equipped with AS350 B3 high altitude helicopters, to be indicative of Obama’s War On Mountaintop Dwellers!
(And I appreciate your very reasonable last paragraph. Careful, people here are going to see you for the centrist troll you truly are.)
Ambulances are traditionally provided by local governments
No. Traditionally ambulances were, and many still are, private companies offering paramedic services. In fact, Houston’s helicopter ambulance service is provided by a private hospital system, and not the city, county, or state.
“The right to a fair trial is a positive right. The right to a fair election is a positive right.” Really? You should check your definitions.
From the Preamble to the Bill of Rights: THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
These rights are clearly negative rights because they restrict or prohibit the government from infringing on them, thus guaranteeing the right to the people. Similarly, the Constitution, as establishment of government by the people, clearly lays out the election process and thereby prohibits the government from instituting fixed or wrigged elections. This too then is a negative right. Neither are positive rights.
Who has to pay for an election, whether they want one or not? You do! How is is my right to a fair election not a positive right, if you are forced to pay for it?
There’s a distinction between an administrative cost and a transfer payment.
If you got paid for voting, you would have a point. But you don’t.
The right to vote does not guarantee a positive outcome — like getting the elected representative you want. The only thing it guarantees is your freedom from representation by someone you didn’t have a chance to vote for (or against).
I don’t understand your position. Is my right to vote a positive right?
My right to vote guarantees that all sorts of expenses will be incurred at someone else’s expense, possibly against their will, and I thought that was the definition of a positive right.
Bob, you’re engaged in solipsism. I’m not to play.
Elsewhere in this thread, you make an argument that you should be treated like a child. So I’ll simply say, “Go ask your mother.”
Actually, you don’t have a”right” to vote in this country. You must be a U.S. citizen, be 18 years old or older, and not have been convicted of a felony. None of that conforms to the definition of a “right.”. It is a privilege, something the left often tries to conflate/confuse with a right.
A right can neither be granted nor revoked. It is inherent in our being human.
Bob, you missunderstand – you do NOT have a right to vote.
The GOVERNMENT lacks the power to select officers without a vote.
For example: You go to the government and demand a vote be taken for how many people love bunnies… nothing happens. Government tries to install Obama’s aunt as president without a vote – stuff happens.
I just skimmed this article
The Cost of Rights
By STEPHEN HOLMES and CASS R. SUNSTEIN (one of Rand’s favorite legal scholars!)
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/holmes-rights.html
I confess I didn’t read it very carefully. What caught my eye were these two lines:
1) “Where there is a right, there is a remedy”,
and
2) ” Rights are costly because remedies are costly.”
Odd how statists operate on the premise is that the individual has to rights (except what the Ruling Class permits them), also operate from a premise that the State has unlimited rights. (Or, if they recognize limits, resist any effort to quantify or specify those limits.)
Wait, maybe it’s not so odd.
Who are you talking about?
Here’s a document put together and endorsed by a bunch of “statists”:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml
Note article 30.
PS I don’t agree with everything in the document; I’m just citing it because I’m trying to imagine who you are talking about when you say “statists”, and I imagine you’re talking about people who put together UN documents like the Declaration. If you’re actually talking about people like Syria’s Bashar Assad, well, then I suppose you’re right.
The always “syllogistically challenged” Bob-1 is using the dodge that I call “the Argument From Quotation Marks.” (Someone should update the textbooks on fallacious argumentation and give it some fancy-schmancy Latin name, to go with “Argumentum Ad Misirecordium” [the “Argument From Pity”], that other favorite of the Stupid Left.) People who are statists like to put “statists” and “statism” in quotes, like the concepts aren’t valid or that they don’t apply to them, no matter how addicted to the State and Statye-coercion they are. “Mmmm . . . State, State, State, gimme State, gimme more State, love me some State . . .but hey, don’t call me ‘statist’!” That’s why I came up with the terms “State-shtupper “and “State-fellator:” You don’t like ‘statist’? Fine, try these on for size!”
A friend of mine says that the reason statists don’t like being called “statists” is because it’s not a term of their own invention. They would prefer something softer and fuzzier like “liberal” (an honorable term socialists calculatedly co-opted in the 1920s and 1930s as a way of marketing State-socialism to the American voter) and “progressive” (when actually the move to a free society to a more statist one is retrogressive). They probably would prefer, “Wonderful enlightened people who are just for good stuff.”
Well, ok, I apologize for using quotes, but lets get back your argument. You said statists “operate from a premise that the State has unlimited rights.” Are the people behind the UN Declaration of Human Rights the sort of people you were talking about? They surely don’t believe that states have unlimited rights, but they are very invested in the notion of nation states. If they were not who you were talking about, who were you talking about?
To answer your question: (a) I don’t know, and (b) I don’t care. I’m pro-liberty; what do I care about what the clowns at the UN think? It isn’t exactly a hotbed of libertarian indivdiualists. A cursory glance at the document indicates a mixture of libertarian rhetoric mixed with the usual statist BS. Example, “Everyone has a right to an education”–ergo, everyone else has to be forced into providing that education: don’t bother asking “why” or “by what right”? So much for these geniuses and their grasp of “rights.”
Is it that you have trouble grasping the concept of statism? Is it that abstruse or complex? I suspect you’ve gone from Argument by Quotation Marks to what I call the Argument of Naivete . . . mostadroitly used by Phil Hartmen’s character Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. “This strange word ‘statism’ of which you speak–I know not what it is. In the simpler society I come from, we knew not this ‘statism.'”
In this context, it’s pleading ignorance to avoid owning your own philosophy. I value liberty, and have no problem with being called “libertarian.” I don’t furrow my brow and scratch my head and ask, “‘What is this ‘liberty’ and ‘libertarianism’ of whych you speak?” If you know what staism is, why not just own it? “Yes, I like the State! There are things I want to force people to do, but can’t as a private individual because it’s against the law. But with the State, I can legally force people to do exactly what I want them to do! Yeah, baby!”
If by this point you really don’t grasp the concept of statism, do some reading about it. (I recommend Bastiat or Nock.) Or someone else with more patience than I have will have to explain to Bob-1, Unfrozen Caveman Statist, what his own philosophy is.
States do not have rights, they assume them.
Individuals have rights by nature that states trample on.
Calling something a positive or negative right is just another way of dividing by zero. It’s a form of sleight of hand. It makes more sense not to add that dimension of confusion.
You have a natural right to property and liberty. You do not have a right to anything that takes away another persons property or liberty except for after a criminal act where they violate your property or liberty.
Even then, you try to restore the balance where you can.
Thievery is always thievery, regardless of the justification.
Do 2 year old orphans have rights, Ken, beyond the rights to property and liberty? Do 2 year old orphans have a right to food? If so, who pays for it? If someone answers “yes, they do”, and “we all should pay via taxes, if there are no guardians willing to take on the burden personally”, are they Marxists?
Beautiful example. Marxist want the rest of us to remain children.
Do you not understand parental responsibilities are a different thing?
That’s known as a “false choice.”
A personal guardian and the government are not the only options. Or do you live in some imaginary world where churches, charities, etc. do not exist?
When I allowed for guardians, I was including churches and charities. Sorry I wasn’t more clear. But lets worry about rights. Does a child a right to food? And that’s an example of a positive right, correct?
No Bob. A child is a responsibility until they mature.
THEY DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO FOOD. Which is why having a child is a decision good parents make.
Is anybody going to deny them food? No, because people will step in when they see parents abusing their children.
This is typical marxism.
It’s not just children. ADULTS DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO FOOD.
You do have the right to liberty which you can use to acquire food for yourself and your children. Again, having children is a big decision and responsibility. Nanny states say people have no responsibility.
No, a 2-year-old orphan does not have a “right” to food. No living organism of any age or any species has a “right” to food. Such a right means that someone else is obligated to provide it.
If a baby bird falls out of the nest and is abandoned by its mother, it dies unless a human voluntarily takes it in and feeds it. The same goes for human children who are orphaned.
It may sound harsh, but it’s reality. Luckily there is no shortage of generous, compassionate people who will gladly take in that child. That’s how it works in a free society where individuals are able to keep the money they earn to use as they see fit, as well as churches which are free to operate charities and orphanages.
But in a collectivist society that taxes individuals to the point where they can barely subsist themselves, they will turn their backs on the child and say, “Let the government care for him. That’s what I pay taxes for.”
Heh, Ken. I’m a slow writer, and I didn’t see your comment above until I posted mine.
Bob-1 scribbles:
“Do 2 year old orphans have a right to food? ”
No.
Neither do they have a right to beer, or health care or a house.
Neither do you, nor any other adult.
You have the right to acquire them legally and if you do they become your property and no one should be able to take them away from you unless you commit a felony.
If you should choose to give that 2 year old orphan a roof over its head and food you can provided it’s YOUR roof and food.
You’re hung up on the question of who pays for something. A more important question is who actually performs the service associated with a “positive right.” A recent poll of doctors revealed that 83% are considering getting out of medicine if Obamacare stands. There aren’t currently enough doctors to service out population. So how are you going to make good on this positive right, Massa Bob-1, suh? You gonna jes make ’em practice medicine?
Hope’n’chains, baby. Hope’n’chains.
Heh. The way to get people to do things is to be “hung up” on the question of payment. I thought you free market guys understood this. If you pay people enough, particularly something as intrinsically rewarding and high status as medicine, they’ll do it. For medicine, at least, it really does come down to payment.
I also think your poll is bogus. The only way to criticize the poll is to take a look at it, and so the following is just an anecdote, for conversational purposes. We have quite a few doctors in the family, they have friends who are doctors, etc, they span a variety of different kind of practices (but mostly surgical and ER, no easy specialties like dermatology), certainly some are Republicans, and while some of them are critical of ACA, none are getting out medicine. Just about all of them think they are underpaid, by the way, which makes other people in the family laugh, but those laughing will probably concede the point to some extent, once the entire job is considered.
Pay them enough? With what? Medicare stiffs doctors right and left now, and will only get worse when “everyone is covered.” And there’s very little “prestige” left in the field of medicine — especially when then President of the United States accuses doctors of performing needless amputations for some extra cash (as one example — funny how you lefties can hurl the most despicable false accusations at the people you need the most).
Also, it wasn’t “my” poll. I read it, and wasn’t surprised. That’s because “my” poll has 100% of doctors thinking of either getting out, leaving the country, or doing laser and Botox for cash.
I’m posting here because I saw Rand’s post as a philosophical argument about positive rights. My goal is to criticize Rand’s notion that positive rights are intrinsically Marxist. That philosophical argument might not be your cup of tea — maybe you’d rather talk about Obamacare. That’s fine! But the particulars of Obamacare don’t have any bearing on the more general argument about positive rights.
Keeping my philosopher’s hat on for a moment, I do want to make a point about your argument. If the President actually tarred all doctors with the same brush because of one apple, he’d be wrong, but along the same lines, you should consider whether you are making the very same mistake when you make generalizations about all lefties.
So, to answer your question: obviously I favor coercive taxes to pay doctors generously for a single payer health care plan. That makes me a horrible Marxist, right? But I think it is interesting whether right wing Americans are also horrible Marxists, because they favor paying for the court system and the electoral system with taxes. At gunpoint.
You have a point in one respect. Consent of the governed is a fiction that we need to get beyond.
Why should secretaries, or dishwashers be taxed to pay doctors generously? Why are doctors so special that they are entitled to generous wages? Other people do important work, shouldn’t they all be paid generously? BTW – what exactly does “generously” mean in terms of pay? Please answer in numbers, not abstractions.
The simple answer is that people will pay more for doctors, but that presumes a free market, and the game here is that I should give the supposedly Marxist answer, right?
My sister-in-law will perform a needed but risky operation on a patient, and if there are complications, she’ll sit in the patients room as long as it takes, jumping up and adjusting whatever needs adjusting, at all hours of the night. She’ll finally go home, but even on her so-called “days off”, she’ll really be on call, ready to rush back to the hospital if her patient needs her (and this happens). She can’t imagine doing it any other way, but it is exhausting. She really gives the job everything she’s got And she applies a large degree of knowledge, expensively acquired, to save a life. I think it would be beneficial to society to create an incentive for doctors to act like my sister-in-law, so I support paying them more. Yes, I’m picking economic winners and losers here, but I take comfort in the fact that doctors will do well very on the free market too.
“But I think it is interesting whether right wing Americans are also horrible Marxists, because they favor paying for the court system and the electoral system with taxes. At gunpoint.”
That dips into the thought that any action taken or service provided by the government is socialism, which it isn’t. This is usually seen with discussions on roads and firefighters.
It’s not about who pays. It’s about theft. Understand the difference.
In the proglodyte mind, “theft” is when somebody produces wealth by his own labor and then refuses to share it with all the people who just sat around waiting for wealth to be created.
Henny Penny? As bad as any Wall Street robber baron.
In the name of profits workers get stripped of everything. As we move to a knowledge based economy we find people working more hours, for less, with shrinking protections at a time a lot of production (of the things we actually require to live) is automated. We also see accusations that if you demand anything as a worker you are a Marxist. Yet if you lobby for corporate asset stripping and tax evasion or golden parachutes you are just doing what comes naturally. Well a lot of things come naturally and are considered to be anti-social behaviors which lead to collapse, chaos and disorder. Is it too much to expect a certain amount of protection in a developed economy? What is time is to start thinking about post-scarcity economic models.
Working more for less than what? A hundred or so years ago, people worked 10-12 hour days, 6 days a week to live in a 1 room shanty with no plumbing, and no health insurance or retirement, or 401k plan. Less than that? Fifty years ago people worked in factories doing mindless, repetitive tasks 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to live in a 2 bedroom rambler. They probably had major medical coverage and a pension, but were lucky to live a decade past retirement. Contrast that with the amount and type of work people do now. Would you want to go back 50-100 years? I wouldn’t.
Godzilla, you deserve a serious reply.
workers get stripped of everything
Workers are free agents. They choose what to exchange their time for. Is it fair that some workers get protections that others don’t. Is it fair that some workers are not allowed to compete for some jobs because they aren’t members of the right organization?
if you demand anything as a worker you are a Marxist.
Yes, because of the key word you used… demand. Demand has no place in free trade. These demands take from two groups… employers and other workers. Demand is exactly why it is Marxist rather than free trade.
lobby for corporate…
That’s another problem that doesn’t justify Marxist redistribution. No. Justification. At. All.
Free enterprise works in spite of the fact that corporations aren’t angels. They are regulated by their customers (and a media if they actually did their function in a free society.)
Is it too much to expect a certain amount of protection in a developed economy?
Sometimes it is. It depends on how that ‘protection’ came about. There’s a right and wrong way. Unions these days are the wrong way. Especially for government workers as even FDR knew.
post-scarcity economic models
There is no such thing. Scarcity is built into the very definition of economics. TANSTAAFL. You can not take by demand without taking from other workers.
“We also see accusations that if you demand anything as a worker you are a Marxist.”
Not always and it is important to look at what the unions are actually advocating. Many of them openly declare their desire for socialism.
“Yet if you lobby for corporate asset stripping and tax evasion or golden parachutes you are just doing what comes naturally.”
If a business can not cover its own costs and provide for its workers, then people shouldn’t expect that the owner or anyone else to subsidize its survival. Then when the business is about to go belly up, it should go through an organized bankruptcy like what happened with GM only it should adhere to the law in reference to the order that creditors, investors, and workers get paid off.
In a free society companies should be free to pay their employees whatever they want. It also might shock you that the contracts with those golden parachutes are a bit more complicated than people are led to believe. It is fairly common for a former executive to have to go to court to get a company to fulfill its contractual obligations. And sometimes executives are fired just before they become eligible for their retirement benefits. You might feel less sorry for them but executives get screwed over all the time too.
I am not sure who is advocating for tax evasion but it would be stupid for companies or individuals not to operate by the rules as they exist. Companies run by liberals take full advantage of their deductions and so do unions and other activists groups so it is something that everyone does.
Also, people are not advocating for zero regulations, they just don’t agree with all the regulations Obama and the Democrats have been implementing. Disagreeing with them doesn’t mean that people want no regulations, are racist, want to poison the planet, hate women, ect.
What is time is to start thinking about post-scarcity economic models.
Where are the vast fountain of too-cheap-to-meter goods that make post-scarcity economic models worth thinking about? My view is that we can consider such models for intellectual reasons, but we’re a long way from any of them being realized.
“Scarcity” is a technical term which confuses many freshman economics students. In common usage, scarce means “rare,” but in economics, scarce simply means finite.
Ed wrote:
“In common usage, scarce means “rare,” but in economics, scarce simply means finite.”
Hi Ed,
In economics, does the word not also carry with it the idea of “not enough for everyone”?
If it were finite but 500% of what was needed, economics would not be “required” (I’m going from my reading of Sowell).
If it’s 75% of what is needed, then it’s finite and “not enough” so economics is required.
The example I think of is triage on a battlefield. There is a finite amount of medical care; there is not enough to treat all the wounded simultaneously, so you need to decide how to apply the resources you do have. Which results in triage.
I believe this was Sowell’s example.
Yes, “finite” and “infinite” are relative to human demand. The number of oxygen atoms in the atmosphere is literally finite, but it is effectively infinite because we’ll never run short no matter how much we breathe. Therefore, air is not considered to be an economic good.
Air can become polluted, of course, and in some places clean air may be in short supply. So, clean air may be considered an economic good in some cases.
I would phrase it as “not as much as everyone would want or consume if unrestricted.” You need to be careful with “enough” dealing with leftists. They like to use the concept of “enough” to confiscate from the wealthy, ignoring the labor they contributed creating wealth.
Wow, Bob, you’re sure obsessed over something that, as far as you’re concerned, does not even exist.