On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Richard Baker <r...@theculture.org> wrote:
> > > Do you think Nick would argue the same thing (Alice must give everyone >> a dollar) if Alice had $10 and 9 others had no dollars? What if Alice >> had $20 and ten others had $2 each? What if, instead of dollars, we >> had coupons for a medical treatment to extend life by a year? Must >> Alice give up years of her life? What about contracts to provide 1 >> year of manual labor to XYZ corporation? If Alice was liable for 2 of >> those contracts, and Bob was liable for none, must Bob take 1 of the >> contracts? What would you guess Nick would argue? >> > > I think that in the cases with the money or the coupons Nick would argue > that Alice should be made to give to the others, but not in the case with > labour contracts, but I suppose we'll have to wait for him to give his > opinion. Of course, not all years of extended life have the same cost in > expended resources so that example's a bit strange. Similarly, the > opportunity cost of making different people engage in manual labour varies > wildly. I'd argue for democracy -- none of this business of X "must" give Y money. A social contract, not force. That's why I said the original post failed to address the critical question of what "take" means. Nick
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