Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Oops, you missed some things!

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:9/1/2000; 10:10:43 AM
Topic:The Lie of "IP"
Msg #:20707 (In response to 20676)
Prev/Next:20706 / 20708

I hope you are not paying for labour. So, if you can go to mechanic "A" and he can fix your car in one hour, but mechanic "B" takes three hours, then you go with the latter because you got more labour? I mean, if mechanic "A" charges $100/hour and mechanic "B" charges $50/hour -- Yay!!! You get three times the labour for half the cost! If people think they are going to get rewarded for working hard, they are going to do things the hard way.

And you cannot win on the scarcity thing. There is no scarcity, and people that think that way tend to really screw up the world. If you choose to focus only on situations where there is no other choice involved, of course you can talk about scarcity. In the case of water, choosing not to drink is really not an option, so the exchange violates the laws of voluntary exchange. Blackmail and coercion are the opposite of win-win. As long as the parties both enter an agreement voluntarily, abundance is magically created. And in current western society, you are very rarely (if ever) faced with exchanges that do not involve mutual agreement. The only times that people tend to be blackmailed or coerced is when the asshole on the other end mistakenly thinks that the resource he wants is scarce, or mistakenly believes that he has no other choices. -J




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