You are traveling abroad and visit a marketplace. The local merchant charges you twice as much as he charges his average customer, because you are more wealthy than the average consumer.
You return home and apply to attend a private university. The university charges you half as much as they charge the average student, because you are obviously more impoverished than the average student.
Has anyone behaved unethically in either of these exchanges?
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
the university is in the wrong because the local merchant is just making a business decision charging what he think he can, you agreed to pay it and the free market is always right. the university is run by liberal scum trying to create a welfare state, they should be dragged out in the street and shot
At least so far nobody has fallen into the (fairly obvious) trap of decrying the merchant for "ripping you off" but lauding the college for being generous and philanthropic.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Some pet peeves of mine: "need," "can afford," "ripped off."
When people say they need something, what they really mean is they want something badly. Need makes no sense unless you add an or-else phrase at the end of it. For example, I need to study or else I will fail the test. I need to eat this food or else I will starve. I need to make money to buy this big screen TV. When people say they have need without any qualification, what they are saying is: I want this, but I also want to feel morally superior to other people so I will call my want "need."
"Can afford" is more sensible, but it still falls into this same trap much of the time, where people mean not that they really do not have the ability to buy something, but that they do not want to. It's better than "need" because at least here, some of the time, people really and truly cannot afford to buy something.
"Ripped off" is by definition impossible unless there was some misrepresentation or fraud. If you chose to buy it, you chose to be "ripped off." So clearly it wasn't so bad a deal.
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For the tourist, no, but for colleges, it's extremely easy and would require less work than is done now. Unfortunately anonymity of the buyer for colleges probably isn't more efficient for society, because we'll lose people who would have come up with great ideas. It's more efficient when considering 99% of people, because the kids who won't be able to afford college will be offset and more by the money saved by people who still can, but of course the vast majority of innovation (= real economic growth = your TV, internet, everything you have and everything you want) comes from 1% of the population.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
honestly, the answer's neither just by definition more than anything else. ethics aren't morals. you can be immoral and ethical, or moral and unethical. they're closer in line to policies than anything else, and in many third world countries those are the policies because the merchants will judge their prices not just for the value they have, but the value they have to you. you'll find this in the US as well but to much lesser extents (however if there's a black out do note that the cab fare will spike like crazy). likewise, private universities have it somewhere in their code of ethics to be able to allow those with lower income in. circumstances may exist for it, but in both situations the policies will match.
though i'm not sure muffin was going for that distinction, or if he was focusing it more towards a right and wrong deal. personally i don't find either wrong either, but hey.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
SmartMuffin posted... You are traveling abroad and visit a marketplace. The local merchant charges you twice as much as he charges his average customer, because you are more wealthy than the average consumer.
You return home and apply to attend a private university. The university charges you half as much as they charge the average student, because you are obviously more impoverished than the average student.
Has anyone behaved unethically in either of these exchanges?
socialists
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Fast Falcon ate my bracket for dinner in the guru contest.
actually the guy charging you more is functioning from a pretty capitalist point of view there. you have more money, so you should spend more on him. there's an overlap with socialism in there yeah, but the merchant is not thinking of the government, tax, or any of that - he's functioning on the premise that he will obtain more money off of you because your market is higher. there's a definite overlap in there depending on how you want to break it down, but i'd sooner say that's capitalism 201.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
and man, you can be part of the lower-middle class and travel just fine still. <_<; hell, you can be part of the lower class and travel. you have to save up sure, and probably pay it with credit, but it's entirely doable.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
For better or worse, the two examples are pretty much exactly the same, although there are two different ways of looking at either of them.
One is that the merchant (or the university) is functioning in accordance with free-market principles, and merely obtaining the best selling price as possible for any particular given exchange.
The other is that the merchant (or the university) is charging the market price to the more affluent, and is engaging in philanthropy by choosing to charge less to others based on a perceived "need."
Both are perfectly ethical. Neither of those cases are "discrimination." Whether or not discrimination can even actually exist within a free market is an interesting question that I will most likely address later.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
for some perspective - lower middle class entry is somewhere around 30K and 45K, depending on region. seriously isn't a problem with travel if you're in there!
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
And I probably shouldn't have said "abroad" but just "in a foreign country."
I'm guessing that as close as TJ you'll find marketplaces where anyone who looks like a tourist is going to be charged much more than anyone who is known to be a native.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
So the merchant knows he can get your business at double the price, and he goes for it. Great, sounds fine to me. You can choose not to shop there.
And the college wants you as a student because you are smart and **** or whatever, but they know you won't go at full price, so they give you awards to cut the price since they value your attendance more than the money? Seems fine to me too.
The lesson here is to not look like such an obvious dumbass American tourist when you visit other countries.
The problem with discriminatory pricing (not saying it is discriminatory in the derogatory sense but just meaning differentiating between people) is that applied fully, it completely wipes out consumer surplus. You charge everyone exactly how much they are willing to pay. No one can ever gain happiness from a purchase.
Paradoxically, it doesn't help the seller either. He gets a pile of money, but the moment he tries to use that money to buy something he wants- he faces the same discriminatory pricing. So it's good for people who like to hoard money and no one else.
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From: SmartMuffin | #027 Neither of those cases are "discrimination."
Of course it's discrimination, but it's discrimination based on relevant criteria.
Everyone nowadays is all like "omfg discrimination is so evil equality FTW" when they don't realize that so much of our society is based on one person being better than another. That is good, people SHOULD be able to be ranked according to relevant criteria. If it's something like race which is largely irrelevant, then that's bad, but even race is sometimes nrelevant (like casting a movie or something), in which case it's fine to discriminate based on that too.
the problem comes when the upper class takes so much from everyone else that it forces massive hardship on the rest of the country. Not only did they do that, they went and crashed the global economy off of stupid gambling just to make it even better for everyone else.
of course, people will defend this because...? I really haven't figured that out yet
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Iamdead7 posted... Of course there needs to be an upper class
the problem comes when the upper class takes so much from everyone else that it forces massive hardship on the rest of the country. Not only did they do that, they went and crashed the global economy off of stupid gambling just to make it even better for everyone else.
of course, people will defend this because...? I really haven't figured that out yet
It's common sense really but I am forcibly restraining myself from arguing valid points within a SmartMuffin topic today. It's my birthday, I shouldn't have to today!
well stupid being a relative term, it certainly wasn't stupid for them!
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the problem comes when the upper class takes so much from everyone else that it forces massive hardship on the rest of the country. Not only did they do that, they went and crashed the global economy off of stupid gambling just to make it even better for everyone else.
There can't be an upper class unless they have more wealth than everybody else.
But you know what is really outrageous about these investment banks? Their employees make tons of money, but not their shareholders! Goldman Sachs, the king of all evil huge investment banks, has a market cap of......$46 Billion. McDonald's has a market cap of $102 Billion. What does this mean? Well, what do you call a company that pays its employees more than its shareholders?
That's right, SOCIALIST.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
red sox 777 posted... Of course there needs to be an upper class
the problem comes when the upper class takes so much from everyone else that it forces massive hardship on the rest of the country. Not only did they do that, they went and crashed the global economy off of stupid gambling just to make it even better for everyone else.
There can't be an upper class unless they have more wealth than everybody else.
But you know what is really outrageous about these investment banks? Their employees make tons of money, but not their shareholders! Goldman Sachs, the king of all evil huge investment banks, has a market cap of......$46 Billion. McDonald's has a market cap of $102 Billion. What does this mean? Well, what do you call a company that pays its employees more than its shareholders?
That's right, SOCIALIST.
won't be long until we're marched out to the labor camps
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Fast Falcon ate my bracket for dinner in the guru contest.
You charge everyone exactly how much they are willing to pay. No one can ever gain happiness from a purchase.
Wrong. He must gain SOME happiness or the exchange wouldn't take place at all. Exchanging at the very least takes a certain amount of effort. Let's say that there are a buyer and a seller, both value a dozen eggs and one dollar exactly equally. The seller would not expend the effort to sell his eggs for one dollar, and the buyer would not expend the effort to buy eggs for one dollar.
Exchange in a free market is mutually beneficial by definition. Otherwise, it is not exchange, it is force.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
From: LOLContests | #040 Education shouldn't be considered a commodity.
This
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The box says "Online Gameplay not rated by ESRB", I should be able to trade my phallic named Wobbufetts to a bunch of 8 year olds. - MarvelousGerbil
Wrong. He must gain SOME happiness or the exchange wouldn't take place at all. Exchanging at the very least takes a certain amount of effort. Let's say that there are a buyer and a seller, both value a dozen eggs and one dollar exactly equally. The seller would not expend the effort to sell his eggs for one dollar, and the buyer would not expend the effort to buy eggs for one dollar.
All an exchange needs is indifference. If you're indifferent between the price and the object, you can go ahead and buy it. If indifference isn't enough for you, you can get arbitrarily close to it. Charge 1 cent less. Consumer surplus goes to effectively zero.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
So your statement is wrong. An exchange is not by definition mutually beneficial. An exchange by definition hurts neither party. That is not the same thing as saying it helps both parties.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
From: LOLContests | #040 Education shouldn't be considered a commodity.
It's not. You can educate yourself without all the resources that a university provides you, if you so choose, especially in this day and age with the internet.
But a university helps a ton with the learning process, and lets you prove to others that you know what you're doing. THAT is what you're paying for.
He is saying that there is always some level of effort required for the exchange. If you disagree with this then stop me. So if you have two exactly equally valued items between two traders, they wouldn't trade, because that little bit of effort would result in a net loss in the trade. The items HAVE to be slightly more valuable mutually to compensate for this effort.
Look at it this way. Guy 1 has infinite dollars. Guy 2 infinite eggs. Eggs are valued EXACTLY $1. You are saying that these guys WOULD continuously trade $1 for and egg, because the values are identical so why not? I would argue that after infinite trades, they would have lost ALL of their value in the form of their lives because they just wasted it all trading for nothing.
All an exchange needs is indifference. If you're indifferent between the price and the object, you can go ahead and buy it. If indifference isn't enough for you, you can get arbitrarily close to it. Charge 1 cent less. Consumer surplus goes to effectively zero.
This is wrong though. If you are really indifferent then you DON'T buy it, because buying takes effort. Let's say that Wal-Mart offered a new service where you can exchange them a dollar bill and receive a different dollar bill in exchange (with absolutely no guarantee as to the "quality" of the bill or any such thing). Do you think people would utilize that service? Of course not!
"Effectively zero" and "zero" are incredibly different. Which makes this wrong too...
So your statement is wrong. An exchange is not by definition mutually beneficial. An exchange by definition hurts neither party. That is not the same thing as saying it helps both parties.
The exchange IS mutually beneficial or it would not take place. Exchanging takes effort, and people would not bother to expend effort on an exchange they were truly indifferent to. Even if your "consumer surplus" is only one cent, that's still one cent more, you still profit, you still benefit, etc.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Indifference is after the effort it takes to purchase of course.
Also, there's a world of difference between 1 cent of consumer surplus and 1 dollar of consumer surplus. The latter is 100 times greater. Learn math and economics.
And it's very natural that discriminatory pricing should produce such bad results. Because discriminatory pricing is exactly what socialism does- charge based on who the buyer is.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.