Utilitarianism Vs Value-Neutral
Posted by admin in Utilitarianism on August 15, 2011
None of us remember the days when a family ran their own business and their business was themselves. Let’s think about this for a moment. A family running their own business for themselves would be what? They would simply be producing what they themselves needed to survive and thrive-the essentials of clothing, food, and shelter. Was this good or bad? Rubenstein, author of The Age of Triage would certainly answer that this was good. This is the best thing a society could do for itself. Because in fact, what may seem selfish or self-serving in this circumstance is the opposite, this function of living is mass-serving, providing both work and subsistence for every one in each circumstance.
The two principles being argued here are that of “value-neutral” and utilitarianism. By definition “value-neutral” can be considered living a neutral life providing essentially only that which is needed for self or family. The opponent being a utilitarian lifestyle, or in other words mass production, which is to say producing the most (in the “best way”) for the greatest number of people. Notice that “best way” is in quotation for good reason. Because, really, the way by which the items are being produced is what is in question here.
Now instinct, I believe, for most is to say “of course producing the most in the quickest way for the largest amount of people would be the better circumstance-the more the merrier right?” Maybe not. In this condition what we may not realize is that while China is mass producing our goods (to use a poignant example) we in the U.S. are fatting our population upon this production and in the same notion debilitating ourselves out of usefulness and therefore existence. Read the rest of this entry »
What Is True Egalitarianism
Posted by admin in Egalitarianism on August 15, 2011
Why did the founding fathers of the United States consider egalitarianism to be such a necessary value? True egalitarianism is based on tolerance for differences. It is a principle of integrity much more than a rule of law. The antithesis of egalitarianism is judgment. Judging others does not define them. It defines you.
My friend’s grandmother went to the same university in which Albert Einstein taught. Einstein had a friend who was a psychology teacher. This teacher made his judgmental and racists students do a very embarrassing exercise as a class assignment. They had to go up to student on campus that they disliked and say, “What about you don’t I like about myself?”
People often mistake judgment for prudence. Choosing not to hang out at bars with chronic alcoholics when you’re an abstainer is prudent. Condemning people for being alcoholics is judgment.
Of course, choosing not to judge does not mean associating with people with whom you don’t have much in common. You have a right to choose your companions. Poets and wrestlers need not be friends. They choose different ways of expressing themselves about the values of life. This does not mean that either group has the right to condemn the other.
Why is judgment inimical? Since it is so much part of society, existing subtly, almost undetected, it appears innocuous enough. Read the rest of this entry »
Competition Laws
Posted by admin in Welfare-maximization on August 14, 2011
A. THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPETITION
The aims of competition (anti-trust) laws are to ensure that consumers pay the lowest possible price (=the most efficient price) coupled with the highest quality of the goods and services which they consume. This, according to current economic theories, can be achieved only through effective competition. Competition not only reduces particular prices of specific goods and services – it also tends to have a deflationary effect by reducing the general price level. It pits consumers against producers, producers against other producers (in the battle to win the heart of consumers) and even consumers against consumers (for example in the healthcare sector in the USA). This everlasting conflict does the miracle of increasing quality with lower prices. Think about the vast improvement on both scores in electrical appliances. The VCR and PC of yesteryear cost thrice as much and provided one third the functions at one tenth the speed.
Competition has innumerable advantages:
* It encourages manufacturers and service providers to be more efficient, to better respond to the needs of their customers, to innovate, to initiate, to venture. In professional words: it optimizes the allocation of resources at the firm level and, as a result, throughout the national economy. More simply: producers do not waste resources (capital), consumers and businesses pay less for the same goods and services and, as a result, consumption grows to the benefit of all involved.
* The other beneficial effect seems, at first sight, to be an adverse one: competition weeds out the failures, the incompetents, the inefficient, the fat and slow to respond. Competitors pressure one another to be more efficient, leaner and meaner. This is the very essence of capitalism. It is wrong to say that only the consumer benefits. If a firm improves itself, re-engineers its production processes, introduces new management techniques, modernizes – in order to fight the competition, it stands to reason that it will reap the rewards. Competition benefits the economy, as a whole, the consumers and other producers by a process of natural economic selection where only the fittest survive. Those who are not fit to survive die out and cease to waste the rare resources of humanity.
Thus, paradoxically, the poorer the country, the less resources it has – the more it is in need of competition. Only competition can secure the proper and most efficient use of its scarce resources, a maximization of its output and the maximal welfare of its citizens (consumers). Moreover, we tend to forget that the biggest consumers are businesses (firms). If the local phone company is inefficient (because no one competes with it, being a monopoly) – firms will suffer the most: higher charges, bad connections, lost time, effort, money and business. If the banks are dysfunctional (because there is no foreign competition), they will not properly service their clients and firms will collapse because of lack of liquidity. It is the business sector in poor countries which should head the crusade to open the country to competition.
Unfortunately, the first discernible results of the introduction of free marketry are unemployment and business closures. People and firms lack the vision, the knowledge and the wherewithal needed to support competition. They fiercely oppose it and governments throughout the world bow to protectionist measures. To no avail. Closing a country to competition will only exacerbate the very conditions which necessitate its opening up. At the end of such a wrong path awaits economic disaster and the forced entry of competitors. A country which closes itself to the world – will be forced to sell itself cheaply as its economy will become more and more inefficient, less and less non-competitive.
The Competition Laws aim to establish fairness of commercial conduct among entrepreneurs and competitors which are the sources of said competition and innovation.
Experience – later buttressed by research – helped to establish the following four principles:
* There should be no barriers to the entry of new market players (barring criminal and moral barriers to certain types of activities and to certain goods and services offered) Read the rest of this entry »