Agreed on all points, except for about how clear the author was being about the use of the word “value”. Although he does make the reference to willingness to pay, his rhetorical point largely depends on people interpreting value in the colloquial sense. He writes, in the previous post:
If we’re not careful, next thing you know we’ll have an entire economy full of producing useful things and allocating them where they are valued most and can produce the most value. That would be the worst.
Imagine if you alter the phrasing to this, which is roughly equivalent under the “value = willingness + ability to pay” paradigm:
If we’re not careful, next thing you know we’ll have an entire economy full of producing useful things and allocating them to people who can pay the most money for them and where they can generate the mostwealth for those people. That would be the worst.
Many people might reasonably object to that scenario, even though it sounds silly when we phrase their objection as “I think we should allocate resources to people who value them less”. My own feelings are probably closer to the author’s than those of the hypothetical objectors, but I’d prefer it if we could avoid these kind of rhetorical techniques.
Agreed on all points, except for about how clear the author was being about the use of the word “value”. Although he does make the reference to willingness to pay, his rhetorical point largely depends on people interpreting value in the colloquial sense. He writes, in the previous post:
Imagine if you alter the phrasing to this, which is roughly equivalent under the “value = willingness + ability to pay” paradigm:
Many people might reasonably object to that scenario, even though it sounds silly when we phrase their objection as “I think we should allocate resources to people who value them less”. My own feelings are probably closer to the author’s than those of the hypothetical objectors, but I’d prefer it if we could avoid these kind of rhetorical techniques.