There was a time where we Europeans thought that the surplus food we produce can easily gifted to Africans. As a result we destroyed a few local food markets. After that mechanism good public criticism we now. You might argue that it’s totally worth destroying their local food markets if it means that we Europeans don’t destroy food but it’s not a straightforward argument.
Distributing food is an issue of being good at logistics. Even within Africa plenty of food gets destroyed because people don’t do the logistics well enough for it to reach the people in need of the food.
There are plenty of poor people who have enough food to not starve but who want to eat meat but can’t (or only can a few times per month) because it’s too expensive. I’m very curious what you mean with “scarce” if meat isn’t.
For a particular person, more medical attention might be harmful, but there’s no shortage of examples of cases where people are not getting enough medical care because they can’t. Sometimes because they can’t afford to, sometimes because doctors simply literally refuse to perform certain procedures.
This basically boils down to “there are examples where more medical care helps and there are examples were less medical care helps”. It’s no argument against the point I made.
You’re speaking of meat being a positional good, not a need. If luxury food or cosmetic surgery are easily obtained by everyone who wants them, then they stop being even positional goods.
Making more things universal is a goal that goes beyond the scope of providing basic needs, although the mechanism is rather similar. But it would be inhuman to eliminate the idea of positional goods and status entirely.
It makes no difference whatsoever why the scarcity is created- incompetence, malice, and apathy are all causes of waste. Logistical failures are no more tolerable than intentional genocide of equal total deaths.
Cosmetic surgery has little to do with the arguments I made about healthcare.
While you can argue meat being a positional good in some countries, middle-class people in the US consume a lot of it without seeing it as a positional good. The US still overcomsumes meat likely both from a health perspective and an ethical one.
China on the other hand decided that they don’t want their population to have as unhealthy diets and thus moved to reduce meat consumptions.
China has more scarcity of meat because the government believes that eating as much meat as the US Americans do is unhealthy and thus bad for China.
It makes no difference whatsoever why the scarcity is created- incompetence, malice, and apathy are all causes of waste.
If you want to create change it matters a lot why the world is the way it is.
Can you give a central example about a situation where more people receiving healthcare is worse, and why we should characterize that situation as one where more people receive healthcare?
If the government restricts the supply of meat (and food generally is adequately distributed), then the finite supply of meat makes it positional, and the fact that all needs are being met (within the scope of the example, at least) makes the outcome satisfactory.
If you thought that I intended some element of “maximize production even if all needs have already been met”, then we have completely failed to communicate.
Can you give a central example about a situation where more people receiving healthcare is worse, and why we should characterize that situation as one where more people receive healthcare?
If you do cancer screeing for a person, you might find things that would go away on their own. A lot of women lost part of their breasts that way.
After analysis of the issue the Obama administration restricted the amount of breast cancer screeings because the additional breast cancer screeings were not believed to reduce mortality by breast cancer.
If you reduce the number of surgeries that surgery salesmen can perform then the surgery salesmen don’t try to sell surgeries to everyone but focus on selling the surgeries to those who profit from them.
Denmark cut a third of their hospital beds from 2000 to 2018. The fact that every hospital bed finds it’s patient whether or not there’s a real need for treatment is healthcare economics 101 and you find plenty of public policy that’s controls the supply of healthcare services to prevent overconsumption.
Why are you characterizing “contraindicated cancer screening” as “healthcare”? In either case, it’s not central to the issue where rural specialists have two-month waits for appointments and four-hour waits from the appointment time.
There was a time where we Europeans thought that the surplus food we produce can easily gifted to Africans. As a result we destroyed a few local food markets. After that mechanism good public criticism we now. You might argue that it’s totally worth destroying their local food markets if it means that we Europeans don’t destroy food but it’s not a straightforward argument.
Distributing food is an issue of being good at logistics. Even within Africa plenty of food gets destroyed because people don’t do the logistics well enough for it to reach the people in need of the food.
There are plenty of poor people who have enough food to not starve but who want to eat meat but can’t (or only can a few times per month) because it’s too expensive. I’m very curious what you mean with “scarce” if meat isn’t.
This basically boils down to “there are examples where more medical care helps and there are examples were less medical care helps”. It’s no argument against the point I made.
You’re speaking of meat being a positional good, not a need. If luxury food or cosmetic surgery are easily obtained by everyone who wants them, then they stop being even positional goods.
Making more things universal is a goal that goes beyond the scope of providing basic needs, although the mechanism is rather similar. But it would be inhuman to eliminate the idea of positional goods and status entirely.
It makes no difference whatsoever why the scarcity is created- incompetence, malice, and apathy are all causes of waste. Logistical failures are no more tolerable than intentional genocide of equal total deaths.
Cosmetic surgery has little to do with the arguments I made about healthcare.
While you can argue meat being a positional good in some countries, middle-class people in the US consume a lot of it without seeing it as a positional good. The US still overcomsumes meat likely both from a health perspective and an ethical one.
China on the other hand decided that they don’t want their population to have as unhealthy diets and thus moved to reduce meat consumptions.
China has more scarcity of meat because the government believes that eating as much meat as the US Americans do is unhealthy and thus bad for China.
If you want to create change it matters a lot why the world is the way it is.
You said “More healtchare isn’t always better”.
Can you give a central example about a situation where more people receiving healthcare is worse, and why we should characterize that situation as one where more people receive healthcare?
If the government restricts the supply of meat (and food generally is adequately distributed), then the finite supply of meat makes it positional, and the fact that all needs are being met (within the scope of the example, at least) makes the outcome satisfactory.
If you thought that I intended some element of “maximize production even if all needs have already been met”, then we have completely failed to communicate.
If you do cancer screeing for a person, you might find things that would go away on their own. A lot of women lost part of their breasts that way.
After analysis of the issue the Obama administration restricted the amount of breast cancer screeings because the additional breast cancer screeings were not believed to reduce mortality by breast cancer.
If you reduce the number of surgeries that surgery salesmen can perform then the surgery salesmen don’t try to sell surgeries to everyone but focus on selling the surgeries to those who profit from them.
Denmark cut a third of their hospital beds from 2000 to 2018. The fact that every hospital bed finds it’s patient whether or not there’s a real need for treatment is healthcare economics 101 and you find plenty of public policy that’s controls the supply of healthcare services to prevent overconsumption.
Why are you characterizing “contraindicated cancer screening” as “healthcare”? In either case, it’s not central to the issue where rural specialists have two-month waits for appointments and four-hour waits from the appointment time.