Giving stuff away is one thing, and well understood. If Warren Buffet decides to give away a few dozen billion dollars, he’s a hero. But if some guy comes up to him and trades him a red pen for a few dozen billion dollars, I suspect no one would react the same way.
And then there is the issue of truth in advertising. His website says “My name is Kyle MacDonald and I traded one red paperclip for a house. I started with one red paperclip on July 12 2005 and 14 trades later, on July 12, 2006 I traded with the Town of Kipling Saskatchewan for a house located at 503 Main Street.” He doesn’t say, ‘I started with one red paperclip, and by a combination of exploiting my friends & acquaintances and relentless self-promotion, I got a local government to give me a house.’ (And don’t forget that he’s flogging a book as well.) The implication is that he did it by sheer skill and laudably increasing economic efficiency, when he has done so little more than Madoff did.
Giving stuff away is an understood phenomenon only in limited contexts. If Warren Buffet decides to give away a few dozen billion dollars to a charity that fights AIDS in Africa, or teaches illiterate adults to read and write, or to a scholarship fund for deserving underprivileged teens to attend college, or whatever—that we understand. If he gives five hundred dollars to a guy he meets on the Internet because the guy could really use five hundred dollars, that’s incomprehensible to most people. This precise distinction is why I brought up Freecycle, which is entirely about giving your belongings to people you meet on the Internet who could really use them. But neither Freecycling, nor giving up a swell fish pen for one red paperclip, seem bizarre to me.
But neither Freecycling, nor giving up a swell fish pen for one red paperclip, seem bizarre to me.
If neither freecycling nor a bad trade like a pen for a paperclip seem bizarre to you, then why do you object to Buffet giving $500 away on the Internet? If you do not personally object, and are merely describing how you think other people would react, then what would you find bizarre?
So far we’ve established that you don’t find:
a fair trade bizarre
an unfair trade bizarre
a non-trade (gift/charity) bizarre either
Which would seem to suggest you find no voluntary exchange bizarre, and so I don’t think you’re in a mental position to have any opinion one way or the other about the red paperclip scheme.
(As for actually giving away $500 online: happens all the time. I’m sure you read webcomics or blogs that are funded in part by readers donating. Not to mention little things like Wikipedia or all the online microlending sites like Kiva.)
I find no paradigmatic voluntary exchange bizarre. There are sometimes factors that bizarre-ify exchanges of any of the three types you divide up. I don’t think that these factors were at work in the red paperclip “scheme”, but could be mistaken—I haven’t done extensive red paperclip related research.
I know people sometimes give away substantial amounts to content producers they want to support, which looks like a hybrid of gift and either fair or unfair trade (depending on the content). I don’t find it bizarre. I’m sure many people would, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.
Giving stuff away is one thing, and well understood. If Warren Buffet decides to give away a few dozen billion dollars, he’s a hero. But if some guy comes up to him and trades him a red pen for a few dozen billion dollars, I suspect no one would react the same way.
And then there is the issue of truth in advertising. His website says “My name is Kyle MacDonald and I traded one red paperclip for a house. I started with one red paperclip on July 12 2005 and 14 trades later, on July 12, 2006 I traded with the Town of Kipling Saskatchewan for a house located at 503 Main Street.” He doesn’t say, ‘I started with one red paperclip, and by a combination of exploiting my friends & acquaintances and relentless self-promotion, I got a local government to give me a house.’ (And don’t forget that he’s flogging a book as well.) The implication is that he did it by sheer skill and laudably increasing economic efficiency, when he has done so little more than Madoff did.
Giving stuff away is an understood phenomenon only in limited contexts. If Warren Buffet decides to give away a few dozen billion dollars to a charity that fights AIDS in Africa, or teaches illiterate adults to read and write, or to a scholarship fund for deserving underprivileged teens to attend college, or whatever—that we understand. If he gives five hundred dollars to a guy he meets on the Internet because the guy could really use five hundred dollars, that’s incomprehensible to most people. This precise distinction is why I brought up Freecycle, which is entirely about giving your belongings to people you meet on the Internet who could really use them. But neither Freecycling, nor giving up a swell fish pen for one red paperclip, seem bizarre to me.
If neither freecycling nor a bad trade like a pen for a paperclip seem bizarre to you, then why do you object to Buffet giving $500 away on the Internet? If you do not personally object, and are merely describing how you think other people would react, then what would you find bizarre?
So far we’ve established that you don’t find:
a fair trade bizarre
an unfair trade bizarre
a non-trade (gift/charity) bizarre either
Which would seem to suggest you find no voluntary exchange bizarre, and so I don’t think you’re in a mental position to have any opinion one way or the other about the red paperclip scheme.
(As for actually giving away $500 online: happens all the time. I’m sure you read webcomics or blogs that are funded in part by readers donating. Not to mention little things like Wikipedia or all the online microlending sites like Kiva.)
I find no paradigmatic voluntary exchange bizarre. There are sometimes factors that bizarre-ify exchanges of any of the three types you divide up. I don’t think that these factors were at work in the red paperclip “scheme”, but could be mistaken—I haven’t done extensive red paperclip related research.
I know people sometimes give away substantial amounts to content producers they want to support, which looks like a hybrid of gift and either fair or unfair trade (depending on the content). I don’t find it bizarre. I’m sure many people would, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.