[extropy-chat] 'Unskilled jobs to go in 10 years'

[Brian Lee]

Your wheat-to-apples analogy doesn't work because you are placing one value 
on the items before the trade and then a different value after the trade 
(i.e. if wheat is worth more than an apple then why are they trading 1 for 
1).

Stick to currency exchange for trade and it stays simpler. After all the 
whole point of currency is that it is divorced from any specific item and 
can apply value for any trade good.

BAL

>From: hal at finney.org ("Hal Finney")
>To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] 'Unskilled jobs to go in 10 years'
>Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:08:06 -0800 (PST)
>
>Adrian Tymes writes:
> > The problem is that a nation is not just one person.
> > Let's say you have two people, one of whom gets 2
> > coins for a unit of wheat, and the other of whom
> > consumes wheat at a certain rate.  Now introduce a
> > third person, who can provide a unit of wheat for only
> > one coin.  Trading with the less expensive wheat
> > producer increases the wheat consumer's wealth by one
> > coin per unit of wheat, and the less expensive wheat
> > producer's wealth by the same - but it decreases the
> > more expensive wheat producer's wealth by two coins
> > per unit of wheat that would have been consumed.
>
>You can't eat coins.  Let's suppose they are apples.  You start off with
>two people, an apple grower and a wheat grower.  The wheat grower gets two
>apples for a unit of wheat.  Now introduce a foreign guy who will provide
>a unit of wheat for only one apple.  So the apple grower switches to him.
>He can now pay one apple for a unit of wheat.
>
>The net result is that before the foreigner came in, after an exchange,
>the apple grower had 1 unit of wheat and the wheat grower had two apples.
>After we introduce the foreign guy and do an exchange, the apple grower
>has 1 apple and 1 unit of wheat, and the wheat grower has 1 unit of wheat.
>Before trade, together they had 1 wheat and 2 apples; after trade,
>they have 1 apple and 2 wheats.  Trade cost them an apple and gained
>them a wheat.  But wheat is worth more to them than apples (otherwise
>they would not have previously had a price of two apples per wheat),
>so it is a net gain, consistent with my argument.
>
> > However, the more expensive wheat producer is now
> > free to do something else - like, say, refine the
> > one-coin-per-unit wheat into bread worth at least
> > three coins per unit.
>
>And that makes it even better.
>
>Hal
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