I was _not_ arguing against mainstream economics. Instead, I was stating fact as I see them: the official theory equates the value of human life with its price. As I noted, a lot of real-world economists reject this theory. (My syntax is unclear: I should have said that "the basic equality" of human individuals that's at the center of liberal theory is "not part of liberal practice.")
The problem with the mainstream economists -- and here's the critique -- is that they have _no independent standard for stating_ what the value of human life is. Everything is defined in terms of the market. The best they can say is that the market is imperfect (or is distorted by the preexisting distribution of wealth and income), so that the "value of human life" should be seen as a "shadow price" that would be set by an ideal market (in an egalitarian society, I presume). What _is_ the value of human life, by the way? I don't know ethics well, but I'd start with some sort of humanist assumption that all else constant, each individual human has the same value as each other individual. Or maybe the "value of human life" _can not_ be quantified. On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 1:52 PM, raghu <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I don't know if he's a troll or not. Most of what he says reflects the >> orthodoxy among economists. He's sort of a Keynesian. >> >> The official view of the "value of human life" is that it's nothing but >> the price of human life, set by supply and demand. Some or even many >> economists are embarrassed by this vision (since it goes against the basic >> equality that's at the center of liberal theory), but it's used by >> government and the legal system (so it's not part of liberal practice). >> > > > As much as I despise mainstream economists, I think it is a bit unfair to > attribute such an extreme sentiment to any significant portion of them. > There are plenty of good arguments to make against mainstream economists > without resorting to reductio-ad-absurdum fallacies. > -raghu. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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