RE: Is It Time For Monsanto To Pay Up?
Specialization: I am really good at task X, so if I focus on doing X instead of everything else and trade with others who are better at other tasks, we all economically benefit. This assumes there is sufficient market demand for X, of course.
"Society" is just a blanket term for the voluntary associations and exchanges of individuals. "Society" doesn't exist on its own as some kind of entity that reasons, chooses, acts, can be owed a debt, etc. There is no need to worry about what "benefits everyone." It all simply boils down to respecting individual spheres of authority as defined by life, liberty, and property. Benefits are chosen by the individual. "I offer this, and ask that in exchange. Do you accept?" If both parties agree to such a voluntary exchange, the fact that the exchange occurred proves that both parties perceived a benefit to the exchange, and wealth was created as both gained in the transaction.
Wow thanks for such a reply that’s a big one. But I did get it right!
Megacorporations like Monsanto certainly do everything they can to avoid the accountability of a voluntary market, and instead seek political plunder. I suggest reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt for a more thorough (yet thoroughly readable) intro to sound economic analysis
I found a short YouTube video on the subject and made me see things I never thought about before. Like cause and effect and morality how one can do something bad and it benefits others and cause loss for some.
This example applied to me too and I have not realized it. As an example: I was researching urnium stocks because uranium stocks are low right now. However some places are talking about building more power plants. Let’s say they did build those power plants and I make a large profit off my stocks. The next day that same power plant melts down and people got sick. Those sick people would be at a loss while the medical doctors make money treating them. Wow talk about a moral delima cause and effect.
Modern reactors fail save. Fukushima was an earthquake disaster first and foremost, and an older reactor design, so while the radioactive runoff was bad, the threat has been overblown and a modern reactor is hardly the existential threat people think.
If externalities concern you, paying taxes to governments that wage wars and enforce bad laws is a far greater moral hazard.
You brought up an good example about the government I watched that part too on economics too much money on war.