NO KIDDING ABOUT KIDNEYS

Posted on February 12, 2008 | 11 Comments

Finally, someone echoes my thoughts exactly!
An article in The Liberty Institute website says things I would have.
The topic is the kidney scam and the free market. There are several others, even better, on the same subject you can easily find there.
Check it out.

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11 responses to “NO KIDDING ABOUT KIDNEYS”

pr3rna | February 12, 2008 at 11:33 pm | Reply

// We would, instead, accept the practical situation but also, as importantly, the moral premise that each of us owns his body and its component parts, and has an absolute right to choose whether to donate or destroy, to sell or sacrifice them.// I 100% agree on this with your likeminded friend. Thanks for the link. Interesting posts.
Prax | February 13, 2008 at 12:39 am | Reply

nice article doc
hard facts that cannot be wished away!
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The Depressed Doormat | February 13, 2008 at 6:08 am | Reply

I have seen you comment quite often on Nita’s blog, but it has taken me this long to venture into your world. Thanks for the link, it was quite an interesting read.

I should frequent this site more often, when I find myself up to the challenge!
rambodoc | February 13, 2008 at 7:37 am | Reply

Hey, thanks, DD, welcome!
Hope to see more of you…
🙂
Shefaly | February 13, 2008 at 12:41 pm | Reply

R-Doc:

In saying “Much of the public discourse has taken for granted that there is something fundamentally evil about the organ trade.” the article makes a common logical fallacy. Of disconnecting the two factors at play in this story, which the article identifies just prior to this sentence.

The free market is a perfect market when information asymmetries do not exist. But in this case, there is not just an asymmetry of information but of power (the doctor clearly has more power over a patient than the patient has over the doctor).

I find it interesting that while you claimed some moral outrage at a doctor assisting death-by-lethal-injection, you choose to frame the kidney debate in free market terms.

This is a very interesting instance of moral relativism that I have seen in a long time!
Xylene | February 13, 2008 at 8:49 pm | Reply

that’s an interesting point of view doc.
Vivek Khadpekar | February 14, 2008 at 12:16 pm | Reply

Shefaly,

//The free market is a perfect market when information asymmetries do not exist.//

I’d feel more comfortable with “if” than with “when” 🙂
rambodoc | February 14, 2008 at 4:23 pm | Reply

//In saying “Much of the public discourse has taken for granted that there is something fundamentally evil about the organ trade.” the article makes a common logical fallacy. Of disconnecting the two factors at play in this story, which the article identifies just prior to this sentence.

The free market is a perfect market when information asymmetries do not exist//

No….
Shefaly:
A perfect market is one where there are no asymmetries in freedom. That is the only key word in the marketplace: freedom, which implies protection of individual rights. In other words, I may be free to buy but there may be a hundred different ways you are prevented from selling at your terms. That would be a market biased in the short term towards the consumer (in the long term this is against consumer interests). Similarly, a market that protects the seller by restrictive tarriffs on imports, and subsidies to locals, is a market where the buyer does not have the freedom of choice.
There is (ideally) no moral obligation on the part of the seller to teach the buyer all the pros and cons of the trade. Each individaul will have to take the responsibilities that come with freedom. At the same time, a free market is one where information is free and available (see the internet, for example versus the Pravdas of the past). Hence, in a really free market, there would be plenty of ways the market protects the consumers. All this would be without Government fiat or law.
Information asymmetries are bound to exist, as are powers. However, there has to be a uniformty in the rights enjoyed by all.
The kidney scam is a violation of rights of those who have been duped, if that is true. However, a trade that has been ongoing for such a long time probably had willing kidney sellers. It is absurd to think 3000 people were duped into this. So, a voluntary trade may have been stopped, in an attempt to be morally and politically correct.
I am not defending the alleged culprit. I am merely voicing other possibilities, some of which are hurting the very kidney sellers that the law is deemed to be protecting.
Vivek Khadpekar | February 14, 2008 at 4:32 pm | Reply

Doc,

//a market that protects the seller by restrictive tarriffs on imports, and subsidies to locals, is a market where the buyer does not have the freedom of choice//

Just one clarification requested: what about restrictive trade practices, cartels etc.?

I have a few other bones to pick with you, but they are on ideological grounds which neither of us would concede, so I’ll let them rest for the present 🙂
mahendrap | March 15, 2008 at 12:24 pm | Reply

Vivek: It’s high time you started your own blog, so we can question and criticize your views! 🙂