Clement Attlee was not a good Prime Minister. Discuss.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You said "fair and judicious", not "efficient". Those can be vastly different things.

[Hauldren Collider]

What is fair? Define fair in a consistent, logical way. Until you do that, I'm going to assume that the most efficient distribution of goods is the fairest.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Which is why he (and I, to be honest) thought it was a joke. Our definitions of "fair" are far different and our belief is that your definition is laughable.

And you don't fully agree with that either. There are a lot of "efficient" outcomes that you'd consider unfair. Such as, say, killing homeless old people.

[giblets]

What is fair? Define fair in a consistent, logical way. Until you do that, I'm going to assume that the most efficient distribution of goods is the fairest.

Define efficient in a consistent, logical way first.

[kentonio]

There are a lot of "efficient" outcomes that you'd consider unfair. Such as, say, killing homeless old people.

Considering he wasn't joking before, I'm not so confident he would consider that unfair either..

[Hauldren Collider]

And you don't fully agree with that either. There are a lot of "efficient" outcomes that you'd consider unfair. Such as, say, killing homeless old people.

That's not efficient at all. Define society and you will see why.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It isn't efficient to kill people who are a drain on society?

[giblets]

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Insofar as it is collaborative, a society can enable its members to benefit in ways that would not otherwise be possible on an individual basis; both individual and social (common) benefits can thus be distinguished, or in many cases found to overlap.

A society can also consist of like-minded people governed by their own norms and values within a dominant, larger society. This is sometimes referred to as a subculture, a term used extensively within criminology.

More broadly, a society may be described as an economic, social, or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of individuals. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups. A society can be a particular ethnic group, such as the Saxons; a nation state, such as Bhutan; or a broader cultural group, such as a Western society. The word society may also refer to an organized voluntary association of people for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. A "society" may even, though more by means of metaphor, refer to a social organism such as an ant colony or any cooperative aggregate such as, for example, in some formulations of artificial intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society

Great, now what does that have to do with efficiency?

[Lorizael]

The objection to the death panels was that a group of pencil pushers in Washington would be deciding what treatments were valuable and what weren't, instead of the substantially more fair and judicious method of markets.

You're one of the people who believed Obamacare had death panels?

[Arrian]

Given HC's other posts, it shouldn't surprise you. The only real defense available is that he's a youngin' and has some time to figure things out. That's no guarantee, but lots of people go through a libertarian phase when they're young and figure that THEY are John Galt.

-Arrian

[Dauphin]

Does it really shock you that someone could believe that markets are an efficient way of distributing limited resources, given the vast empirical evidence that this is true?

Define efficient in a consistent, logical way first.

Quite. Pareto efficiency crossed my mind, which makes no explicit comment on socially desirable outcomes in deciding upon efficient states.

[Hauldren Collider]

You're one of the people who believed Obamacare had death panels?

While Death Panel is a rather harsh term, PPACA creates a board which, in its supposedly infinite wisdom, selects what treatments should be available to which people.

[Hauldren Collider]

It isn't efficient to kill people who are a drain on society?

No. If you're doing it for general societal welfare, that would, generally, discourage killing some members to promote others, yes? This is why slavery is not a good system. It might be a good system for a subset of society, but not society as a whole.

[giblets]

While Death Panel is a rather harsh term, PPACA creates a board which, in its supposedly infinite wisdom, selects what treatments should be available to which people.

It would really suck if the government was deciding which things a government program would cover, right?

[Lorizael]

While Death Panel is a rather harsh term, PPACA creates a board which, in its supposedly infinite wisdom, selects what treatments should be available to which people.