The extraordinary occurrences in an ordinary life.
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Unpriced Goods
Posted by snow under Theory
When we speak of bribes, we speak of detestable practices by the rich an corrupt to somehow hurt others. While this may be true, reflecting on it gives an interesting look on society.
Bribes are really payment for a service with a missing pricetag. If you think about it, everything in this world is available at a cost. Laws only serve to increase the price by one of two factors: 1. increasing the penalty of getting caught or 2. increasing the amount you have to pay under the table to do some things. If you think about things from this perspective, China is one of the most materialistic nations in the world where there are few barriers to arriving at the absolute price for goods & services.
So in this model, there’s a secret auction going on for positions of power, rights, and resources of all kind, some in public, others in private. The reason that the latter are so expensive is the same as with anything else, supply and demand. If man’s morals fail, and we cling to social stability, such would be the world.
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April 16, 2009 -
Theory -
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Money is an expression of “value”. “Power” may be intangible, but holds great value for many… yet society and government is structured to redistribute power differently than how it would fall otherwise.
To those who believe that the regulated distribution of power is superior to that of the “natural” state, injecting money into this mix is unnatural and abhorrent — not only as an action having negative value (there being a value to consistency with one’s own beliefs), but also possibly subtracting value from their own holdings (whose prior evaluated value may be predicated on a global conformance to the “rules”).