Organ Market

[wufwugy]

If we have a legal market for organs, won't we just see a general transfer of organs from the poor to the rich?

As well as a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. Not allowing the transfer produces nothing. Allowing the transfer provides value in health and wealth for all parties

It's like if you have leftover food on your dinner table and there's a starving person outside your door who wants to buy your leftovers, yet you have to throw the leftovers away because the law says so. You make less money, the starving person continues to starve, and the food turns to mush.

We understand the concept of trade in most things in our lives (a plumber trades you his service and you trade him your money), but on the kidney issue, we're not applying the concept. I think this kind of schizophrenia is rampant in society

[rong]

As well as a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. Not allowing the transfer produces nothing.

Not quite. Not allowing the trade leaves the status quo. Where chance of a kidney is not (in theory) effected by personal wealth. By allowing people to sell kidneys are you not making it impossible for a poor and ill person to get one? So it's not just simply win win for all.

[wufwugy]

Not quite. Not allowing the trade leaves the status quo. Where chance of a kidney is not (in theory) effected by personal wealth. By allowing people to sell kidneys are you not making it impossible for a poor and ill person to get one? So it's not just simply win win for all.

This effect is quite small. It can be said that rationing does let some people who otherwise wouldn't get a product able to get a product, but that's at the expense of things that help poor people far more. Rationing like this effectively propels a small number of poor into a rich bracket at the expense of many poor people who are unable to sell their kidneys. It's a special interest lottery

From a different perspective, I don't think it's important to view it as a transfer from poor to rich. One of my old neighbors growing up was middle class his entire life. That is, until his kidneys failed. Now, through Medicare, he's on dialysis and overnight turned into a "rich person" at the expense of people less wealthy than him, who didn't hit the healthcare income/spending jackpot

Rationing doesn't help poor people. It helps a small number of poor people at the expense of many other poor people, who probably would have been better off in a non-rationing world in the first place.

A kidney market doesn't exclude the current donation market. It's not like there are lots of donations today that would stop if they could be sold. Most of them take place regardless of any wealth creation potential. Besides, if we go down this path, we should be logically consistent and say that a market for anything keeps it out of the hands of the poor. That means that it should be illegal to sell food or housing, which I think is the most destructive idea ever