Organ Market

[d0zer]

People have no more an obligation to sell their organs than they do to buy snowboards.

There aren't people being shipped across the world, forced to buy snowboards for years, falsely promised that if they would just buy next year's model, they'd be free. But it happens in the sex trade all the time. The black market is a big disincentive towards an organ market, even though if there was an open market, prices would drop (ty 3rd world) to the point where it wasn't such a black market commodity...though ofc it would still happen. lots.

If you want more organs, a bigger impact than any capitalist solution is to just make organ donation a default, and allow the option to opt out of it if say you're like the gf I had when I was 16 who said "yeah but what if I need my organs in heaven".

[wufwugy]

There aren't people being shipped across the world, forced to buy snowboards for years, falsely promised that if they would just buy next year's model, they'd be free. But it happens in the sex trade all the time. The black market is a big disincentive towards an organ market, even though if there was an open market, prices would drop (ty 3rd world) to the point where it wasn't such a black market commodity...though ofc it would still happen. lots.

I'm unsure of what you're getting at because it sounds like you're saying two different things by claiming that legalizing behavior that is currently in a black market would lower prices yet that wouldn't deter coercion. This is a contradiction because black markets are a direct result of high prices brought on by low supply, which, in these cases, are brought on by government prohibition. So, when you drop the coercive sex trade into an area where there are not laws against legal sex trade, you find the black market can't survive. This is fundamentally why there is no coercive black market in food or smart phones or chainsaws. The sex trade is no different except for the extreme government intervention.

If you want more organs, a bigger impact than any capitalist solution is to just make organ donation a default, and allow the option to opt out of it if say you're like the gf I had when I was 16 who said "yeah but what if I need my organs in heaven".

This is theoretically possible. Prohibition of alcohol and drugs and sex and any other thing you can think of, as a means of optimally deterring an undesirable activity, is theoretically valid. We even have case evidence for it: child predation. The hyper-prohibition stance is universally accepted for child predation, and for the most part it works. But the reason it works while prohibition of, say, alcohol doesn't is that most people do not want child predation yet do want alcohol. What this creates is a practical effect of government intervention into child predation working, while government intervention into alcohol doesn't. We have to keep in mind the difference between being theoretically accurate versus practically applicable. On issues of sex trade prohibition, we have all the evidence in the world that prohibition does not work. This leaves us with only one option: treat it like we treat food, smart phones, and chainsaws. Enough people want to be able to pay for sex, and the only feasible way to turn it into a non-coercive market is through capitalism.


FWIW I disagree with the argument I just made with regards to prohibition having truly worked on child predation, but I think showing the difference between it and something that people generally want more of is still valid

It's also important to keep in mind that libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, free-marketism, Friedmanism, whatever you want to call it, 100% espouses a belief in non-coercion. It isn't much of an argument against markets by trying to point out how they're more coercive, since by concept, they're less coercive. Even in some areas where they may not be fully non-coercive, everybody supports a regulatory structure that mandates non-coercion. I'm pointing this out because a claim like "if the sex trade is open and free, it will incentivize coercion of sex workers" isn't accurate by both natural economic market forces and the libertarian ideology of mandated non-coercion


As for your solution to the kidney issue, I think an unnoticed reason why things like this generally don't work is that they're viewed in a vacuum. If we had a government with just one job, to run a simple organ distribution bureaucracy, it would probably do a great job. So, in isolation, the idea looks good. However, the government doesn't do just one of these things. It does millions. For every one of these millions, it requires laws and taxes. The laws are swamped in overwhelming complexity and taxes are a drain on the economic engine. If our solution to every problem is a law that is enforced by a bureaucracy, we're doomed. Government works best when it handles only the problems that it absolutely must. If we can solve any other problems without government, it's better for everybody to do so. From that perspective, even if it is theoretically possible to make a "perfect" law about kidney distribution, it would still be wrong to attempt so

[d0zer]

I'm unsure of what you're getting at because it sounds like you're saying two different things by claiming that legalizing behavior that is currently in a black market would lower prices yet that wouldn't deter coercion.

I have nuanced opinions that sometimes sound contradictory, but I'm just musing on the various and sometimes opposing factors here. I forgot this is the internet and I'm supposed to take a side and ignore all evidence to the contrary.

The thing about supply & demand with the organ black market, is that market is castrated by virtual worldwide illegality. Legalize it worldwide (or even in a large market) and that demand skyrockets.

Reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_t...al_organ_trade provides many examples of problems with countries that tried legalizing it. India tried it and eventually decided it wasn't a good idea. And you're welcome to pull the theoretical libertarian cliche of "the government isn't good at anything" if you must, but...results indicate:

Research shows a 25-30% increase in the amount of available organs in opt-out countries

[wufwugy]

I have nuanced opinions that sometimes sound contradictory, but I'm just musing on the various and sometimes opposing factors here. I forgot this is the internet and I'm supposed to take a side and ignore all evidence to the contrary.

The thing about supply & demand with the organ black market, is that market is castrated by virtual worldwide illegality. Legalize it worldwide (or even in a large market) and that demand skyrockets.

Reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_t...al_organ_trade provides many examples of problems with countries that tried legalizing it. India tried it and eventually decided it wasn't a good idea. And you're welcome to pull the theoretical libertarian cliche of "the government isn't good at anything" if you must, but...results indicate:

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Of course there are going to be problems with those sorts of systems. When it's legal in one place but nowhere else, it's still not much different than a black market, with high prices and tourism. If something as simply awful as allowing people to sell organs that they cannot adequately demonstrate they own is allowed, it will cause all sorts of problems.

In your link, if any country is the best example of an experiment, it's Iran, because it looks like the only one that used policy that pulled it out of black market territory. This claim is funny

It has been argued that the Iranian system is in some ways coercive, as over 70% of donors are considered poor by Iranian standards

That's half the point. That's not coercion of the poor. That's allowing poor people to become less poor through choice.


I think part of what you're arguing against is the idea of pro-coercion. Nobody supports making policy that legalizes or promotes theft of kidneys. In a free market system, it is still majorly illegal to sell something you don't have the rights to. There are a million things that capitalism has extracted from what used to be coercive markets and turned into markets of totally free choice. What is it about current black market products that stop the same?

[d0zer]

What is it about current black market products that stop the same?

Well first of all, I've never been talking about coercion of the poor in the sense that they choose to sell their kidney to pay for their kid's education or something like that, so let's drop that strawman. I've always been talking about modern day slavery in the form of debt bondage.

A unique factor with the organ issue vs say drug prohibition or prostitution is that you're dependent on doctors to use these organs. Highly trained, educated doctors with a lot more to lose than your average pimp or drug dealer. This makes prohibition in this market more effective, basically shutting off the big supply of money that would come (largely) from the western world if the floodgates were opened.

[wufwugy]

Well first of all, I've never been talking about coercion of the poor in the sense that they choose to sell their kidney to pay for their kid's education or something like that, so let's drop that strawman. I've always been talking about modern day slavery in the form of debt bondage.

Debt bondage exists mainly (perhaps entirely) through government endorsement. Everything from historical American plantation slavery to current Saudi Arabian debt slavery are dependent on protections of the slave owners by their governments. Without the backing of government legal institutions and security forces, owners of debt bondage do not have the capital to enforce cooperation. Consider the Saudi example, where Bangladeshi laborers are engulfed in perpetual debt and have their passports confiscated. At first glance it may seem like their controllers are the private owners of the debt, but it is only through the government stopping the Bangladeshis' potential resolutions that the system persists. For example, fleeing is possible. They can pretty much all flee from the physical location of bondage and from the clutches of their masters. Except for one caveat: the government stops them from getting far through various "security" measures. So then fleeing isn't possible, and it's the government that has created perpetual debt bondage. The private interests on the matter are cunts, but again, if the government offers a $100 to anybody who punches somebody for wearing blue, the industry will be created. That scenario sounds ridiculous to us, but it's not, because we have ample examples of equally ridiculous things like imprisoning people for smoking a joint

[d0zer]

Debt bondage exists mainly (perhaps entirely) through government endorsement. Everything from historical American plantation slavery to current Saudi Arabian debt slavery are dependent on protections of the slave owners by their governments.

I agree. There have been and continue to be cunty governments. But debt bondage is more prevalent in some countries with governments than it is others, maybe because some governments suck more than others? To pretend that debt bondage only exists because of government is ridiculous though. It exists more easily when governments are extremely corrupt and easily purchased but when you consider lower rates of debt bondage in countries with more "mature" governments I don't know how you can pretend that this validates the notion that government in inherently bad.

You start to sound like a wingnut when you boil every every single problem down to the existence of government. Not to undermine the influence government has, but issues are more multi-faceted than simple government influence.