At least future generations will know that not all of us were self-destructive, shortsighted fools. Knowing folks like this exist gives me hope.
💕
@aral say this were adopted globally and it was only demand ↔ supply (but no prices).
- how can we use scarce goods efficiently without a price mechanism?
- why would people produce goods that aren't fun to make?
- what would stop drug users from consuming but not producing?
If the world relied on purely gifts, with no prices or trade, it’d be almost impossible to organise specialised labour to produce goods.
Gifts are produced through cooperation and a larger process. For a tribe built on love/trust in a tiny area with primitive goods, it’d be doable.
Almost all the charities linked in that directory pay massive amounts in direct salaries.
Look at their reports for direct salary info:
St Jude — $600m/year
Red Cross — $972m/year
RNLI — £83m/year
Heart — $392m/year
For RNLI specifically, 68% of all their costs are salaries.
Almost all the non-charity examples there are for nonscarce items — software, where there's no additional cost for each additional item produced.
Scarcity is the physical barrier.
Good question — the point is clearly laid out in the RNLI report, and applies to all large and complex charities:
"There are a number of specific skills needed to keep such an organisation running as safely as possible and at peak efficiency." — and these are paid staff.
Volunteers mainly carry out the unskilled tasks — fundraising.
No force should ever be involved. When you hire someone, you enter a voluntary agreement to trade money for services,
Volunteers mainly carry out the unskilled tasks — fundraising.No. The volunteers are saving the lives of humans there. Same as Doctors Without Borders. Same as White Helmets. Same as so many programmers doing complex software. Same as millions around the world. In, again, a society where the opposite is enforced.
No force should ever be involved. When you hire someone, you enter a voluntary agreement to trade money for services,Not at all. When I am born on this planet I have to enter the trade-system else I cannot survive. This makes me no voluntarily do that, but forcefully. And you do not trade money for services. You trade your skills, energy, time - basically yourself - , for goods/services. Money is just a way to measure these trades.
While I appreciate you believe that Doctors without Borders, White Helmet personnel and RNLI crew aren't paid — however this is sadly factually incorrect.
They all pay salaries to their specialised workers. You can find salaries on Glassdoor or their websites.
e.g. https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/careers/work-field/pay-benefits
"we are talking about trade-free goods/services no matter how they are created"
This is the crux. Trade was a critical component in making these things.
The paid RNLI lifeboat crew willingly trade their time (and lives) in exchange for money.
And this goes the entire way through the complex charitable organisational structure. And this is a relatively small charity.
Volunteers trade their time — and it's a transfer of economic benefit. It precisely fits the definition of trade.
They absolutely receive something of value, which is why they do it.
Nobody carries out any action unless they believe it helps them achieve their goals, whatever they may be.
As Mises said in his great book, "The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness"
So whether it's a sense of goodwill, or a desire to give back after being rescued at sea — they do it for some personal benefit, and non-monetary reward is what we get for most actions we take.
They absolutely receive something of value, which is why they do it.Not from the others. That would be a trade. If you get value out of helping others, then that's not a trade. It is like saying peeing is a trade because you get relief out of it. This is, of course, cartoonish.
Nobody carries out any action unless they believe it helps them achieve their goals, whatever they may be.That is an absolute statement and I cannot take it seriously. I do a lot of free work for many years now, simply because I enjoy doing it, or enjoy helping others.
Unless I am wrong, they do not paid most of their staff. Like 95% of them are not paid. So they do not trade. And RNLI is a big org not a small one. Operates throught the UK.