Positional goods render equality impossible. Time sharing helps to equalise access to positional goods, so do queues, but some are indivisible always. I am not sharing my house with anybody.
A list: POSH; Oxbridge (actually, Cambridge); kingship; London, Paris, Rome, Berlin (ho ho).
Most of us spend most of our time making do with positional bads, not determined by prior ownership or price, but by access, class, caste, inheritance. Sigh.
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17 comments:
The internet is an interesting phenomenon as regards positional value, because the logistics of access are so straightforward (and fairly egalitarian, for those with a minimum of IT education): so 'position' doesn't mean so much
Yes, 'aardvark' retains some of the traditional positional value of its alphabet ranking, in a trivial sort of way
but otherwise, intrinsic value is allowed free rein, coupled with the ability to catch the eye (in particular, the eye of google.
One major exception seems to be the sphere of complex multi-player web-based games, where position (within the game's world) once more matters greatly.
Perhaps there is a principle here: the greater the number of rules, the greater the quantum of positional value. Anarchy restores intrinsic value to its prime ranking!
One way of dealing with positional goods is allocation by competitive price bidding in an auction, with the revenue being used to compensate the others. HG will not let anybody use her house at any price, but usually nothing has an infinite price.
Another way is by lottery, with free re-trading so that the good goes to whoever values it most, and the sale revenue possibly taxed.
What must be avoided at all costs is allocation of positional goods by personal connections (the Russians called it blat' and were very good at cornering privilege in this way) or corruption, or by virtue of one's office.
I think I'm with ND and anarchy's restoration of intrinsic value.
I'm not clear about who consents to auctions and who runs them and who sets the rules, ek.
The immediate lottery that comes to mind for positional goods (at least that's what they seem to be), is school places. Are you suggestiong that school places be allocated by lottery and then they can be sold off to the highest bidder? I don't think even the most cynical parent has thought of that one.
Who decides the rules for who may enter a lottery? We all pay for schools sowould that mean we should all get a ticket to dispose of as we choose?
Scarily the scenario emerged over dinner that all taxpayers might be engaged in a lottery for state provided services which, should a lottery winner not need their prize, might be traded on E-bay; resulting gains could be subject to tax clawbacks if that sort of 'evening up' were desired.
Positional goods, or values, is a can of worms.
The Lottery idea for education is a good one though HG and its a pity the Conservative Party are not showing more direction on education.
Room With a View eh ? I have always pictured you as a sort of mature Helena Bonham Carter in the film. Reared in Herts for freshness then off to Italy for refinement.....
Nicks Point on the internet is of course , entirely wrong , position has never been so important there being little intrinsic worth. Google will reign for a thousand years .
I have been thinking about the positional of the BBC HG do you know it still has 45% market share compared to 6% Sky. Its domination of News and Current affairs is more like 70%. It is universally on th side of progressive thought soi disant being for example consistently pro Europe. There is evidence that in the past at least there have been Stalinist campaigns to ensure political correctness at the top. Its interesting to see a character like Andrew Marr try to cover his tracks now he is supposed to be impartial with areal prospect of revenge .
Above all I have been reading about the narrative that the Left wing BBC of the time gave to the Thatcher period in Scotland which was all abou the desolation of the industrial heartland betrayed both by Thatcher and by the English . Never ws this view challenged and I wonder how much harm it all did.
It really makes you quite angry when you think about it
It seems reasonable to allocate scarce resources by lottery to me too, N, because it would create a driving force to upgrade the second and worse rate; provided that the lottery entrants are limited to those who will use the service and there is no post draw trading.
There could never be circumstances in which I would support any move to re-introduce the 11+. It did so much damage in ways subtler than is sometimes discussed. There is a wide break between the children who passed and the children who didn't, but the break that did the most damage was that between parents who had received little and made much of that, and children quite literally removed to another world. We might as well have been loaded into buses and driven away; indeed it was a local joke that my Juniors and Infants did just that, as parents manouevered to access Mrs Elliot's entry class, Mr Cuneen threatened and inspired us with well aimed bits of chalk and occasionally board wipers, and the goddess Mrs Flatman sorted out the slackers and drove them to achievements they probably never reached again, board pointer ever in hand. (very painful, a board pointer.)
But there was no need for a lottery for the Garden Village children because we all entered automatically; it was the others from across the Barnet Bypass who who needed a lottery. So I'm in favour of a mixed system, community first and spare places lotteried.
The BBC? That deserves a post all to itself, as does recent history and its presentation.
There is an extremely good book out called "Can we trust the BBC" by Robin Aitken
Not sure which part of the interweb you're thinking of, Mr Mania: my observation is, there is a stupendous amount of stuff of high intrinsic value available via the web
more-or-less instantly accessible to all
which is my definition of straightforward logistics
you don't need to follow google's ranking (although it can't possibly be of nil interest to see what has risen to the top)
On second thoughts, perhaps I do know which part of the www you are thinking of ...
Off shoring next.
Incidentally, have just thought of the perfect example of what I mean about positional value not counting for much in the www (contra mr Mania)
it is Firefox
IE has the greatest possible positioning, it comes ready-installed with every PC! and is the default browser!
Yet anyone who bothers to pay attention knows that Firefox (with its superior intrinsic value but no positioning) is two clicks and 90 seconds away - free of charge.
Anarchy rules! (well OK, anarchy rocks ...)
Now - take us offshore, HG
(PS assume you've seen the 'L'Offshore ... Bastardi' photo I posted on CityUnslicker a couple of days ago)
The thing about positional goods is that they must be goods - i.e. tradeable and transferable. And as all first year contract law students learn, 'valuable' doesn't mean expensive but 'able to be valued'. A personal attribute is not a positional good. Although I understand a hysterical American woman has offered one of her multiple personalities for sale on e-Bay.
Truffles are an interesting example. They grow freely in our beech-woods, there are no 'barriers to entry' to acquiring truffles. Truffle hunting could be a truly democratic sport. Kilo for kilo, they are worth their weight in gold.
Yet truffles are a true positional good. A few shavings even of English black truffles on a breakfast dish of scrambled eggs and cold smoked eel (my favourite breakfast) transforms a mundane dish to haute cuisine; a glass of champagne elevates it to the realm of Breakfast of the Gods.
Raedwald, you have just made it worse. Certainly positional goods must be capable of being valued. So, accepting that anything that is scarce and can be valued (actually rating something as scarce is to attribute value) and that is socially provided, should be socially accessible to all equally,
the provisions of the welfare state should be lotteried and then offered on E-Bay, or saved by winners. ??
Once we had a truffle field, permissions to truffle it with hounds and pigs were sought after and remunerative; but we were young and poor.
Champagne, at breakfast!
Right.
Raedwald, your eulogy to truffle suggests that it possesses intrinsic, not positional value ( - even if this value derives from its position atop an eel).
Now, had you said it was actually horrible to the taste, but people paid high prices for it simply to be seen with it socially, or as an investment (a la Tulip mania), or because Raedwald and the Gods were said to be quite fond of it for breakfast - then we might be back in business.
I'm being didactic again, I know, it's got to stop
HG - there's a wonderful pub called the 'Hope' (I think) in Smithfield market that opens at 6am. Anyway, we all pitch up there at dawn on the occasion of any one of our birthdays.
The champagne is, admittedly, mixed with an equal volume of Guinness in a large jug for this robust feast. But having quaffed our fill, and absorbed it with a huge plate of fresh flesh and offal, the trick is that we must all then do a full day's work
It's all very 18th century and un-PC. Which is why we continue to do it.
R, women must do a full day's work always so breakfasting on champagne and offal would give us a flying start.
There is a truffle eating bar in the Tornabuoni, Procacci's , where they have cold fino sherry too. You probably collapsed into it around 11.30 every morning on you last visit.
The tulip story worries me, I was looking at it recently as I fought to get stuff on shelves and out of boxes, instead of reading it; London houses, I thought? not the beautiful, infinitely desirable ones, but the outer ones. Surely there is a similar kind of Dutch madness going on?
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