Okay, I’d like to take the discussion in a slightly different direction. I’m going to lay out a claim, as well as an argument against that claim, and I’d like to get your feedback, criticisms, inputs, additions, etc.
Supposed someone claimed that, “The Company destroys half of the original product (to make two separate products; one ‘inferior’ and one ‘superior’) just so they can charge more for the ‘superior’ product.”
I would argue that this is a misunderstanding of market processes. Specifically, I think this point of view overlooks the fact that the producer could of just developed the “superior” product, and charged the same amount. So, what the producer is really doing is product differentiation, rather than “going out of it’s way to make the ‘inferior’ product, just so it can charge more for the ‘superior’ product.” For example, instead of producing 100 “superior” products and turning half of them into “inferior” products, and charging $50 and $30 per unit, respectively, the producer could of simply just produced 50 units of the “superior” product originally, and charged $50 per unit. In other words, this sort of product differentiation doesn’t allow them to increase the price of the “superior” good, but rather it allows them to differentiate their product, expand the market, and appeal to additional consumers.
Do you deny that the number of hours you labor are typically less then what they would be if you allowed yourself to work up to the maximum physiological limitations, that is, up to the point of exhaustion with just the minimum number of rest for sleep and feeding as required by your physiological minimum needs?
Do you deny that the number of hours you labor are typically less then what they would be if you allowed yourself to work up to the maximum physiological limitations, that is, up to the point of exhaustion with just the minimum number of rest for sleep and feeding as required by your physiological minimum needs?
I agree.
We are all “damaged goods”.
That’s not the definition of “damaged goods” in the link I provided at the outset. I agree though, if we define damaged goods your way, then all goods are damaged goods. That is not the economics definition. I’m really not trying to be argumentative, even though I feel it might be coming off that way; all I’m trying to say is that a lot of people in this thread are using different definitions of damaged goods than I posted, and it’s making the discussion more confusing than it needs to be. But honestly, I’m not trying to be argumentative, because I actually agree with a lot of you points in the post (such as the fact that’s it’s cheaper to sometimes destroy good products, as opposed to making an “inferior” product from scratch; and I also agree with you that this sort of thing can be overemphasized by “mainstream” economics, since after all, it’s just another way of product differentiation). The only thing I’m taking issue with, is that you’re defining “damaged goods” in your own way, which is slightly confusing for our discussion here. I agree with you that everything you’ve said follows from your definition, just that everything you’ve said doesn’t follow from the definition of damaged goods in the wikipedia link.
Do you deny that the number of hours you labor are typically less then what they would be if you allowed yourself to work up to the maximum physiological limitations, that is, up to the point of exhaustion with just the minimum number of rest for sleep and feeding as required by your physiological minimum needs?
We are all “damaged goods”.
Can we stop with this derail? A human being is an acting entity that owns itself, a car is a mass produced object that is owned by humans. For a human to be like a “damaged good”, as relevent to the thread, you’d have to have someone train specifically for some task, then cripple themselves specifically to lessen thier ability to do said task. It would be like having a typing school lop off the left hand of half of thier graduating class to supply the need for low-productivty, low-cost typists*. Deciding not to excert potential skill/effort is not the same as not being physically capable too. You’re comparing acting beings to unacting objects.
*Obviously this would make no sense for an individual, but it can make perfect economic sense when we’re talking about manufactured objects, as we’ve discussed in the thread..
Okay, I’d like to take the discussion in a slightly different direction. I’m going to lay out a claim, as well as an argument against that claim, and I’d like to get your feedback, criticisms, inputs, additions, etc.
Supposed someone claimed that, “The Company destroys half of the original product (to make two separate products; one ‘inferior’ and one ‘superior’) just so they can charge more for the ‘superior’ product.”
I would argue that this is a misunderstanding of market processes. Specifically, I think this point of view overlooks the fact that the producer could of just developed the “superior” product, and charged the same amount. So, what the producer is really doing is product differentiation, rather than “going out of it’s way to make the ‘inferior’ product, just so it can charge more for the ‘superior’ product.” For example, instead of producing 100 “superior” products and turning half of them into “inferior” products, and charging $50 and $30 per unit, respectively, the producer could of simply just produced 50 units of the “superior” product originally, and charged $50 per unit. In other words, this sort of product differentiation doesn’t allow them to increase the price of the “superior” good, but rather it allows them to differentiate their product, expand the market, and appeal to additional consumers.