Hacker News Reader

In the sense that those who are willing to pay the most get preferred resource allocation in a way that is self-adjusting.

If a company is able to pay more for their commodities, it means that it is able to create more of an economic value of the commodities than a competitor (otherwise it would not be able to pay this price). This leads to a more efficient and effective use of the commodities that are traded on the market.

View on HN

It also encourages slavery. Who sows your clothes? Who assembles your phone? Who picks the vegetables you eat? Really it's all the same person: The cheapest option.

> It also encourages slavery.

Indeed, if slavery turned out to be more efficient, it would.

But I think that the claim that slavery is more efficient does not hold, since opressing people binds a lot of ressources; also opressed people tend to do work as minimally as possible.

So it is much more efficient to give people the illusion of freedom instead of enslaving them.

And yet, in our system that prioritizes efficiency, we have more slavery than at any point in human history. Something doesn't add up.

Producing something that people need but dont want isn't efficiency, its exploitation

Reply on news.ycombinator.com