(Untitled)

[oboeswinger]

So Bela Fleck and the Flecktones are coming to Oberlin in December and playing their final performance before a hiatus of indefinite length. Needless to say I'm very excited about the concert-- I bought tickets as soon as I heard they were on sale

Comments

morality

[anonymous]

What you did is wrong. You know it already, deep down. You bought a ticket for $12. Where does the $12 go? To the band, the venue, overhead, etc. You got the ticket at the student rate. Then you sold the ticket for $75, a profit of $63 which goes to... the band? Nope. To your pocket. You 'earned' $63 by cheating the ebay buyer, by cheating the band. If the ticket was discounted for students, you cheated whoever it is that discounts the ticket. Was it 'clever'? Sure. Was it honest? Nope.

Re: morality

[oboeswinger]

Boy, you must think the devil of retailers then, seeing as how they just buy a product from the producers/wholesalers and sell it at a premium.

The way economics works is we have people who eliminate the cost of searching for a product, and charge a fee for that service. I certainly don't think it dishonest-- when asked how much the tickets had cost me as a student, I was completely up front about how much I'd paid.

I like how LJ says "Someone wrote..." Who is this?

Re: morality

[anonymous]

You can rationalize it any way you like. Why did you ask the question in the first place? Because you know what you did isn't ethical. And you know enough about economics and supply and demand to know the difference between retailing and what you did.

You don't know me and I don't know you. I'm just someone who likes clicking around on LJ. No offense meant, honest. Just answering your question.

Re: morality

[oboeswinger]

No, I wouldn't have done it if I thought it immoral or unethical. I was just curious about what other people thought, as morality is not objective in my opinion. I know enough about economics to adequately compare it to a broker service. Do you see Ticketmaster as unethical?

If you're going to say that I'm wrong, please don't just say that I know enough about economics to know why. I'm interested in having a moral discussion, not just being told that I'm a terrible person. And please learn something about debate if you're going to have one.

[nofunk81]

Mr. Anonymous with whom you are arguing seems to be drawing from an implicit idea of morality that he has not spelled out to you. It might help for him to make it explicit because if you two are arguing from different viewpoints of morality, neither will be able to convince the other of anything. I suspect you already realized this though

[oboeswinger]

How would your analysis change if I told you that tickets to the concert ended up selling out the day beore the concert?

[nofunk81]

Well, then I suppose at that point it would come down to interpersonal comparisons which, as you know, economists are loathe to make. Did the net utility gain of your transaction completely offset (or even dominate) the net utility loss incurred by the two students who weren't able to go, but would have received the highest utility (of all the students) by going? If so, then you still come out ahead. Unless you subscribe to the Rawlsian difference principle, taking a little bit of utility from someone who is worse off in exchange for a substantial utility gain by someone better off is perfectly acceptable.

Although I'm arguing along utilitarian lines here, I don't necessarily prescribe to utilitarianism. I do, however, think that giving a couple tickets to people who really want to attend a Bela Fleck concert but otherwise couldn't is a good thing. And you padded your pockets a little in the process. What's the harm in that?

[rebeccamsic]

I just discovered that you were on LJ and read through to this old post. I'm glad to see such an interesting discussion came out of a lunchtime challenge :)