I'll hop in. Net value-add across the entire chain doesn't imply local value-add. And it's deeply short-sighted to be fine with certain sectors of people collapsing so long as the GDP has a net increase.
Two individual actors agreeing to a price doesn't make the price fair, and it ignores the larger economic/political arena that surrounds them.
Following the MRI example: nobody in this thread is suggesting that those don't provide value.
One poster is suggesting that such expensive operations should be subsidized through other mechanisms that take the larger economic/political arena into account (living, capable workers provide more value than sick/dead ones).
The other poster is suggesting that a low-wage laborer doesn't deserve to have an MRI because they can't individually afford it. The latter is a weak argument intellectually (let's not even _try_ to develop new mechanisms that include more people), morally, and economically (assumes that markets are free, efficient, and devoid of history).
Two individual actors agreeing to a price doesn't make the price fair, and it ignores the larger economic/political arena that surrounds them.
Following the MRI example: nobody in this thread is suggesting that those don't provide value.
One poster is suggesting that such expensive operations should be subsidized through other mechanisms that take the larger economic/political arena into account (living, capable workers provide more value than sick/dead ones).
The other poster is suggesting that a low-wage laborer doesn't deserve to have an MRI because they can't individually afford it. The latter is a weak argument intellectually (let's not even _try_ to develop new mechanisms that include more people), morally, and economically (assumes that markets are free, efficient, and devoid of history).