Monday, December 22, 2014

Monopolies and Love


I am going to compare monopolies and love.

A monopoly, one seller, is a firm that reduces output so that buyers have to compete and bid the price up.  This is bad, because say there are 15 parking spaces and 15 people who would like a spot.  A monopoly might raise the price so high that some of those 15 spots sit empty!  We call this a dead weight loss, where society is clearly losing something.
Perhaps unintentionally, we sometimes act monopolistic with our love.  We reduce the number of people that we are willing to give our love to, or we pick favorites, so that people have to compete for our love; they have to compete to be our favorites.  Society would be better off if we were to follow Christ's example, who "inviteth . . . all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God." - 2 Nephi 26:33, The Book of Mormon 

If we give of our love freely then people won't need to pay or give up things like their moral standards to have the love they desire.
Econ valentine jokes

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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 24, 2014 at 6:27 PM

    I like this. Even though society is made worse off through momopolization, the monopoly is made better off. I think this is the big weakness in this love model, because by sharing our love more freely, both society and you yourself are made better off. Some benefits are just harder to account for in our basic models.

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    1. Rees AtkinsDecember 25, 2014 at 8:36 AM

      That's a good point! Everyone loses when we withhold love. I suppose just in the short-run it seems like we have more power by getting to choose favorites and perhaps be manipulative in that way, but in the long run we'll be happier and have deeper relationships when we share love freely.

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