I play many video games where people trade items among eachother for money that can only be spent within the video game. it is not trivial money, as it can take some time to accumulate this money if you do not have the items to trade for it.
in this particular game, Guild Wars, after having a character for a year or two years, you receive a silly little “mini pet” who, when you double click on his icon in your inventory, he follows you around when you go about your business.
i have no desire for such a silly thing, and so i wanted to sell mine, because some people are weird, and they do want to collect such things.
if you have a character in Guild Wars for one year, you receive a birthday present, which always includes some sort of “mini pet.” last year, i received a slightly valuable christmas elf guy, who is very cute and entirely useless.
i went to a major city and said “Want to Sell Mini Adorable Elf” and TWO PEOPLE not one, but TWO people whispered me.
quite a puzzle. so i invited them both to my party and said, ok fellas, auction time. one said 5,000 gold! the other said more and the other said more and one of them quit at about 15,000 gold, so i sold it to him for that price.
that was last year. this year, probably because god wanted me to create a very interesting thread here about the flaws of capitalism, two of my characters were both given another rare christmas elf. (its not extremely rare, just kinda).
so it dawned on me, what if i created the same auction atmosphere as i had during the first elf sale? i mean when i only had one elf, it seemed absolutely fair to give both potential buyers a fair chance to purchase my elf. it would not be fair for me to simply give the elf to the first person who contacted me, because it is very possible that someone else wanted it more, and they would gain more happiness from it (and COINCIDENTALLY be willing to spend more money on it).
when i had only one elf and i advertised that i wanted to sell it, two people contacted me and one person said they would pay 5,000. so i told the other person, “i have someone who wants to pay 5,000, how much do you want it?” and he knew how much money he could pay in order for the [happiness->money] tradeoff to equal out, if you know what i mean. so i brought them together to auction and…
in this way, according to capitalism and my economic education (which i majored in at drexel university) THE TRUE VALUE of an elf was established.
my question is this
now that i have amazingly come into possesion of two elves, would it be extremely unethical to conduct the SAME EXACT auction between two potential buyers? i think it so obviously would be unethical, but i cant say why.
look at the scenario where i took the price from 5,000 to 15,000 based on the fact that two people wanted the one item and were trying to convince me to sell it to them. they knew i only had one of them, and if the other person paid more than them, they would have to wait to find another one.
but what if i am selling tickle me elmos or oil and i know that people will fall over themselves to pick up my supplies if they know there arent more (even if there secretly are.)
if i had two of the elves, i could have sold them both for… probably 5,000 or whatever the buyer said to me. obviously i should look at existing internet resources to determine the best price for myself, but those prices dont include the convenience of having the seller right there, ready to give you the item.
the complication is that the negotiations i originally described are absolutely fair if i only have one thing to sell, and… horrifyingly dishonest if i have two things to sell. can i ethically make them bid if i have two things to sell?
dont capitalist firms do this kind of thing all the time and nobody executes their leaders? i mean not one ceo has been executed for intentionally decreasing supply… not one.
i absolutely cant imagine lying to those people and telling them that i only had one stupid, fake item that didnt matter, in order to get their fake, stupid money that didnt matter. I CAN NOT IMAGINE how horrible i would feel manipulating them like that with fake money and items (LET ALONE REAL MONEY AND ITEMS WTF). and, unlike most people who play the game in question, i do not have a lot of money to throw around. i just cant imagine being a HORRIBLE PERSON like that.
so this kind of thing happens in capitalism a lot. tickle me elmo was on the news, i worked at a video game store when playstation 2 and xbox1 did it. im pretty sure iphone did it, not sure.
is this sort of thing disgustingly unethical? should it prevented? would society benefit if this crap were prevented? i am unusually ambivalent on this matter. maybe new inventions should be given lots of benefits. oil on the other hand…