I am not one of those people—I care about justice from a contract (including social and implied contract) standpoint, and from a net-satisfaction standpoint (I’m not Utilitarian, but I’m sympathetic to the intent and my personal utility function is mostly-compatible). I don’t believe it’s generally desirable to trade very much efficiency for justice (though some amount is necessary to maintain the functioning necessary for meeting more people’s needs, and to increase overall life-satisfaction).
For cherry-picking, I think first-come-first-served is better than many other solutions, in that people who get more value from better fruit (mixed with those who have more flexibility/power) can pick what they’re willing to give up to arrive earlier. I think price discrimination (better cherries cost more) is pretty efficient as well, as it’s a signal to what quality of fruit the supply chain should pursue as well. Depending on grading and transaction costs (and customer acceptability), it can be more just AND efficient enough to go the other way: remove choice, sell cherries in opaque bags with a mix of quality. The efficiency tradeoff is an empirical decision—anyone can try something else and see how it works.
Fortunately (or un-), Moloch doesn’t care much about Justice, so in very competitive endeavors, efficiency tends to win.
I am not one of those people—I care about justice from a contract (including social and implied contract) standpoint, and from a net-satisfaction standpoint (I’m not Utilitarian, but I’m sympathetic to the intent and my personal utility function is mostly-compatible). I don’t believe it’s generally desirable to trade very much efficiency for justice (though some amount is necessary to maintain the functioning necessary for meeting more people’s needs, and to increase overall life-satisfaction).
For cherry-picking, I think first-come-first-served is better than many other solutions, in that people who get more value from better fruit (mixed with those who have more flexibility/power) can pick what they’re willing to give up to arrive earlier. I think price discrimination (better cherries cost more) is pretty efficient as well, as it’s a signal to what quality of fruit the supply chain should pursue as well. Depending on grading and transaction costs (and customer acceptability), it can be more just AND efficient enough to go the other way: remove choice, sell cherries in opaque bags with a mix of quality. The efficiency tradeoff is an empirical decision—anyone can try something else and see how it works.
Fortunately (or un-), Moloch doesn’t care much about Justice, so in very competitive endeavors, efficiency tends to win.