Anology to understand the Global Ecomony

Some people that got stranded on an island, and I think it was 6 or 7 were Asians and there was one American and as soon as they were on the island they had to divide up the jobs. And one Asian was given the job of fishing, the other one was hunting, one of them got the job of gathering fire wood. So they all had jobs, and the American was assigned the job of eating. And so at the end of the day, they would all gather around and prepare this feast and the American would sit there and eat it. But he would´nt eat it all, he´d just leave enough crumbs so he could give to the 6 Asians so they could go on and repeat it again tomorrow, spend all day preparing a meal for the American to eat. Now, the way modern economists would look at it, they would say “Well, this American is vital to the whole island economy. Without him nobody would have to fish, nobody would have to hunt, nobody would have to gather fire wood. He is creating all this employment on the island”. But the reality is, every Asian on that island, his lot in life would be dramatically improved if they kicked the American off the island because now they would have a lot more to eat or maybe they wouldn´t have to spend all day hunting and fishing and they can lay on the beach a little bit.

-By Peter Schiff

>>22
I do indeed.  I'm an atheist ethical absolutist.  So let's look at your hypothetical.  The end game is death for somebody.  That's pretty absolute.  Since you chose Hitler/Stalin vs. King you clearly believe in a pretty standard interpretation of good and evil.  Nothing interesting there.  So how did you make that determination?  You added up the actions of the men that were good(white), the actions that were evil(black), subtracted, and viola: White wins(so to speak).  No gray, just complexity that blurs into gray when the judge is incapable, for whatever reason, of fully appreciating all of the factors.  And it gets tough.  That's why most religions and old people discourage our tendency to be judgmental.  Philosophers and anthropologists have been trying to puzzle this one out since they first noticed cultural differences in ethics/morals(I will use them interchangeably here), but it's been the lawyers who really  seized on the concept and have polluted many minds with it.  But it just doesn't figure, 'cause once cultural differences are factored out you find a consistent and universal ideal that demands that life and happiness are to be cultivated, and death and suffering avoided.