Jonathan Kamens And how is that defined? I mean most people can afford most things if they don't buy other things. Well I doubt that's true, but if it is why should the sellers of gas be the ones who bear the cost of that not happening? If you think their is a societal obligation to prevent people freezing to rest why not put the burden of preventing it on to all of society instead of those that are helping to heat people. Well we survived without them for thousands of years so obviously they aren't that essential. In any case how much heating we need depends on how well we've bothered to insulate our houses, how big the house is per person and whether or not we head tropicwards in the winter, or indeed for the rest of our lives. So whether or not it's "essential" isn't really constant or under the control of the gas providers. What obligation? So you let part of the public run their utilities through something the public owns, so what? That's what the public right of way is for. I don't think that cable and gas companies have that much advantage from not having to pay a fair price for access to "public" property, but if they do wouldn't it be better to charge that fair price? That way if the price is too much then they can reroute their lines. As it is you're saying "We give you what we want to give you and you give us what we want you to give us.". Well no, we don't have a general ethical obligation to help our fellow man. If we did we'd be obligated to end the subsidies to big pharma well before we were obligated to force them to sell at prices we like. I don't see how making a high profit can be considered unethical. If you don't do anything unethical to produce a profit then the profit is ethical. Just as it is ethical to bake one loaf and therefore ethical to produce a million so it is ethical to produce a 1% profit and therefore ethical a 10,000% profit. I believe the ethical objection to high profits is that the profiter could have reduced his prices or increased his wages or other prices paid and still made an "acceptable" level of profit thereby benefitting others. So he could, but he also could have taken the high profits and helped the poor, sick, unjustly accused. There is no reason why the benefits from his efficent production of highly desired goods should go to the customers. I think that is more sound. Clearly some of the CEOs got their money by convincing people their services were worth more than they really are. That's a lot less praiseworthy than actually producing very valuable services.
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