Even if you restrict it to free time, the disparity isn't that great. If time were distributed like money, then the average person would have only a few seconds of free time per day.
What do you mean, if you include work hours? I can't think of any way to analyze a person's time which results in the many-orders-of-magnitude inequalities we see with money.
For "the average person," pick any reasonable meaning you like. I think they'll all work about the same in this context. The person who makes the most money makes orders of magnitude more than the average. The person who has the most free time has, at most, 168 hours of free time per week. If the inequality there were similar, than the average person's free time would be measured in seconds.
If I employ someone to do something, they are acting on my behalf, as proxy. These lose the free time I pay them for, and I gain it. Hence an individual that employs people maybe have more than 24 hours a day; e.g. If I pay someone to wait in line for an hour (for a ticket), so I don't have to, then I just bought an hour of free time.
> I think they'll all work about the same in this context
It sounds like you're just guessing then. I tried working it out, but it depends on what you are trying to measure.
Are you arguing that a person might have 1,000 hours of time each week if he hires a bunch of people to do work for him? That is not how it works.
I mean, you can define it that way, but then you and I are just talking about completely different things that happen to use the same spelling, and this discussion is pointless.
Two different meanings of "distribution." Think "probability distribution," not "transfer."
A metaphor is when you literally talk about one thing, but are actually referring to something else. I'm not doing that here. When I talk about time, I'm actually talking about time. I'm comparing it to money, not using it as a metaphor for money.
As for what they have to do with each other, it's simple:
The usual way to allocate scarce goods is to use supply and demand to set an equilibrium price, and then let people spend money in order to obtain it. Another way to allocate scarce goods is to require people to spend time in order to obtain it.
People tend to consider the first way to be unfair, especially for goods with high emotional value, and whose cost to produce is not connected to the price. People tend to consider the second way to be more fair, because time is more equally distributed among humans.
The first paragraph is fact. The second paragraph is observation and speculation. No metaphors in sight.
A metaphor according to dictionary : "A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.". If you don't consider time to be transferable, talking of it in terms of a currency is exactly this.
> People tend to consider the first way to be unfair
Time and money are linked, so I see both ways as the same. I disagree with the above, some people thing this, but I have no idea what %.
I'm not talking about time in terms of a currency....
All I'm saying is: requiring people to give up time to obtain a scarce good tends to be seen as more fair, because time is more equitably available to people than money.
I can't understand why you keep thinking I'm somehow using time as a metaphor for money.
> I can't understand why you keep thinking I'm somehow using time as a metaphor for money.
I said currency. If you exchange one thing for another (or talk abstractly in terms of this), it's a currency.
> requiring people to give up time to obtain a scarce good tends to be seen as more fair
People too poor to take time off work, or with high-paid careers that leaves them little free time won't have time to spare.
People who are wealthy with no associated constraint on their free time (e.g inherited wealth, or retirees), the unemployed and children/students have plenty free time.
Why does the latter group deserve tickets more than the former?
> time is more equitably available to people than money
Time is more 'equally' (but not necessarily more 'fairly') distributed than time, but what does that matter? Daily toe-nail growth is more evenly distributed than money, and maybe more evenly distributed than time too, so should we ditch time in favor of exchanging good for toenails?
There's no exchange when you ask people to give up time in order to obtain something. That time is just lost. If it was a currency, then the people selling the goods would receive the time you spent.
Your toenail hypothetical, and much of the rest of your comment, entirely misses my point. I'm not saying we should do this or that. I'm merely saying that people find it to be more fair when there's a time requirement. That's not the same thing as "we should require people to spend time."
Yes there is, although it's not the same as a physical exchange.
If I initiate an electronic transaction, where my bank balance goes down by $10, and yours up by $10, that's an exchange, even though nothing physically passed between us.
If I solicit you to do something for me (in exchange for money) that means you spend an hour doing something (therefore not having that time free, but freeing me from having to do it (therefore freeing up an hour of my time), a similar exchange has taken place.
Time can perish, but it can still be used as a currency.
> I'm merely saying that people find it to be more fair
fair enough. Then I disagree that this is true, without proof, and also disagree this is relevant, without justification. I'd assume most people that thing this are part of a group with more time than money.
