To clarify–I don’t think it makes sense to talk about whether something “is gambling” in the complete abstract. It only makes sense if you specify the purpose for which it is or is not gambling(eg, a specific law, a specific religious prohibition).
Not sure how you see me working your logic further along the path as a “deflection”, but that’s not really important.
The point I’m trying to understand is: if you feel that it’s improper for employees to be able to band together and ask for a fair wage, do you also feel it’s improper for society to band together (in the form of government) and set a minimum wage (since that is the minimum that is “fair” for a person to be paid)? Do you think the market should just take over in all instances?
How do you define gambling?
I define it as spending an amount of money to win the chance at more money based on a random event.
Fire insurance:
Spend 100 dollars.
If random event X occurs, win 250,000 dollars.
If random event X does not occur, win nothing.
Event X is your house burning down.
Just because the random event isn’t determined by cards or dice doesn’t make it any less gambling. The true distinction is the fact that we don’t WANT our house to burn down. In ‘true’ gambling one bets on an outcome that they want to happen (Baseball team winning, Dice rolling an 8).
I suppose you could make an argument about actuarial tables and balancing risk that makes insurance work as a distinction, but the exact same thing happens in gambling when Las Vegas sets odds or the line for a sporting event. Insurance companies assess the odds to insure they make money. Las Vegas does the exact same thing.
Flanders’s comment about not having insurance because he considers it gambling is funny because it’s true. The insurance mechanism follows the exact same formula as gambling, we just don’t like to acknowledge it.
I believe this misses a key component of the concept of gambling. That is, you must get enjoyment out of the exchange, or at a minimum excitement.
Gambling is entertainment. Negotiation and insurance is not (at least, for most people).
The problem with a definition that just defines gambling as a monetary exchange with risk involved is that it turn every single financial transaction (hell, every action period) into gambling. Cross the street? Gambling! Decide to go to college? Gambling!
I submit that insurance is a lot closer to gambling than going to college. To say otherwise dismisses the similarities in an overly general way. Kind of like how three is different than two, but is a whole lot closer to two than forty-seven.
Yes, insurance isn’t classically gambling. Like I said, you are betting on something you don’t want to happen. But the mechanics are exactly the same.
Also, apparently you can buy insurance that looks exactly like gambling. See Jordan’s Furniture and the 2007 Red Sox World Series. That was “insurance.” I call it gambling. What do you think?
I joined a union about 10 years ago. I’m sure I joined because I was on their pension plan and they were taking money off my pay check.
I know for a fact that I did not swear out an oath.
Maybe that is because I live in Canada. But if that is what you guys have to do in the States to have a good union job (assuming the best jobs are union jobs) then you can shove your glorious freedoms up…
In any case my union didn’t listen to the employer who hired me and the company permanently shut down the plant. All those gung ho union types are now working for half the wages in other sectors of the economy.
My father back in the sixties was lucky to hang onto his job when employer was forced to go union. (they are always forced). His religion considered the parable in the new testament of the day workers who agreed to a wage early in the day only to be pissed off because the employer paid the same amount to day workers hired later on in the day. That means to accept what you agreed to and do not extort a new remuneration package.
My father was prepared to quit in order to avoid supporting the “evil” union financially. Fortunately, his co-workers voted to allow him to donate equally to a charity.
Not that it mattered much. Several years later the plant was shut down. No one was buying wooden boats any more.
To me it isn’t gambling because the furniture store got no entertainment value out of the transaction.
To the customers, however, it was probably gambling. They got a certain thrill out of the whole thing (I might get free furniture!).