> If I come out the same whether or not I sell polish, why should I sell polish? Rationally, I shouldn't.
Because you like polished widgets, I'd imagine? Or maybe a fascist government forces you to make widget polish, I don't know. I do know you can't have it both ways, if your hypothetical economy is not consistent then it is a useless example.
You're investing way more into the hypothetical than exists.
I wasn't asking what imagined scenarios would force me to sell polish. If you want that, then aliens for all I care.
The entire point is to ask what happens when the results of my actions are nil. Rationally, if two courses of action have the same result, I should take the course that costs me the least.
I mean, here I am describing a situation and you're saying "Yeah, but what if the situation were different". Then the situation would be different and not the one I'm describing.
It's ok not to have an answer to any of the scenarios. To not know. I don't either. I don't know if there is a good answer to a "fair and rational distribution of wealth". The point is to make you question your own perception of the situation and realize that the answers you believe you have may have issues of their own.
I guess, like you, I don't know that I have any answers. What I reject is you describing a made up situation that is unfair then simply noting that it is not fair. That may be true, but it tells me nothing, causes me to have no new interesting questions, and is unrealistic to boot.
Because you like polished widgets, I'd imagine? Or maybe a fascist government forces you to make widget polish, I don't know. I do know you can't have it both ways, if your hypothetical economy is not consistent then it is a useless example.