Zillow's "Make Me Move" in Mass-Application [Long]

The internet has got some breathtakingly awesome applications in the marketplace, one of which is being the middle-man for various transactions. Websites like Craigslist, or KSL (for the Utahnians), take advantage of a computerized ease and accessibility that gets buyers and sellers together.

One such site is Zillow, for people to put houses on the market.

The cool thing about Zillow is its "Make Me Move" feature, which is designed for users who are *not* looking to sell a house. It allows a content homeowner to list a dollar value, however ridiculous, that he would be forced to accept in its ridiculousness. As described on Zillow's webpage:

"a free and easy way to tell others the price you'd be willing to sell your home for, without actually putting it on the market. It's that magical number you just can't refuse."

This is the Make Me Move (MMM) price.

It is useful because it allows mutually beneficial transactions to occur that otherwise wouldn't have. It takes "not for sale" items, and gives them a tag. Even if you wouldn't move for any less than a whole shipload of cash, there's a chance that some other prefers your house to that payment.

Why not just buy a similar house on the market then, you ask? Because while any given house can be, and has been, replicated in almost every fashion imaginable, there are some qualities that cannot be replicated. The house's history, for example, is unique solely to that house, and so too its precise location; perhaps also its architect. As a result, a particular house may have something special to offer that cannot be offered elsewhere, and a particular individual may be willing to pay far more than the market price for that house.

If your reaction was like mine: "holy prophets of economic genius- we applaud your divine scripture," let's work together and make a Bible out of this.

Imagine with me a world without such a thing as "not for sale."

The idea, simply, is that every item, every service, and every possible future service is attached to a Make Me Move/Give/Render/Do price, as set by the owner.

Ever walked into Starbucks and wanted first in line because you're late to class, but the guy up front is some rulesy, clean-cut coffee lover who wants his tarred caffeine in the next minute?

Make him move.

Now you want him to dress up? How about like Bond, complete with a gruffly, Shawn Connery apology for being a rulesy, clean-cut coffee lover that needs a pool of literal darkness to function like an ordinary human being?

Just another payment.

The next guy's getting impatient as you laugh your arteries into different locations throughout your body, but James Bond hasn't finished, and the next cashier looks as though she'd make a perfect 'M' of the British Secret Intelligence.

Make him get over it.

Better yet, have him grab you a chair and a drink.

The world is at your fingertips.

Now, the point could be made that, in the vast majority of circumstances, any given stranger is going to be "busy." Because that stranger has a life to live, the cost of making him do any string of random acts would be pretty absurdly high. It remains true, however, that sometimes a person is willing to pay that high price. When the circumstances are unique, and a potential service or good provided in such a circumstance is also unique by extension, or at least very difficult to replicate, there are often individuals that are willing to pay a larger than market-price sum in order to gain what they cannot gain elsewhere. It's the reason why the fans of a great book- but not just everyone who reads it- will go out of their way to have the author sign a copy, and why enthusiasts of an upcoming movie will pay through the nose to watch it with Peter Jackson himself.

Our fantasy land is then taken to new heights, as we expand the principle to include *allowing* actions that are otherwise impermissible. Every corvette would have a "steal me" price, every highway a "speed on me" price, every handicapped zone a "park in me" price, every person a "punch me," "kiss me," "kidnap me," "kill me," and "rape me" price. Whether or not the last of these would continue to qualify as rape, given its newfound voluntary nature, is questionable-- I'm sure there are plenty of Republican congressman with enlightening contributions to make on the matter.*

Different people will ascribe differing prices to these allowances, based on their preferences and their values. In some cases, one may value a thing too highly to create a 'MMM' price. 

While some have goals of greater importance than life preservation, and would be willing to die were these goals forwarded, others see their own life as being of ultimate importance, and would not give it up for any possible offer. Still others find life to be miserable, and would prefer death- or accept it at trivial expense to a killer.

Poor, but unmarketable persons may choose to accept a relatively low fee in exchange for getting raped, desiring the money more than the discomfort. A Catholic priest may reject a MMM price for being sexually involved with another in any fashion, for fear of eternal damnation. Others will lie in between.

If you consider those who permit action/render service/give goods to gain money as the "sellers," in a transaction through a MMM price, the "buyers" are those who act/receive service/gain goods by giving money-- any individual can and will become both a buyer and seller of various things. 

The Utilitarian should be overjoyed by this, as it will result in more human transactions that are mutually beneficial, thereby raising overall utility amongst sentient beings. Furthermore, it will grant new constructive outlets for those of irregular taste, who would otherwise exercise their passions in a destructive manner. Take, for example, the psychopath who finds joy in killing others. The vast majority of human beings do not find joy in this way, and so the market has failed to accommodate the few that do. Furthermore, most governments, in their abounding ignorance, have determined the action of killing people to be criminal in virtually all cases, even when all parties voluntarily consent to the action. As a result, killing people has been labeled "wrong," or otherwise undesirable, in many cases where it is remarkably beneficial. Like I said before, there are many who value some things more than their own life-- made evident by acts of suicide, and by those who allow themselves to die for a stated cause, be it the betterment of their country or the forwarding of a socio-political movement. If the psychopath could provide that something, and would prefer to lose it if he were granted right to kill the 'seller,' a transaction has occurred with a net-benefit to all parties, despite its criminal label by government.

The Voluntarist and the freedom-lover should already be in support of my case. Disallowing two men to perform any sort of action, even a killing, on voluntary terms is an oppressive, and therefore immoral, thing to do.

There's a number of reasons why we don't have this system set up in today's world.

Firstly, much of what I'm proposing is currently illegal. Paying a man to act like James Bond? Probably not. Raping someone and paying them afterward? Certainly yes. The current legal system favors the inclusion of criminal law (an entirely non-sensical thing, being inferior to tort law-- a topic deserving of another post), which strives, first and foremost, to *deter* a person from committing crime. Unfortunately, as we've seen earlier, much of what the United States legal system considers "crime" is in fact desirable, provided the "criminal" is willing to pay, and the "victim" is accepting of the payment. Thus, with crime defined in this manner, the goal of deterrence is a faulty one, as the optimal level of crime to be committed is greater than zero, provided it's the right kind of crime.

Secondly, the transaction costs are significant in many cases. How many possible crimes would a given person have to consider, and then determine a price for? If someone punches me, they owe me x, if someone rapes me, they owe me y-- and that's not to mention the variance in price depending on the force applied in a particular scenario. I can say with experience that some punches are worse than others. It's my experience-free opinion that some rapes are probably worse than others as well. In addition to all this, there would have to be a method of communicating these prices to others, just as Zillow communicates a long list of Make Me Move prices. It's hard to predict how many sorts of actions would actually receive a MMM price in a purely free market, though it stands to reason the answer is: "more than today," on the grounds that many transactions that might be viable with MMM are illegal, rendering them highly unviable. There is an incentive for the marketplace to create methods that reduce transaction costs in all cases, which will be expanded upon as time progresses and technology improves, and which would be furthered by a reduction of government intervention in the economy, as this would allow for a richer society. The internet will more than likely play a key role in this, though my limited understanding of internet-market applications restricts my ability to elaborate.

People are far off when they imagine the typical societal Utopia. They've got their minds in the wrong place. It's always a skewed vision of an impossible world surrounded by perfect people, all of whom share the same preference, each of which strives for the same goal. They sit and wonder why, despite its supposed perfection, a thought dwelled too long in this sickening sameness leads one to believe that Utopia is not Utopia-- an imagined paradox rooted in some philosophical conundrum, which gives rise to hideous and deadly social movements that favor communal underdevelopment, deconstruction and sacrifice. It drives people mad as they ponder on a world where everyone is happy, but they wouldn't be. It makes them try, in vain, to change who they are, and to try, barbarically, to change the nature of others. Utopia isn't found in some wallowing, childish plaything, distorted to match the inhuman characteristic of an arbitrarily labeled "perfection." It's found in pure, unrestricted liberation from tribe, and from state, where people accept the means by which others ascribe value, and embrace the means by which they ascribe it themselves. It's a world of smiles and sideways frowns, of blissful ignorance and intense thought, of supreme fitness and bloated fatness, of sex, drugs and abstention, of peace and war, of death and of life- where if you don't like the latter, you go right ahead and substitute the former. See where it takes you.

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*- For the less politically-inclined, a number of prominent Republicans in recent time have nose-driven their reputations with rape-related statements. Mourdock's comment is most well-known.