00100	SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PRESUPPOSITIONS
00200	
00300	
00400		Any argument that a proposed innovation is good or bad must
00500	be based on some general views as to what changes in people's lives
00600	are good or bad, however vague these views may be.  In this section
00700	I will make my views rather more explicit than is customary.  I
00800	think that acceptance of these views together with the technological
00900	proposition that the proposed systems are feasible at reasonable
01000	cost are sufficient to justify the proposals.  However, people
01100	who disagree with the social and economic presuppositions may
01200	still like home terminals for other reasons.
01300	
01400		1. When people choose one of two alternatives and persist
01500	in the choice after experience with both alternatives, then it should
01600	be presumed that they are better off with the alternative they choose.
01700	Social science is not so far advanced and politicians are not so
01800	objective as to justify refusing people their preferred alternatives
01900	on the grounds that the sociologists or the government know best.
02000	(Of course, someone may be refused his preferred alternative on the
02100	grounds that it harms someone else).  This has several consequences:
02200	
02300			a. It is almost never harmful for a new product or
02400	service to become available provided the old ones remain available.
02500	
02600			b. If people move from an area that sociologists
02700	or political thinkers consider good to one they consider bad, then
02800	the sociologists and political thinkers are probably wrong.  Thus
02900	Los Angeles with its smog, freeways, and lack of public transportation
03000	must have some redeeming virtues, or people wouldn't keep moving there.
03100	
03200			c. Proposed changes in institutions can be tested
03300	by implementing them in a locality and seeing which way people move.
03400	If the tests are to be honest, projected costs must be charged.
03500	
03600			d. Suppose an activity produces several goods.  The
03700	cost of the activity have to be allocated among the goods, and in this,
03800	there is a certain amount of arbitrariness.  The price should never
03900	be higher than the traffic will bear, i.e. the service should not
04000	be compulsory, and it should not be less than the marginal cost of
04100	providing it.  The latter is true, because suppose a service costs
04200	$2 to provide and is sold to a certain group for $1.   Then the customer
04300	who is barely willing to pay $1, would be happier to receive $.50 in
04400	cash and not receive the subsidized price.  The cost to society is
04500	also less that way.
04600	
04700		2. The most important cost in our society is human labor and
04800	will remain that way for the time span considered.  People want to
04900	more money to buy goods and services and would like to work less in
05000	order to earn it in order to have more leisure.  This means, for example,
05100	`that labor costs are still much higher than energy or raw materials
05200	costs in almost any goods or services, and labor is still the primary
05300	cost to be economized.  Therefore, increases to productivity benefit
05400	society on the average even though they may harm particular groups
05500	whose activities are made obsolete.  However, the cost of an innovation
05600	must include the cost of adequately compensating those whose
05700	economic position is displaced.
05800	
05900		3. The economic system can adapt itself to future increases
06000	in productivity in the future just as it has in the past.  There is a
06100	servo-mechanism that does this rather than an accidental balance
06200	between old jobs lost and new jobs created.  A particular innovation
06300	should not be asked to create jobs.
06400	
06500		On the other hand, when an innovation displaces people, it is
06600	important to see just who will be displaced and how they might be
06700	compensated.
06800	We shall do it in the next section.