7. CAPITULO 7: ACCESIBILIDAD A EQUIPAMIENTOS COLETIVOS Y DIFERENCIACIÓN
7.5 Implicaciones en la producción de capital social
Even if one accepts the notion of a single metric and therefore, rejects
the arguments for incommensurability, problems remain with employing a
and even death to enjoy an improvement in group status. See generally TAYLOR BRANCH, PARTING THE WATERS (1988) (tracing the risks and challenges faced by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his supporters during the Civil Rights Movement). Thus, improving the condition, not of the individual, but of the family, the next generation, or the homogeneous unit, may be a sufficient motivation to explain the desire to retain title to land and forego immediate individual economic gain. 190. Consider the possible economic consequences of these words:
Standing in the presence of this multitude, sobered with the responsibility of the message I delivered to the young men of the South, I declared that the truth above all others to be worn unsullied and sacred in your hearts, to be surrendered to no force, sold for no price, compromised in no necessity, but cherished and defended as the covenant of your prosperity, and the pledge of peace to your children, is that the white race must dominate forever in the South, because it is the white race, and superior to that race by which its supremacy is threatened.
HENRY W. GRADY, THE NEW SOUTH AND OTHER ADDRESSES 55 (1969).
191. See POSNER, PROBLEMS, supra note 161; Thomas Cotter, Legal Pragmatism and the Law and
Economics Movement, 84 GEO. L.J. 2071 (1996) (arguing that the economic theory of pragmatism
offers insights useful for constructing legal theory); Herbert Hovenkamp, Positivism in Law and
Economics, 78 CAL. L. REV. 815 (1990) (discussing whether the economic theory of positivism has an
analog in legal theory).
market model to assess value.
193An offer-price criteria is often employed
as a proxy to determine an individual’s value of the relevant property.
194For example, the basic premise of employing an offer-price criteria is that
the interest holder who values the property more, will offer (in an auction
or other market setting) to pay more for the property. Efficient markets for
all goods will therefore sort out the interest which values the property the
most.
195A number of scholars have argued that this proxy is subject to a
series of limiting parameters which makes it at a minimum indeterminate
as a reliable surrogate for revealing the interest holder’s intensity of
preference.
196For example, consider the “Widow’s Mite Paradox” as an
example of the limitation of the offer-price as a measure of intensity in
valuation questions.
197In the “Widows Mite Paradox”
198scenario, I assume that Interest A’s
total wealth is 5000 dollars while Interest B’s total wealth is 20,000
dollars. Interest A and Interest B are tenants in common. Interest B
ruptures the relationship through partition and the property is ordered sold
at auction. Interest A offers 5000 dollars, representing 100% of her wealth,
to purchase the property. Interest B is prepared to offer no more than 5001
dollars, representing 25% of her wealth. At auction, Interest B receives the
property. But can one deduce that Interest B, by bidding more in dollars,
in fact values the property more than Interest A? What I term the “Widows
Mite Paradox” clearly indicates that analysis beyond the surface facts
(amount of bid in dollars) necessitates an answer of “No.” Interest A, by
offering 5000 dollars, was willing to pay all that she owned in order to
keep the property; whereas Interest B, in offering 5001 dollars, was only
willing to pay 25% of her wealth to keep the property. Interest A values
193. A number of scholars have agreed that given the number and complexities of valuation frameworks, a simplifying single metric should be used as a proxy for all the other valuations frameworks. See BECKER,supra note 163, at 8.
194. See Landes and Posner, supra note 164, at 327-39, for a concrete application of this argument.
195. See id.
196. See Herbert Hovenkamp, Rationality in Law and Economics, 60 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 293, 325-30 (1992); Herbert Hovenkamp, Legal Policy and the Endowment Effect , 20 J. OF LEGAL STUD. 225, 238-43 (1991) [hereinafter Hovenkamp, Legal Policy]; Duncan Kennedy, Cost-Benefit Analysis
of Entitlement Problems: A Critique, 33 STAN. L. REV. 387, 401-10 (1981).
197. See Cotter, supra note 191, at 2127. See also Hovenkamp, Legal Policy, supra note 196, at 239.
198. This is based on the Widow’s offering story in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Jesus sat watching the rich put significant amounts into the offering containers. Then a poor widow approached and offered only two copper coins. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for they contribute out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had.” Luke 21:1 -4.