Salon interviews
Anya Kamenetz, author of
Generation Debt: Why Now Is a Terrible Time to Be Young and
legal scholar William Ian Miller, author of the new book
Eye for an Eye.
So, let's say you poke out my eye...
Then, instantly, my eye becomes yours. To get the value exactly right, we say an eye is worth an eye. You have a right to my eye. Now you can say to me, "I'm going to take your eye." Then I'm going to say, "Hey, what would you be willing to accept instead?" It becomes an initial bargaining position.
If you want victims to be more highly valued and you want real, adequate compensation, this is how to do it. Now if I offer you what some lousy insurance company says your eye is worth -- say, $100,000 -- you'll say, "No way! I would never have let you take my eye for that." Instead, you can be sure I'll put the same value on not losing my eye that you would have put on yours, and I will pay you that amount to keep my own eye. How about $5 million? Let's start there. And we'll bargain it out.
# posted by
Gerry Canavan @ 5:18 PM
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