From Chapter1, Problems # 1, #2.

From Chapter 2, #2, #5.

Short thought piece (at least one paragraph, no more than one page):

Pick one of the situations from "Capitalism Among Consenting Adults" below and write a brief response to the following two questions: Do you approve or disapprove? Should this transaction be prohibited?

1. A very complicated medical procedure has been discovered which cures cancer in patients who would otherwise almost certainly die. Staff shortages make it impossible to treat all those who would benefit, and the hospital has established a policy that the procedure will be made available on a first-come, first-serve basis. A wealthy patient who is last on the waiting list offers to pay a million dollars and all future medical expenses to a poor patient on the top of the list; in return, the two will exchange places and the well-to-do patient will get the treatment while the other almost certainly will not get it. If the poor patient dies (which is very likely) the money will be inherited by her children. The poor patient voluntarily agrees to the transaction.

2. Tired of making choices all the time, a person decides to sell himself to another person, receiving a large sum of money and promising to obey the new owner, who promises not to mistreat the slave.

3. Having considered alternative jobs (their wages, working conditions, availability, etc.), a woman selects prostitution as her occupation, taking all possible measures to safeguard her own health and that of her sexual partners.

4. You are waiting in line to buy tickets to a movie that is just about sold out. Someone from the back of the line approaches the person in front of you and offers to pay her $25 to exchange places in line.

5. A politically apathetic person who never votes agrees to vote for a particular candidate in return for a sum of money.

6. Wealthy parents who give birth to a child with a minor birth defect sell their child to another wealthy but childless family and buy a "perfect" newborn child from a family badly in need of cash.