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This sort of capitalist meme badly if not intentionally misunderstands human nature. Yes, being able to afford dental care and fly around the world is terrific
by themgt 10y ago
This sort of capitalist meme badly if not intentionally misunderstands human nature.
Yes, being able to afford dental care and fly around the world is terrific. But John D. Rockefeller was arguably the wealthiest American to ever live. You simply cannot quantitatively compare the ability to afford a $150 SouthWest economy-class flight and an air-conditioned hotel room at DisneyWorld to running a globe-spanning empire and building a philanthropic legacy that will last for hundreds of years.
And this is not just some angels-on-head-of-pin debate, it's intimately intertwined with why inequality is so destructive and why classical economics has such a hard time dealing with it. Subjectively, each person's relative economic position is at least as important as their absolute position.
- zone411 10y agoThe article doesn't claim that you are more powerful in the present, only that you'd be richer. Bringing up legacy and power that you would have had in the past does not work because by definition these things are only available to a few, so equality would not make them available to an average modern person. I think it would be more correct to talk about the envy.
- mizzao 10y ago> Subjectively, each person's relative economic position is at least as important as their absolute position. That subjective need to be "better" than your neighbor is part of the reason we are all less happy even though we have much more than ever in absolute terms. I don't even think it's a "capitalist meme", in some sense it is a core tenet (and at times a major problem) with capitalism. Bob Frank wrote a great book about this: http://www.amazon.com/Darwin-Economy-Liberty-Competition-Common/dp/0691153191 http://www.amazon.com/Darwin-Economy-Liberty-Competition-Com...