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Study after study has proven that a society that cares for its members is an order of magnitude better off for it. And yet, we always fall back on this moral a

Study after study has proven that a society that cares for its members is an order of magnitude better off for it. And yet, we always fall back on this moral argument that people failures are 100% their fault, and we have no obligation to do anything about it. It's getting exhausting.

pdfernhout 9y ago
Yes, for example the book "The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier". From the Amazon blurb: "Comparing the United States with other market democracies and one state with another, this book offers irrefutable evidence that unequal societies create poor health, more social conflict, and more violence. Richard Wilkinson, a pioneering social scientist, addresses the growing feeling — so common in the United States — that modern societies, despite their material success, are social failures. The Impact of Inequality explains why inequality has such devastating effects on the quality and length of our lives. Wilkinson shows that inequality leads to stress, stress creates sickness on the individual and mass level, and overall society suffers widespread unhappiness and high levels of violence, depression, and mistrust across the social spectrum. The evidence he presents is incontrovertible: social and political equality are essential to improve life for everyone. Wilkinson argues that even small reductions in inequality can make an important difference—for, as this book explains, social relations are always built on material foundations." See also: "Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal" by Moshe Adler. From that blurb: "At a time when growing numbers of people are deeply anxious about the workings of our economy—and when our very future as a society is up for grabs—economist Moshe Adler offers a lively and accessible debunking of two elements that make economics the science” of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined" The only evolutionary justification I can see is that some people who have accumulated assets of some sort (or wannabees of that sort) expect themselves or their children to be sexually advantaged by making everyone else suffer, as a form of amplified Social Darwinism. See for example: "The Mythology of Wealth" https://web.archive.org/web/20101028013317/http://conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402 https://web.archive.org/web/20101028013317/http://conceptual... "The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's" https://web.archive.org/web/20081223191749/http://conceptualguerilla.com:80/?q=node/47 https://web.archive.org/web/20081223191749/http://conceptual... So, in that sense, perhaps it is meant to be exhausting? As financier Jay Gould is claimed to have said in 1886: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jay_Gould https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jay_Gould "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." Today, he might say: "I can always hire half of the working class to misinform the other half through social media, schooling, and the press." Even if such an advantage was even true in the past (ignoring that egalitarian hunter/gatherer tribes had numerous ways of dealing with that issue), in a world of nukes, designer plagues, and autonomous drones (which could get unleashed as society breaks down), such an approach to try to increase relative personal fecundity seems like a very a risky proposition. Some ideas from the past include reverse dominance by teasing, shunning, and ridicule, encouraging play, and permissive/trusting child rearing. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/ho...

pdfernhout 9y ago

Yes, for example the book "The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier". From the Amazon blurb: "Comparing the United States with other market democracies and one state with another, this book offers irrefutable evidence that unequal societies create poor health, more social conflict, and more violence. Richard Wilkinson, a pioneering social scientist, addresses the growing feeling — so common in the United States — that modern societies, despite their material success, are social failures. The Impact of Inequality explains why inequality has such devastating effects on the quality and length of our lives. Wilkinson shows that inequality leads to stress, stress creates sickness on the individual and mass level, and overall society suffers widespread unhappiness and high levels of violence, depression, and mistrust across the social spectrum. The evidence he presents is incontrovertible: social and political equality are essential to improve life for everyone. Wilkinson argues that even small reductions in inequality can make an important difference—for, as this book explains, social relations are always built on material foundations." See also: "Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal" by Moshe Adler. From that blurb: "At a time when growing numbers of people are deeply anxious about the workings of our economy—and when our very future as a society is up for grabs—economist Moshe Adler offers a lively and accessible debunking of two elements that make economics the science” of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined" The only evolutionary justification I can see is that some people who have accumulated assets of some sort (or wannabees of that sort) expect themselves or their children to be sexually advantaged by making everyone else suffer, as a form of amplified Social Darwinism. See for example: "The Mythology of Wealth" https://web.archive.org/web/20101028013317/http://conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402 https://web.archive.org/web/20101028013317/http://conceptual... "The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's" https://web.archive.org/web/20081223191749/http://conceptualguerilla.com:80/?q=node/47 https://web.archive.org/web/20081223191749/http://conceptual... So, in that sense, perhaps it is meant to be exhausting? As financier Jay Gould is claimed to have said in 1886: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jay_Gould https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jay_Gould "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." Today, he might say: "I can always hire half of the working class to misinform the other half through social media, schooling, and the press." Even if such an advantage was even true in the past (ignoring that egalitarian hunter/gatherer tribes had numerous ways of dealing with that issue), in a world of nukes, designer plagues, and autonomous drones (which could get unleashed as society breaks down), such an approach to try to increase relative personal fecundity seems like a very a risky proposition. Some ideas from the past include reverse dominance by teasing, shunning, and ridicule, encouraging play, and permissive/trusting child rearing. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/ho...