4 ms·
Instead of throwing rocks at rich folks or regurgitating what some professor told us in college, let's change the experiment such that perhaps we can look at it
by DanielBMarkham 16y ago
Instead of throwing rocks at rich folks or regurgitating what some professor told us in college, let's change the experiment such that perhaps we can look at it from a fresh perspective.
Let's say that everybody at the bar is happy. The rich guy has what he wants, and the poor guy has what he wants. They all have a good time. Let's even assume that after the new rules the rich guy decides not to move and comes back to the bar. Maybe because his likes the band.
Now the poor guy finds a business opportunity making the amount the rich guy is making. What happens? What would you do?
The poor guy would be an idiot to take the job. After all, he has everything he wants, plus free beer. There is no reason to take on some new work with tremendous responsibilities and risks for no reason. For the politically incorrect among you: if the poor are completely happy, society stagnates. People very very rarely build huge businesses simply because of altruism. For the PC among you, stress breeds learning. Challenge breeds invention. That stress or challenge can be internal or external to a person, but it must exist in most of us for our society to continue to progress.
Now realize that there are 97 poor guys for every rich guy.
- msy 16y agoYour idea of a fresh perspective is build a straw man to imply that the poor are all lazy?
- randallsquared 16y agoimply that the poor are all lazy Speaking of straw men... The words I'd use for what you call lazy include "rational" and "goal-oriented". Of course, human nature seems to be such that people eventually stop being satisfied with what they have, so I don't think DanielBMarkham's argument is a great one: if the poor feel getting ahead is hopeless, they'll be unhappy, but if they don't feel it's hopeless, they'll (eventually) be dissatisfied with what they have.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ZachPruckowski 16y agoYour logic only holds in a world made only of beer and work. As you add other things to the model, the rich guy's advantage increases, creating more motivation to work. I think you vastly underestimate greed if you think having healthcare and not having to worry about where their next meal is coming from is going to kill motivation. We've got whole industries devoted to giving you a reason to spend money.