4 ms·

And that richest person a century ago is totally irrelevant in most conversations about wealth except as a counterexample that economics is not zero-sum.

• pdonis 8y ago
  > that richest person a century ago is totally irrelevant in most conversations about wealth I agree that this is true as a practical description of how most conversations about wealth go. But to me, that is a bug, not a feature: it means most conversations about wealth are ignoring the huge increase in absolute wealth that has occurred as a result of advancing technology. In other words, people are being encouraged to ignore this huge positive impact on their lives, which, if they only realized it, empowers them to do all kinds of things, and are being told to focus instead on relative wealth disparities that, in a sane world, would have negligible impact on their lives.
  • lev99 8y ago
    You're still talking about wealth like it is relative and not an absolute. You're just comparing modern wealth to early 20th century wealth.
    • pdonis 8y ago
      > You're still talking about wealth like it is relative and not an absolute. You're just comparing modern wealth to early 20th century wealth. Nobody in this discussion is using "relative wealth" to mean comparisons over long periods of time. Everyone is using it to mean comparisons between different people's wealth at the same time. If what you're concerned about is the advantages that relative wealth gives you in competing for scarce resources, that makes sense; but nobody today is competing with people a century ago for scarce resources, so using the term "relative wealth" for that kind of comparison makes no sense.