3 ms·

The elephant in the room is to focus on what motivates people to work, once they have enough wealth to address their existential needs. When we look closely, we

by tapiok 8y ago

The elephant in the room is to focus on what motivates people to work, once they have enough wealth to address their existential needs. When we look closely, we notice that people desire wealth for social/psychological signalling. This explains phenomena like: * why one billion people volunteer their time to generate over a trillion USD/year in value, while not caring for an economic reward, * why many extremely wealthy people live frugal lives (Buffett, Ingvar Kamprad,...), * why many wealthy people give away (most of) "their" fortune (Carnegy, Gates,...), Another fact to note is, that economic inequality is a relatively recent phenomenon. The hunter-gatherer system - where people shared equally all economic "product", but exceptional contributors were rewarded with regard (social signal) - lasted for tens of thousands of years. These observations suggest how a system can be built bottom-up, that can topple capitalism. It will look like the HG system, but will be held together by apps running on personal computing devices to simulate the economic transparency necessary for the system to work. Crypto currencies are a caricature of such a system (the important parts are in place, but the proportions are way off).

eesmith 8y ago
I do not think that "social/psychological signalling" has a good meaningful interpretation along the lines that you are using it. That is, many people seek wealth, and signal it through a lack of frugality. Look at the number of owners of super and mega yachts, and tell me how they are frugal. There are a lot of such yachts, yes? (You could say that they are frugal because they live well within their means, but that's not what you meant when you singled out Buffett and Kamprad.) Look at billionaries like the Koch brothers, or the DeVos family. Money gives political power, and both of those families have used their wealth to push their respective political agendas. Thing is, that can also be interpreted as "social/psychological signalling", could it not? So it seems like anything that a rich person does can be interpreted as "social/psychological signalling". I don't know what you refer to when you say "one billion people ... a trillion USD/year in value." Does that include all of the people who sing for free in their church choir, or who volunteer to organize a race, etc? Again, if you say those are all examples of "social/psychological signalling", then I think that definition is so broad as to be meaningless. Much has been written about Carnegie's philantropy. Quoting Wikipedia, '"Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."' Isn't that a rather different interpretation than yours? Note too that Carnegie was far from frugal. Finally, you reference to hunter-gatherer systems (excepting the settled hunter-gatherers) in what seems which reminds me of Marx's description of "primitive communism." If I continue with a Marxian analysis, those hunter-gatherer systems had no mechanism for capital accumulation, and it's that accumulation which contributes to the social power imbalance we see now. How does "economic transparency", much less "apps running on personal computing devices" , result in a major equalization of social power gained from capital accumulation?
- tapiok 8y ago
  > Look at the number of owners of super and mega yachts, and tell me how they are frugal... I mentioned frugality only to hint that these folks must have non-economic motives for working. I claim that the motive is signaling. And the megayacht owners - what else might they do with their Veblen goods than signal their status? Does Paul Allen need 50 bathrooms on Octopus (just guessing here, not sure about the exact number) to address his physiological needs? > Look at billionaries like the Koch brothers, or the DeVos family.. In my opinion signaling is a manifestation of a deeper motivational mechanism that I call the modeling instinct. Basically we have instinct to build perfect world model in our brains and one of the way we test its quality is by creating goods and services. The difference between the Koch brothers and - say - Buffet is that they test different aspects of the world models - that part, which is interesting for them the most. We all carry unique, but incomplete and distorted world representations and therefore tend to test our model-building effort in various domains. Signaling plays however an important role - it is a measure of how successful is our modeling effort. > I don't know what you refer to when you say "one billion people ... a trillion USD/year in value There is actually a research done in this field. See for example Salamon, L.M., Sokolowski, S.W., Haddock, M., 2011. Measuring the Economic Value of Volunteer Work Globally - Concepts, Estimates, and a Roadmap to the Future (2011). Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 82, 217–252. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8292.2011.00437.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8292.2011.00437.x In personal communication one of the authors confirmed that also FOSS development has been included in the estimates. > Re Carnegy. Let's not focus on frugality. hopefully what I write above elucidates this point sufficiently. > Re hunters - gatherers. The takeaway from this should be the fact, that a stable human society can exist that is economically equal, if it maintains potentially unequal "merit" signaling. This by the way nicely fits to the idea of how a just society should look like according to Rawls. > How does "economic transparency"... The HG economic system fell apart once people lost ability to see what material goods their neighbors acquired - simply put. This transparency must be restored in order to build economically equal society. I believe technology will play central role in re-instituting a HG-like economic system. The loss of privacy in social networks, the (wiki)leaks of confidential information, the cameras in our cities - that is a part of the pendulum swing toward a more transparent society - which is a prerequisite to a more fair world. Maybe I should conclude the main point of what I am trying to communicate here - people can be completely happy (and economically productive) even if they are economically equal, if their ability to signal their naturally unequal abilities is unrestricted. Thank you for the comments.

by tapiok 8y ago

eesmith 8y ago

I do not think that "social/psychological signalling" has a good meaningful interpretation along the lines that you are using it. That is, many people seek wealth, and signal it through a lack of frugality. Look at the number of owners of super and mega yachts, and tell me how they are frugal. There are a lot of such yachts, yes? (You could say that they are frugal because they live well within their means, but that's not what you meant when you singled out Buffett and Kamprad.) Look at billionaries like the Koch brothers, or the DeVos family. Money gives political power, and both of those families have used their wealth to push their respective political agendas. Thing is, that can also be interpreted as "social/psychological signalling", could it not? So it seems like anything that a rich person does can be interpreted as "social/psychological signalling". I don't know what you refer to when you say "one billion people ... a trillion USD/year in value." Does that include all of the people who sing for free in their church choir, or who volunteer to organize a race, etc? Again, if you say those are all examples of "social/psychological signalling", then I think that definition is so broad as to be meaningless. Much has been written about Carnegie's philantropy. Quoting Wikipedia, '"Maybe with the giving away of his money," commented biographer Joseph Wall, "he would justify what he had done to get that money."' Isn't that a rather different interpretation than yours? Note too that Carnegie was far from frugal. Finally, you reference to hunter-gatherer systems (excepting the settled hunter-gatherers) in what seems which reminds me of Marx's description of "primitive communism." If I continue with a Marxian analysis, those hunter-gatherer systems had no mechanism for capital accumulation, and it's that accumulation which contributes to the social power imbalance we see now. How does "economic transparency", much less "apps running on personal computing devices" , result in a major equalization of social power gained from capital accumulation?

tapiok 8y ago
> Look at the number of owners of super and mega yachts, and tell me how they are frugal... I mentioned frugality only to hint that these folks must have non-economic motives for working. I claim that the motive is signaling. And the megayacht owners - what else might they do with their Veblen goods than signal their status? Does Paul Allen need 50 bathrooms on Octopus (just guessing here, not sure about the exact number) to address his physiological needs? > Look at billionaries like the Koch brothers, or the DeVos family.. In my opinion signaling is a manifestation of a deeper motivational mechanism that I call the modeling instinct. Basically we have instinct to build perfect world model in our brains and one of the way we test its quality is by creating goods and services. The difference between the Koch brothers and - say - Buffet is that they test different aspects of the world models - that part, which is interesting for them the most. We all carry unique, but incomplete and distorted world representations and therefore tend to test our model-building effort in various domains. Signaling plays however an important role - it is a measure of how successful is our modeling effort. > I don't know what you refer to when you say "one billion people ... a trillion USD/year in value There is actually a research done in this field. See for example Salamon, L.M., Sokolowski, S.W., Haddock, M., 2011. Measuring the Economic Value of Volunteer Work Globally - Concepts, Estimates, and a Roadmap to the Future (2011). Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 82, 217–252. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8292.2011.00437.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8292.2011.00437.x In personal communication one of the authors confirmed that also FOSS development has been included in the estimates. > Re Carnegy. Let's not focus on frugality. hopefully what I write above elucidates this point sufficiently. > Re hunters - gatherers. The takeaway from this should be the fact, that a stable human society can exist that is economically equal, if it maintains potentially unequal "merit" signaling. This by the way nicely fits to the idea of how a just society should look like according to Rawls. > How does "economic transparency"... The HG economic system fell apart once people lost ability to see what material goods their neighbors acquired - simply put. This transparency must be restored in order to build economically equal society. I believe technology will play central role in re-instituting a HG-like economic system. The loss of privacy in social networks, the (wiki)leaks of confidential information, the cameras in our cities - that is a part of the pendulum swing toward a more transparent society - which is a prerequisite to a more fair world. Maybe I should conclude the main point of what I am trying to communicate here - people can be completely happy (and economically productive) even if they are economically equal, if their ability to signal their naturally unequal abilities is unrestricted. Thank you for the comments.