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See my comment above, but in response to this, doesn't "relative deprivation"=="inequality"?

sdfin 7y ago
Not necessarily, as in the case of a guy who has 800.000 dollars being inequal to another guy with 100.000.000 dollars. edit: I mean, the cause of poverty is not that some people are rich, because if world trends of poverty are decreasing while the rich are getting richer, there isn't a correlation. Of course if some rich people get their riches by corruption or some other harmful activity, yes, that may cause poverty. But I would not say that the existence of rich people in general is the cause of poverty. That would imply thinking about wealth as a fixed size cake, where some have to lose for others to win. But it may be that it's rather like increasing the amount of cakes. Nobody loses if we have more cakes.
dragonwriter 7y ago
Basically, yes. But, for a longer answer (and an entry to a vastly longer one...) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5638129 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5638129
- sdfin 7y ago
  This "relative deprivation" concept, to me sounds like a more elegant way of speaking about "envy". "The grass is greener in our neighbor lawn". Perhaps I'm very minimalist in my needs and therefore I cannot empathize with people that feel that relative deprivation, and that's why I question it. From the article: > Relative poverty, an important but often neglected policy target, is measured by the resources needed to maintain the social and economic lifestyle that is widely accepted by the society in which one lives, Who is "the society"? This sounds like saying that people feel bad when others have something they don't have, even if they aren't poor. Should everyone have the same? Trying to achieve that never worked. That may work only when thanks to technological advancements we reach a post-scarcity economy, I believe. From the article: > A large empirical evidence base for most countries suggests that low socio-economic status and resulting feelings of relative deprivation lower both objective and subjective well-being, as measured by indicators such as health and happiness. Feeling envy lowers well-being, yes.

Not necessarily, as in the case of a guy who has 800.000 dollars being inequal to another guy with 100.000.000 dollars. edit: I mean, the cause of poverty is not that some people are rich, because if world trends of poverty are decreasing while the rich are getting richer, there isn't a correlation. Of course if some rich people get their riches by corruption or some other harmful activity, yes, that may cause poverty. But I would not say that the existence of rich people in general is the cause of poverty. That would imply thinking about wealth as a fixed size cake, where some have to lose for others to win. But it may be that it's rather like increasing the amount of cakes. Nobody loses if we have more cakes.

dragonwriter 7y ago

Basically, yes. But, for a longer answer (and an entry to a vastly longer one...) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5638129 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5638129

sdfin 7y ago
This "relative deprivation" concept, to me sounds like a more elegant way of speaking about "envy". "The grass is greener in our neighbor lawn". Perhaps I'm very minimalist in my needs and therefore I cannot empathize with people that feel that relative deprivation, and that's why I question it. From the article: > Relative poverty, an important but often neglected policy target, is measured by the resources needed to maintain the social and economic lifestyle that is widely accepted by the society in which one lives, Who is "the society"? This sounds like saying that people feel bad when others have something they don't have, even if they aren't poor. Should everyone have the same? Trying to achieve that never worked. That may work only when thanks to technological advancements we reach a post-scarcity economy, I believe. From the article: > A large empirical evidence base for most countries suggests that low socio-economic status and resulting feelings of relative deprivation lower both objective and subjective well-being, as measured by indicators such as health and happiness. Feeling envy lowers well-being, yes.